Cereals From My Childhood

I'm a bit of a breakfast cereal nut, specifically cereals that come from my childhood.  So, I thought in this post, I would go ahead and cover some of the more famous breakfast cereals I remember my parents bring home from the grocery store.

Cocoa Puffs

My favorite of these cereals, and more than likely the only one of the only ones that is still around, Cocoa Puffs is absolutely awesome.  Who doesn’t like a caffinated, chocolate cereal that turns the milk into chocolate milk?  No one, that’s who!  One bowl of this and you were jittery and energetic for the rest of the day.  Cocoa Puffs was the original energy drink, before the wonders of taurine and guarina were discovered.  I still buy Cocoa Puffs from time to time, but it’s strictly a late night snack food, and not the breakfast food it was designed to be.  Then again, who really thought that a cereal made from chocolate was a part of a balanced breakfast.  Again, no one.

Count Chocula

Now here’s the king of all cereals right here.  Take everything that I said about Cocoa Puffs, and then do something that makes it even awesomer:  add chocolate marshmallows to it.  Holy hell, I loved this damn cereal, though it wasn’t widely available.  That made it all the more awesome, as this was a rare and elusive treat.  I will say that I do prefer the more menacing looking Count on the box art, and not the kinder, more p.c. friendly one that was featured a few years ago.  I used to pick this up when I saw it, but it’s been years since I’ve seen a box of Count on the shelves.  I’m afraid that this vampire might have finally been staked.  He’s still more awesome than Edward Cullen.

Update:  According to Wikipedia, Count Chocula is now strictly a limited run, with him, Frankenberry, and Boo Berry only being made in the Fall-Halloween Season.

Frankenberry

The Count’s good buddy, he was a pastel pink Frankenstein whose cereal was essentially the same thing as Count Chocula, but flavored strawberry.  This was my sister’s favorite cereal when she was a kid and whenever my parents brought it home, it would promptly disappear.  I was never a fan, though, and years later, when my sister found a box of Frank at the local Wal-Mart, she said that she wasn’t anymore either after a nostalgia bowl.  Perhaps the reciepe had changed.  Or, like some things, the product tasted a lot better when you were a kid and less discerning.

Lucky Charms

Lucky Charms was actually a big favorite around the house.  The actual cereal itself always struck me as essentially bastardized Cheerios, but you didn’t get this for the cereal.  You got it because of the marshmallow bits.  And there in lies my current problem with the cereal.  How many times are you going to continue screwing with the marshmallow lineup?  Seriously, they could never leave the damn cereal alone, and probably should have stopped after they introduced the red balloons.  I have no idea now what’s in and what’s out of Lucky Charms, nor do I have any inclination to buy a box and find out.

Honey Smacks

This was bought on a few occasions, but there was a reason why we stayed away from it.  First of all, the frog was slightly demented looking.  Second, this cereal had the look of rabbit turds when you poured it out into your bowl.  Yummy!  Third, you had better eat this crap quick, because once the cereal and the milk started to interact, it would create a mushy, overly sweet concoction that would cause near instant diabetic comas.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:  The Cereal!!!!

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were quite possibly one of the biggest phenomenon’s of the late 80’s-early 90’s.   The toys were everywhere, of all variations, and Michelangelo’s mug was plastered everywhere from toys to bed sheets to evening wear.  So yeah, the cereal was blatent corporate whoring at it’s finest, or worst depending on whether you liked the cereal.  In essence, it was standard lucky charms style marshmallows combined with chex (or as the bastards called them, crunch ninja nets!).  I do remember Pizza marshmallows being added later.  There was never any prize package that I remember, just some cheap filler on the back of the cereal.  At the very least, I would have appreciated a cut out mask from the back of the box that I could have run around and gotten into trouble with while wearing.

Trix

Here’s how old I am now.  I still remember Trix before it was made in cutesy little fruit flavored shapes.  Back in my day, Trix were generically colored balls, which was cool.  It made your cereal look like a ball bin at the McDonald's playplace, except without that feet smell to it.  That said, Trix was cool, though you gradually felt a pity for the Rabbit, who was continuously denied the opportunity to enjoy the cereal that he had so lusted after.  I do remember they finally gave him a bone and let him have a bowl of the damn cereal, which promplty resulted in him going into sugar-induced rampage.  He never had the cereal again.  Though I did love Seth McFarland’s take in Family Guy with the Japanese Trix Rabbit, and his reaction to being denied the cereal.

Bill And Ted’s Excellent Cereal

One step above the Turtles Cereal, this was also a bastardized lucky charms gone wrong.  The only real difference were the shapes, and the marshmallows were meant to look like muscial notes.  It wasn't that great, as it went stale quite quickly.  No prizes except for the cassette case that you could send away for, which was made to look like the Bill and Ted phone booth.  Granted, it was cheap light blue plastic, but god damn it, I wanted it.  I never did get it, and no amount of Jose Cansecos could get other kids that got to carry their cards in this thing could convince them to part with it.  Lucky bastards.  I just completely went off on a tangent.  Moving on….

Sigh...

Batman:  The Cereal

Being the fan that I am, you knew this was going to make the list.  This came out around the same time as the movie came out.  I actually loved this cereal, as it kind of had a Captain Crunch type vibe to it, and in the shape of something supposed to be a bat.  Plus, some boxes came wtih a Batman coin bank, molded in the form of Michael Keaton in costume, his gericurl mercifully hidden from view.  This would later evolve into the Batman Returns cereal, before disappearing.  Pity.

The Nintendo Cereal System

This was actually two different cereals, and also paid kind of a homage to the Dual Pack game cartridge that you got with your NES console.  One cereal was Super Mario Themed, but instead of Duck Hunt:  The Breakfast, you got a cereal based on the Legend of Zelda.  I do remember having some sort of cards that came with the cereal, but I don't remember if it came seperately inside of if it was a cop-out prize that you had to cut out from the back of the box.  Everyone remembers the Mario side of the cereal, which had a Trix like taste to it.  I’m one of the rare people that did have a fondness for the Zelda side of the cereal, which had kind of a bastardized Crunchberries taste to it.  Surprisingly enough, there are still boxes of this sold on the internet.  While it would make for a nifty collectors item, I would strongly advise you to hold off against consumption.

Shredded Wheat

My Mom did bring this a few times to the house, for reasons still known only to her.  Shredded Wheat is the bland older brother to the much more popular and exciting Frosted Mini Wheats, which are universally beloved.  In case you need to know what the hell it was, it was this roughly Walkman sized bale of wheat that you poured milk over and, essentially took scoups out of.  It was the basest of nutrition that you could possibly have, and perhaps one of the only foods that you can really say does not have any flavor whatsoever.  This was not a favorite of mine or my sister, and I think my father also had a hate of this abomination, as it was soon never seen again in our household.  Thankfully, I haven’t seen this in ages, so it’s possible that this was mercifully and quietly put down.

Croonchy Stars

The last cereal on our list is a Muppet Show tie in, with the Swedish Chef's own cereal.  That is the appropriately phonetically incorrect Croonchy Stars, which was essentially Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but in tiny star shapes.  I have to admit, this cereal was awesome, and didn't have the same milk sogginess that CTC suffers from.  Unfortunately for the chef, it only was out for a year, and then it was gone.  Pity.

Well, thank you for coming with me on my trip down memory lane.  While I'm sure there were plenty of other cereals I did try, these tend to the be ones I remember the best, for good and bad reasons.  Hope you enjoyed it.