They don’t make boxes of cereal like they used to. We used to get toys buried inside and the words “less sugar” never graced the package. A decade or two ago, the appeal of cereal came not from the taste or the nutritional value, but from the goods and nutritional garbage inside.

Ice Cream Cones cereal

This cereal, introduced by General Mills in 1986, was shaped like mini ice cream cones in vanilla and chocolate flavors. An old-fashioned ice cream fountain clerk called “Ice Cream Jones” was the mascot for the cereal. Jones rode around on his bike equipped with an ice cream freezer singing the jingle, “My name’s Ice Cream Jones, and I’m deliverin’ my ice cream cones. New ice cream cereal for breakfast, with the great taste of ice cream cones!”

Source: bakingbusiness.com/headline_stories.asp?ArticleID=63664&PF=print

Movie and TV cereals

Mr. T cereal

You know it’s coming … I pity the fool who never tried this sweet, puffed corn cereal.

Photo source: strangecult.com/crap/tstuff/tcereal.jpg

Rainbow Brite cereal

This cereal may as well have had the following printed on the box: “How to poison your child with massive amounts of artificial color.”

C3P0s

The cereal may have been less than exciting and flavorful, but the Star Wars cards and other collectibles inside made it a big seller in the 1980s.

Nintendo cereal

“Nintendo! It's for breakfast now! Nintendo! It's a cereal wow! Nintendo! Super Mario jumps! Nintendo! It's a fruit flavored crunch!” In the mid-1980s, many parents endured this personal hell that was the Nintendo “cereal system” slogan. The cereal came in five different packages, featuring early video game stars Super Mario and Zelda. The cereal also supposedly came in two different flavors: fruit and berry, but after they mingled in the same box for a while, both tasted like fruity cardboard. It’s not like kids wanted the cereal for its nutritional component anyway.

Source: lavasurfer.com/cereal-ralston.html

Photo source: i1.tinypic.com/mj78r6.jpg

Flutie Flakes

The name of this cereal never fails to prompt immature giggles from people who think it sounds a little lewd, like a cereal featured in a Saturday Night Live parody. The disappointing truth is that the name isn’t supposed to be funny at all; instead, it honors football champ Doug Flutie and a great deal of the profits went towards a foundation for Flutie’s autistic son. Boxes of the cereal quickly became collector’s items and sell on eBay.com for about $4 to $20 for limited-edition boxes.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flutie_Flakes and ebay.com

Fruit Brute

This cereal was part of the monster cereal family that includes Count Chocula, Franken Berry and Boo Berry. It retired from the grocery store shelves in 1983, but has made appearances in movies such as Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. The fruity cereal contained lime-flavored marshmallows and was reintroduced in the late 1980s under the name “Yummy Mummy,” which died out soon after.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_Brute and members.aol.com/pseisen/fruitbrute

Photo source: theimaginaryworld.com/mnbox05.jpg

Grins and Smiles and Giggles and Laughs

The name of this cereal is so asinine that it’s hard to believe the story behind the name is even more idiotic. Apparently, Grins and Giggles and the whole gang were characters that tried to make a machine named Cecil laugh, which would then produce the cereal. Yeah, I never bought this crap either.

Source: lavasurfer.com/cereal-ralston2.html

Photo source: theimaginaryworld.com/box241.jpg

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