Toucan Sam is the avian mascot of Froot Loops cereal. The character is a blue cartoon toucan with a striped beak. Although his beak originally had two pink stripes, during the 1970s it became a tradition that each stripe on his beak represented one of the flavors of the pieces in the cereal. The additions of new colors have made this color scheme no longer accurate. There are now seven colors of this cereal. The first new color was green, which was introduced in 1991. After that came purple in 1994, then blue in 1997. The newest color, gold, was introduced in 2006.

In commercials featuring Toucan Sam, he exhibits the ability to smell out Froot Loops from great distances. He invariably locates a concealed bowl or box of the cereal while intoning, "Follow my nose! It always knows!" Sometimes followed by "The flavor of fruit! Wherever it grows!"

In "The Thin White Line", both Brian Griffin and Toucan Sam are waiting to audition for a TV commercial. Sam is practicing his lines, his tone of voice making Brian laugh when he says "Follow your nose.".

In "Let's Go to the Hop", he is seen among The Breakfast Club among other cereal mascots, being Cap’n Crunch, Trix Rabbit, Tony the Tiger and Lucky the Leprechaun.