Watch some of the commercials linked elsewhere in this thread – vitamins and iron are always mentioned. I remember a time I was at my cousin’s house and noticed a box of Cookie Crisp on the shelf. When I commented that the cereal struck me as the ultimate junk food, Laura indignantly informed me that “it has all the essential vitamins and minerals”, and her mother (a nurse) was very upset with my comment once she learned of it.
They mention it on the front of the box, too, but that’s the least prominent thing you see. Clearly it’s the cartoon image they hoped would sell the product. If parents actually took that “with vitamins and iron” thing seriously, they might just as well feed their children vitamin pills with a piece of bread and a cup of sugar (mixed with milk in a bowl).
A cereal I got about a week ago was called “Square-ems”. That’s all you can say about the cereal, that they’re SQUARE? I don’t know, I might prefer Round-Os or Triangle-Es. (Square-Ems were actually pretty decent.)
I can’t believe Grins & Smiles & Giggles & Laughs not only made the list but came in number one! I feel like the only person who even remembers that cereal. My dad was the general manager of a grocery store then and got me a desk lamp in the shape of the robot, whose name, IIRC, was Cecil!
That cracked me up as well. “Free KNIFE inside!!” I also liked the toy in Rice Honeys: “Mr. Banana Face.” (Banana not included?) I’m seriously considering changing my username.
I tried King Vitaman exactly once. All I remember is the horrendous numbers on the vitamin chart (150% of something or other) and the fact that it tasted like sugar-coated packing material.
People of Earth, I beseech you: Never again put your trust in a sovereign wearing a crown made out of bent spoons.
OTOH, I’d have deeply enjoyed Kaboom. Bluish gray milk? Plus it would’ve been neat to get all wired on sugar and run around the house yelling, “KABOOM! KABOOM!!”
I only recognized a couple of them when I found this article a couple of weeks ago Oddly, though, I know I had the prize on the King Vitaman box, even though I don’t remember the cereal. My maternal uncle was just a teenager when I was born, though, so he might have given it to me.
Mr. Banana Face is obviously a ripoff of Mr. Potato Head, which in his original form, was not a plastic potato, but a series of plastic pieces which could be placed inside a real potato (or whatever other fruit or vegetable you had handy).
Also, what the hell’s the deal with orange-flavored cereal? Did America go through an orange craze sometime in the late '60s-early '70s? Besides the aforementioned OJs, we have in the article itself Kombos, which are basically orange-flavored corn flakes, and Quaker even had a cereal called Quake’s Orange Quangaroos. To make things even stranger, Kombos are endorsed by a creature called The Blue Gnu. Couldn’t you have picked something…I don’t know, orange?
The G&S&G&L robot is named Cecil? Well, that explains a lot.
I recognized exactly one cereal on that list, the OJ’s. I think my mother may have let us have that ONCE.
Everything else on that list…whoo boy. My mother would have gone bonkers, defenestrated my father, and locked my sister and me in the closet until we were 21 before she let us eat that stuff.
It was grape nuts, raisin bran, kix, or chex for us. She would have preferred we eat All Bran or something equally nutritious and tasteless, but we wouldn’t go for it.
The funny thing is that I’m an adult now, and I can eat whatever I want. I get a box of bad cereal about once a year. I never developed much of a taste for the sugar bits.
I only vaguely remember King Vitamin only because of the animated TV commercials (like the one in cochrane’s post) and the fact that a Consumer Reports article later named it as having by far the most sugar-content of any cereal on the market.
As for Kaboom, I had more than my fill (likewise Sir Grapefellow and Baron Von Redberry). My father used to work for General Mills so we always got several cases of whatever new cereal the company was introducing a couple months before it hit store shelves. The upside of that was I got to taste such cereals like Frankenberry and Count Chocula before any of the other kids did. However, the downside was I often grew sick of the particular cereal by the time it debuted in cereal aisles and on Saturday morning TV commercials.
Oddly enough, Kaboom, contrary to what you might think, wasn’t all that sweet when compared with other General Mills cereals like Frankenberry or Sir Grapefellow.
I vaguely remember the O.J. cereal; I seem to recall being baffled by the physics of the muscular cowboy impaling an orange with his spurs and being able to ride around on it.
I was all about the Circus Fun when I was a kid! It was mostly marshmallows, and for some reason I decided that it only tasted good if I ate it out of a big plastic cup; putting it in a proper bowl ruined it. I could eat half a box sitting in front of the Saturday morning cartoons waiting for my folks to wake up.
Oddly, though, I know I had the prize on the King Vitaman box, even though I don’t remember the cereal. My maternal uncle was just a teenager when I was born, though, so he might have given it to me.