TV Cereals

It’s a common belief that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Eating food with the nutrients needed to get your day off to a great start is vital. As any parent who has ever taken child down the cereal aisle knows there’s plenty of breakfast cereals that fall well short of those first meal of the day’s nutritional requirements.

But it’s those are the cereals that your child will beg for you to buy? Why? Because the company that makes those “sugar” cereals that spend the most money on commercials on the shows your kids watch. That’s the way it’s always been.

When I was a kid the “silly rabbit” was chasing after his Trix. Lucky the Leprechaun was hiding his Lucky Charms, and Toucan Sam was following his nose to find Kellogs’ Fruit Loops. Those are some of the most popular kid’s cereals still around today. But what about the cereals that I begged for that aren’t around anymore? I think they deserve being mentioned just as much as those still on the store shelves.

Here are 5 of my favorites gone but not forgotten cereals: 

Freakies: This first obscure cereal isn’t one that I ever actually ate for breakfast. It was made by the Ralston company. Until they introduced Freakies they had only made adult oriented cereals such as Chex. 

Freakies cereal was available between 1974 and 1977. I was a teenager then and not interested in any new “kid’s cereal. I did however like the commercials. 

Seems like I’m the only one I know who remembers the song and the characters who lived in the Freakies tree. They were:  Hamhose, Gargle, Cowmumble, Grumble, Goody-Goody, Snorkeldorf and the leader BossMoss.

Apparently there are others who remember The Freakies. Here’s a You Tube link to their commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP8mbxZBl3k 

I'm starting off this list with this cereal because of the obscurity and uniqueness of the Freakies characters themselves. I don't think their creators ever had a chance to tell their stories or take them on new adventures. 

Clackers: This graham cracker flavored cereal was one of my favorites.

 As the years have gone by I often confused “Clackers” with the one I’ll mention next. I remember eating this cereal and it was good. The gear shaped flakes were relatively large. 

You could only eat one at a time with a regular sized spoon.

But the commercial hook for this cereal was its intrusive interjection into unexpected situations. It also proved to be its demise. 

Adults refused to buy the cereal for their kids  because they found the commercials extremely annoying. Here’s a link to one of the commercials from You Tube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5_S6Ys92D0

The trivia fan in me can’t give you this commercial without mention that the Italian chef is played by Alan Arbus. He’s best known for playing psychiatrist Dr. Sidney Freedman on M*A*S*H.

The main thing I remember about Clackers is getting a plastic toy duck call free inside one of the boxes. I blew that thing as often as I could. Apparently my parents found the toy as annoying as the Clackers commercials. I remember after a day or two the toy “mysteriously” disappeared.  

Stax: Also known as “Wheat Stax” this cereal was one of the most “fun” to eat.

 Like I wrote before, in my memory I combined Stax with Clackers. Stax was actually a flat wheat flake cereal. Think of it as a Wheaties flake crossed with a piece of Post Honeycombs but about half as thick.

The great thing about this cereal is you could play with it on the table before you put it in a bowl. The flatness of the flakes made it very stack-able (thus the name). They were edible building blocks.

Ironically, the marketing campaign for this cereal was aimed at adults. The TV commercials featured celebrities making stacks of the cereal. I wasn’t able to find any of the TV ads on You Tube but I did find this print ad featuring comedic actor, Marty Engles.

But the commercials and ads really missed the target. Why would adults want to stack cereal? Also how could parents, after continuously scolding their children against it, play with their food?

I do remember the joy of my parents bringing home a box of Stax for me at least once. I remember making columns of flakes on the kitchen table. Even though the recollections about this cereal are few they are among my favorite childhood breakfast memories. 

   Quisp & Quake: These two have to be mentioned together because for most of their history they were advertised together. It started with their first TV commercial. 

The marketing strategy was ingenious. I believe it was the first time cereals were linked together. Six years later General Mills utilized the same marketing scheme with Frankenberry, Count Chocula, and Boo Berry; their “monster cereals”.

Here’s the You Tube link to that first Quisp & Quake commercial that set up the “popularity” contest from right from the start:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-sTnm_aPBY

Once again, here’s a bit of trivia about Quisp & Quake commercials. They were created by Jay Ward the creator of Rocky & Bullwinkle, Dudley DoRight, and Quaker Oats most popular cereal icon, Cap’n  Crunch.  (There will be more on the Cap’n later this week)

Quisp was from outer space voiced by Daws Butler (Huckleberry Hound) and Quake was from the center of the earth, voiced by William Conrad (who played the title role on the CBS detective series, Cannon).

I was 5 years old when that first commercial aired on Saturday morning TV. I bought into the “choose which one you like best” thing from the start. I begged my mom & dad to buy me my choice, Quake. I can’t remember exactly why I chose the miner over the alien. 

The cereal looked and tasted very much like Cap’n Crunch and was introduced 2 years it. Although I don’t remember ever having a box of Quisp in my house I did have some while staying over with one of my friends. Quake was my choice in the taste test as well.

If I recall correctly, my fascination with Quake cereal didn’t last more than 1 or 2 boxes. Eventually, the kids of America agreed. In 1972 after a national “vote” Quake disappeared from store shelves. You can read about the history of the two cereals with a Google search.

The biggest surprise to me was finding out that Quisp continues to be sold from time to time in Target and various national discount grocery stores.

Baiting The Hook

I can’t conclude this cereal article without mentioning the most influential reason any kid wanted any specific cereal during my childhood. That would be what’s known in the food industry as “the premium”. To kids it was known as “the toy”.  

While the prime ground for scoring a “quality” toy for kids these days is a fast food restaurant kids meal; while I was growing up the hunting was done by digging to the bottom of the box of any sugary cereal.

Other than the Clackers toy I’ve already mentioned, I can't specifically remember playing with any other specific toy. But I know they included: 3D baseball cards, floating toys, race cars, and records you cut out of the back of the box then played on your own turntable. I tried to find a picture of a representative group of premium toys from the 60s & 70s but there were so many I couldn't decide on a definitive representative.

I think getting a record right off the back of a cereal box was my favorite. However I also loved anything you could wind up and let loose to speed across the floor or fly across the room coming dangerously close to your mom's knick knacks. Like the duck call, I don’t remember holding on to many of the “out of the box” cereal toys for more than a few days. 

Whether they got broken, were lost (on a roof, in a tree or down a sewer) or just “disappeared” I’m not sure. But I do know that premiums continue to be used as a marketing tool in cereals today. Although a lot of them are mail-in offers.

So there you have a list of my 5 favorite obscure breakfast cereals that initially came into my house by way of the TV commercial. What, if any, memories do you have of these sugary morning treats?

The next post in this week of “TV memories” will be about some of my favorite and nearly forgotten commercial icons. Come back to see which ones make the list.