FREE INSIDE!
A life in cereal
Aaron Levere, Staff
Back when I was a boy, we only had two types of cereal. And only one had marshmallows. Those were different times. Sure, there were other marshmallow cereals that we saw on the TV during episodes of the Smurfs and Transformers (cartoons were more than just half-hour toy commercials back then, not like today), but these other cereals were only available south of the border. This was back before free trade, and getting marshmallows across the border cost the government a pretty penny back then, lemme tell ya.
Yessir, we watched with envy, our little faces pressed right up against the TV screens, not quite able to go coo-coo for those Cocoa Puffs. We could almost smell the sickly-sweet fruityness of Frankenberry. Trix were never for us kids. We understood the rabbit’s plight all too well. No, for us it was the two standbys; we had Lucky Charms, our only marshmallow cereal, or good ’ol Gravel-bits™, and that was that.
Everything changed, of course, in ’84, when lasers were invented and suddenly it was a whole lot easier to produce marshmallows right here in Canada. My father worked the ’mallow mines for a good many years, so we quickly learned the value of a good box of sugar cereal.
I remember the time, on my birthday no less, that I saw it for the first time — Pac-man cereal! It was a whole box full of “power pellets” and marshmallow ghosts all mixed together, higglety-pigglety. I remember it tasted exactly the way you might imagine a bunch of angry ghosts to taste. Exactly like ghosts. Imagine that!
It was around that time that the Pac-man cartoon first came on the TV. The cartoon wasn’t much to look at, but boy, that cereal . . .
Of course once that box was gone, I never did eat Pac-man cereal again. They stopped making the show, and then they stopped making the cereal. Cereal has never been the same since those days, but I been hooked ever since. ’Course nowadays there’s all different kinds and more’n likely that’ll lead to trouble. So not that you’ll give a damn to listen to me anyhow, but here are the five cereals that still cut the mustard in my book. Stick with these and you’ll be all right.
Mini-wheats: Shredded wheat feels like a mouthful of hay and tastes like you’re eating the box, but somehow when you sugar-coat the little buggers it’s like you’re suddenly a horse who can eat hay every day and still come running when they bring you more. I go for the brown sugar option for health reasons.
Raisin Bran: When raisins are in anything else, I usually pick them out and flick them at bystanders or hide them in plants. As for bran, well, they say it’s good for you, and that’s about all you can say about that. But you put ’em together and cover the whole shebang with sugar and you got yerself a real two-scooper.
Corn Pops: I’ll be damned if these don’t taste a whole lot like power pellets.
Honeycomb: I have some real fond memories of my mother singing me to sleep with an abrasive jingle that went a little something like: “Honeycomb’s big. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not small. No. No. No.” To this day those are the words I live by to get me through the hard times.
Gravel-bits™: When I heard they were going to stop making this, I stocked up. Sure you can make it yourself, but it takes a lot more work, what with sifting out all the dirt and all. Plus nothing really tastes the same as Gravel-bits™ straight out of the box on a Saturday morning with a few re-runs of Scooby-do. Call me old fashioned, but if Canada still made cereal the way they used to there’d be a whole lot more cartoon watchin’ and whole lot less “hot yoga” and such.
Cereal lore
In 2000, General Mills issued a public apology after putting a CD-ROM copy of the New International Version of the Bible into boxes of cereal sold all over the eastern United States. The CD-ROM was meant to have a game on it, but somehow included the good book by mistake.
Cap’n Crunch has a much more extensive life than might be imagined. His full name is Cap’n Horatio Crunch and he hails from Crunch Island in the Sea of Milk. He was once promoted to the rank of Admiral, but found the position to be too demanding and returned to his ship. He was voiced for most of his career by Daws Butler who was also the voice behind Yogi Bear.
Dig ’em, the spokesfrog for Sugar Smacks, has stirred up controversy among several lobby organizations. Some are concerned that Dig’em resembles someone who is addicted to crack. PETA, on the other hand, has objected to his treatment of cats in several commercials. In Mexico, Sugar Smacks have previously been called, simply, SMAK. Coincidence?
When General Mills began producing an organic version of Cheerios, it opted to change the name and sold them under a different brand, “Purely-O’s,” in order to dissuade people from thinking that non-organic Cheerios were somehow inferior.
In the ‘30s, Wheaties sponsored baseball commentary in various cities. Ronald Reagan, the Wheaties announcer in Des Moines, Iowa, was voted the most popular commentator and won a trip to California. While there, he had his first audition for Warner Brothers, launching his acting career.
