# lucky charms cereal **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 9, 2003, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucky-charms-cereal/206549 "2003-10-09T22:12:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DuhCow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b38774/32.png) [@DuhCow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DuhCow)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2003, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucky-charms-cereal/206549/1 "2003-10-09T22:12:17Z")
okay, i get that the marshmellows in the cereal supposedly signify different kinds of ‘lucky charms,’ like the horseshoe and the four leaf clover. what i don’t get is what the red balloon stands for. how does that denote luck at all? ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2003, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucky-charms-cereal/206549/2 "2003-10-09T22:26:57Z")
Maybe somebody at General Mills is a Nena fan. Are there 99 of them in a box? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2003, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucky-charms-cereal/206549/3 "2003-10-09T23:15:35Z")
Because when they figured out how to make safe red dyes, they had already used up all the good ideas, and some guy at General Mills said “Hey, why not a balloon?”. The red balloons are a relatively recent addition: For most of my childhood, it was just pink hearts, orange stars, yellow moons, green clovers, and blue diamonds. Later, they added the purple horseshoes, and later than that, even, the red balloons. ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucky-charms-cereal/206549/4 "2003-10-10T04:32:25Z")
The blue diamonds were added during my childhood (or maybe a tad later). I remember the other four always being there (born 1963). ---
**Author:** ![SlickRoenick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@SlickRoenick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlickRoenick)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucky-charms-cereal/206549/5 "2003-10-10T04:45:24Z")
It was part of an advertisement. Lucky was traveling around in a red balloon and fell out of the gondola i think. The balloon crashed into a bowl of cereal and it stuck ever since. That was years ago and it’s very hazy in my memory. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucky-charms-cereal/206549/6 "2003-10-10T04:51:24Z")
I can remember when the blue diamonds were added 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Loopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loopus/32/15343_2.png) [@Loopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopus)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucky-charms-cereal/206549/7 "2003-10-10T06:11:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SlickRoenick \* > \*\*It was part of an advertisement. Lucky was traveling around in a red balloon and fell out of the gondola i think. The balloon crashed into a bowl of cereal and it stuck ever since. That was years ago and it’s very hazy in my memory. \*\* Yup. I used to eat Lucky Charms when I was a little kid, and I remember when they were added. I was born in '82, incidentally. I don’t remember everything about the TV ad campaign, but I think it was divided into several parts (maybe 5?) forming some kind of crazy commercial saga, with Lucky traveling all over the world in his balloon trying to avoid the kids who were after his Lucky Charms (I could be getting this confused with something else… memory’s pretty hazy). At the end, the red balloon marshmellows were added to the cereal, and have been there ever since for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![Ununnilium](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/45deac/32.png) [@Ununnilium](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ununnilium)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucky-charms-cereal/206549/8 "2003-10-10T06:42:09Z")
I remember that, too… (Born in '83 here.) It’s odd that the balloons stuck around, and not, say, the rainbows (which would seem far more in-theme than red balloons). Andrew “NO .SIG MAN” “Juan” Perron, and weren’t the moons once blue? ---
**Author:** ![UncleBill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d26b3c/32.png) [@UncleBill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBill)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucky-charms-cereal/206549/9 "2003-10-10T11:05:16Z")
This internet thing is wonderful. [link](http://www.lavasurfer.com/cereal-generalmills.html) > [@](#): > > Lucky was born in 1964. Lucky’s full name is L.C. Leprechaun, and he touts his cereal as being “Magically Delicious.” Lucky the Leprechaun magically changes ordinary, shapeless white marshmallows into shapes with bright colors. Originally he put the pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers into Lucky Charms cereal. In 1975 he added blue diamonds. Purple horseshoes arrived in 1984. Red balloons were added in 1989. > > In 1991 the star-in-balloon replaced both the red balloon and the orange star. A blue, yellow and pink rainbow was added in 1992. The yellow and orange Pot of Gold replaced the yellow moon in 1994. New brighter colors were introduced in 1995 along with the return of the moon, only now it is blue! And the star was changed from a 6-point to 5-point shape. A dark green clover in a light green hat replaced the green clover in 1996. > > The primary marshmallow shapes, as of January 1999, became: red balloons, blue moons, pink hearts, multi-colored rainbows, yellow and white shooting stars, Lucky’s green hat with a green clover, orange and yellow pot of gold, and purple horseshoes. ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucky-charms-cereal/206549/10 "2003-10-10T12:28:23Z")
Celebrity Death Match I’d like to see: Kap’n Krunch versus L.C. Leprechaun