I sent off… something to get a Mr. Peanut figure or windup or something. I remember two instances - one in which I got the little polybagged kit of parts to put together, which was strange and new to me at about 6, and one that might be a misremembering of the same event. As I (half) remember it, I sent off the labels or lids or whatever and we then moved, and I remember my disappointment (and still have a spot of sadness) that I never got the thing as a result. It may have been that I thought I wouldn’t get the thing but it did come later, and I can’t sort out the memories.
I don’t remember doing it again, but I might have helped one of my kids get something that way.
Once or twice. But it wasn’t very long after I started paying attention to that sort of stuff that they moved to simply including CDs with the cereal in lieu of send away for prizes.
I sent away Bazooka Joe bubble gum wrappers (or whatever) plus a little money for a necklace with a heart on the end. It looked remarkably good for what it cost, at least I thought so as a kid.
A colorful plastic clown head/torso that you could screw onto the washed-out jar of Bosco where the metal lid used to go, then you’d have a see-thru savings bank.
Anyway, pretty certain it was Bosco, not Cocoa Marsh
I got the diving submarine once, too. You put baking powder in a middle section and shut the top. In the tub, it would sink, then the baking powder (not soda) would get wet and generate a bubble of gas which was trapped under the sub. It would rise to the surface, tip over, expel the bubble, and sink again. It was good for a few cycles on each charge.
I remember sending away for some kind of a “robot” costume. The picture showed an elaborate device you could put over your head. It had many dials, knobs, jumping springs and blinking lights. Wow!
When it arrived, it was a flat piece of cardboard you had to unfold into a box. All of the dials, knobs, (non-)jumping springs and (non-)blinking lights were printed on. Bummer.
And I got a periscope. About 2 feet long, cardboard, with 2 mirrors. “See over fences! See around corners! Spy on your neighbors!” But the mirrors were so small and of such poor quality that the field of view was next to nothing and focus was not possible.
I remember sending away for two of these at once, and enclosing a single quarter. After mailing, I realized that the price was a quarter per item. I thought they’d never ship both, but 6 weeks later (which was a typical transit time), I got both. Such nice guys at the warehouse.
I wish I still had these. I wonder what they might fetch in mint condition on eBay?
Me too. Going to the five and ten twenty miles away was nearly like going to Disneyland. And that was in the day before plastic wrapping so you could actually pick up and examine the toys even if you weren’t going to buy.
The only one I remember is a little yellow neoprene speedboat that you put baking soda in and it ran. In what? Can’t remember. Vinegar?
I have a set of sturdy little china dolls made in Germany which came in boxes of maybe oatmeal that my grandma had. I think they date to the 1920s. Each resembled a family member and we have some “twins” so I suppose you had to keep buying cereal until you had the whole set.
There was waiting involved with the treat at the bottom too. I wasn’t allowed to dig down and get it. The box had to be eaten up first.
Yeah, we had that rule too. You couldn’t paw through the box to get the prize. If it came out with your dish, you got it. I guess it was so everyone (siblings) had the opportunity to get it.
More resourceful kids waited until parents were out of sight, emptied the boxes into a bowl, retrieved the prize, then put the cereal back in the box. “Look, Ma --the treat was on the top already!”
Alternate method…“accidentally” open the box from the bottom.
I don’t think I ever sent away for anything by sending in a bunch of box tops. When I was about 7, we won a baseball pennant that had to be sent away for (using a certificate in the winning cereal box). I wasn’t smart enough at that age to know that I should be a Cubs fan, so the muckety-mucks at the cereal company sent us a White Sox pennant by default. (There may have been an option to pick your favorite team, but I don’t remember. I wasn’t yet a baseball fan.) They probably had a big surplus of unwanted White Sox pennants to get rid of, while the Cubs pennants were probably in great demand.
About 15 years ago, I won another pennant from a cereal box or some similar contest. By then I was wise enough to pick the Cubs pennant, and I believe I still have it.
Just a few years back I sent in some Rice Krispies box tops (or it may have been UPCs) for a plastic “Pirates of the Caribbean” bowl. It looks like a skull with a thin red bandanna around the top. I use it as a popcorn bowl and it has also become the Halloween candy bowl, replacing the hollow alien head with a removable top that we used to use.
I have very vague memories of my family eating tons of Wheaties and sending the boxtops in for Amtrak tickets. We took the train from Alabama to North Dakota. Does anyone else remember this promotion? I’m not entirely certain the Wheaties and train trip were connected. This took place in the mid 1970’s.
I have vivid memories of saving box tops and sending them off, but I cannot for the life of me remember what I got. I also remember digging through cereal to try to get to the prize before my brother did, but can’t remember any of those prizes either. Looks like the experience was the important part of that exercise, eh?
Not cereal, but MalloCup coins to win an ENTIRE BOX OF MALLOCUPS ALL FOR ME!!!
And I know I am going straight to hell, because our Catholic school sold candy at lunch, and when it was my day, my pal and I figured out how to tell if the Mallocups had the big coins in them. And lay them aside to buy for ourselves. OK, we did buy them, so maybe just Purgatory.
