Saturday morning hunkering down watching your favorite cartoons would not have been the same without a bowlful of your favorite cereal.
It all started by cruising down the cereal aisle.
While hanging from the shopping cart in a precarious way you saw the wondrous boxes of cereal go by as a blur. Remember the constant begging for your cereal of choice at the moment or for the spontaneous choice because of a prize offered inside. Every type of cereal imaginable from television shows to movies to action figures, etc.
Many of the boxes had their own memorable characters to hock sugary cereals to children. Some have been around since the 50's or before. For the most part I will only mention the cereals that had a special place in my heart or belly and not the old standby greats like Frosted Flakes with Tony the Tiger or Fruity and Coco Pebbles.


Movie Cereal

From a galaxy far far away came this cereal and it tasted like it too. I bought it anyways being the die hard Star Wars fan that I was.

I remember a rubber finger extender with a light up end that glowed red from this cereal.

Who you gonna call Ghostbusters.

Gremlins cereal was okay to get wet with milk but don't let your mom catch you eating them from the box after midnight while hiding in the pantry.

Batman cereal was only available for a short time after the movie came out. It had a cool batman bank with it. I always liked it best when the prize was in the box or attached to it, as opposed to mail in offers or dumb cut outs.
Who remembers the Addams Family cereal. I had all four flashlights thank you very much!


TV Cereal

The real american cereal? I barely remember Gi Joe All Stars.

Two smurfy cereals to choose from. C'mon it wasn't as bad as your friends catching you eating Strawberry Shortcake cereal.

I pity the fool that doesn't eat my cereal. It was like alpha bits for the illiterate. It only came with "T"s

A delicious blend of rice chex like wafers with a sugary coating with marshmallow weapons.


Videogame Cereal

I always made video game noises while eating these, especially Pac Man. Nintendo it's a cereal wow! Mario or Link you choose.

Healthy Cereals

For some reason I really liked Body Buddies sort of like a sweeter version of Kix. King Vitamin is the cereal your mom would pick for you if you were unlucky enough to not be able to go to the grocery store with her. It was a funky version of Cap'n Crunch but tasted like... well vitamins and not the Flintstones kind either.
Triples cereal was my favorite for a long time. I remember doing a triple take ever time the commercial came on and nearly getting whiplash. Crisp Rice + Crisp Corn + Crisp Weat = delicious! Please bring it back.

Monster Cereals
My favorite cereals of all time! It really pisses me off in my area they are only available around Halloween. Some of you may not even remember Frute Brute or Fruity Yummy Mummy, Admittedly not the best of the series but still worth remembering.


Originally it was shaped like a button with bat marshmallows. I remember when the new pac man-esc ghost shapes came into being.

You can clearly see how the graphic design of cereal boxes has gone downhill or we just have lazy artists now-a-days.


Miscellaneous Cereals I still remember
Cap'n Crunch with Coco Puffs mixed in.
Fruity dinosaur shapes.
Donuts for breakfast.
Ice cream for breakfast.
Candy for breakfast.


Mascot and Mallow Evolution

I remember when cookie crisp came out it had a cool wizard guy on the box. Then the mascot changed to a cookie cop and cookie crook. Then a dog was added. Coooooo...kie crisp. I think it is now a wolf.

Lucky Charms Cereal it's magically delicious! For a brief time there was a wizard mascot instead of Lucky the leprechaun.
Pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers, and blue diamonds.
I remember when they changed the marshmallows. The first new one to come down the chute was the purple whale. Much later on it changed to a swirly whale, but neither lasted very long. The first permanent change was the addition of purple horseshoes. After that it seems like there was a new marshmallow every time I bought a box. Next up was red balloons. Then pink, yellow, and blue rainbows. Followed by yellow pots of gold. Then for some reason they got rid of the yellow moons and went with blue moons I guess with the pots of gold there was too much yellow already. They nixed the green clovers and went with green leprechaun hats but eventually went back to the clovers. The orange stars transformed into an orange and white shooting star sometimes with 5 and sometimes with 6 points. Now they have a gimic marshmallow for everything. yellow Hidden Keys were shaped like a door and melted into a shape. There were crystal balls and clouds that did the same thing.

The "charms" even underwent drastic complete changes for the holidays with two Winter versions and a Halloween version.


Now if you want it the cereal has spawned two offspring the berry version and the chocolate.


The Alternative
Maybe you were one of those kids who's mom forced them to eat instant oatmeal or cream of wheat. At times I was too. Funny thing now is that I like them. Truth is I liked them back then too but would never admit it to my mom because of the lack of prizes. Well I guess you could count the cream of wheat box that doubled as a pencil box when empty a prize. My favorite of course was

Until next time and remember Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and these cereals were a nutritious or not so much nutritious part of my childhood.