I was thinking about this recently. There was a point in history, not too far back, when Cereal, all cereal, had to be shown as “part of a complete breakfast”. IIRC, the announcer had to even say the line “As part of a complete breakfast”.
What happened to it?
And, why can’t we do this to all the Pharmaceutical commercials?
I don’t know. I noticed at the time though that they never claimed it was an essential part of a complete breakfast.
I seem to remember that most of the sugary cereal commercials went even further, not claiming it be essential but also not even claiming it be much of anything.
I may be misremembering, but didn’t many of them say “part of this complete breakfast”? All the while showing juice, milk, eggs, toast, etc. along with a bowl of the cereal. Which left me the impression that they were not really commenting upon the nutrition of the cereal, just its place on the table.
I am remembering “part of this good, nutritious breakfast.”
Cereal companies started mentioning that after some hysteria about how cereals were nutritious hit the media and even spawned congressional hearings.
The word was that cereal didn’t provide enough nutrition. People had statistics to prove it, but they were terrible statistics: they looked up the RDA of nine nutrients on cereals and then added up the percentages. Total got a score of 900, but other cereals got scores less than 200. However, they never compared these numbers to any other breakfast (eggs and bacon, for instance, would not have scored 900) and, of course, if you’re eating three meals a day, you wouldn’t expect to get all your nutrients from one meal.
In any case, in response to the hysteria, cereal companies started saying “part of a complete breakfast.” It ended the hysteria and got them off the hook (“Oh, no. We’re not advocating they only eat our cereal.”). Now, it seems, they feel the hysteria is past and they can drop it.
We always used to call it “next to this complete breakfast”.
Really??? So much for my all-Trix diet.
Way long ago, it was “fruit, cereal, milk, bread and butter” with no mention of eggs, meats, and the other breakfast fare. But we never had a baconless breakfast, whether cereal was there or not. Same with eggs. Fried, scrambled, poached, boiled, omelet, with brains even.
If you want some evidence that cereal is still a big deal somewhere, watch Medium. Those folks would die without cereal.
Viagra: part of a complete breakfast!
So they were never forced to do it?
I remember this too. It really used to intimidate me as a small child (in the 1960s) with a small appetite. I could barely finish a full bowl of cereal, and it isn’t a complete breakfast by itself? My mother was already making me feel like a bad girl for being a picky eater* and not eating enough without the cereal companies getting into the act.
*I wasn’t and am not a picky eater. I have a handful of things I dislike, but otherwise I’m good. Of course since some of the things I dislike, e.g. eggs, were things Mom was sure were absolutely, positively essential for good health, (I was sure to succumb to malnutrition otherwise) a certain amount of drama ensued. And the not-eating-enough thing came back to bite her in the butt. I eventually developed a vigorous appetite, and throughout my 30s and 40s, my mother spent her time nagging me about my weight.
When I was young, I always noticed the juice, the bacon, the eggs and toast and wondered why WE never had anything except cereal. Or toast. I developed such a loathing for cereal I haven’t eaten it more than a handful of times in decades. Don’t even eat anything for breakfast at all now.
Viagra: so you can take that morning whiz without the embarrassment of peeing on your slippers. 
IIRC, they saw the handwriting on the wall and agreed to do this voluntarily before anyone passed a regulation.
Honey Nut Cheerios has ostensibly been demoted to serving as “part of a good breakfast.”
(As overheard on Nickelodeon just now.)
That bee sounds wrong if he doesn’t say something like that.
And, if I’m understanding Meeko right, he wants them to point out that the pharmaceuticals are only part of the overall treatment for your disorder. I’d definitely get behind that when dealing with psychoactive drugs. Too many people think that, if you have depression, just pop a pill and you’ll get better. Studies day the drugs only beat therapy when you do both.
I think the marketing focus around cereal has simply changed. Cereal is either fast and easy or healthful and going to help you lose weight.
In neither of those cases does suggesting that you also whip up some bacon and eggs really fit the message. In the first case, it eliminates the fast/easy angle, and in the second it adds all the calories you were trying to avoid by eating the cereal in the first place.
Note to Cereal Marketing types: come up with a bacon and egg (or sausage and egg) flavored cereal!
Actually, the opposite. I wondered how clear I was on that point after I wrote it. [Further, that you picked it up BigT, as we usually have some good simpatico.]
**If Cereal no longer has to have legalese [or close to it] When can we do with-out the side effect warnings on Pill commercials? **
I mean, after a while, you get tired of listening to side effects, that in some cases, might be worse than the original reason to take a pill.
Hmm. There’s this about recent attempts to get the US cereal industry to self-regulate how and what they advertise to kids.
Yet despite the fact that the kids cereals in that link are labelled by the authors as so unhealthy that advertising them is banned in the UK, there are multiple studies that show kids eating ready-to-eat cereals (and they aint eating Total) is associated with significantly better nutritional outcomes than either no breakfast or that so called “complete breakfast.”
Truth is that eating cereal for breakfast is better than the “complete breakfast” which in turn is better than no breakfast at all, which is what many actually have.