How Many Do You Remember?
The cereal aisle of the 1970s was a strange and wonderful place. But as the 1980s got underway, many of the brands we loved disappeared from store shelves. How many of these cereals do you remember? Or, even better, how many did you actually try?
Crazy Cow
Crazy Cow came in chocolate and strawberry, but the real attraction happened after you poured the milk. The coating dissolved and turned it into flavored milk. General Mills introduced both versions in 1977. If you remember drinking what was left in the bowl, that was exactly the idea.
Quake
Quake was Quisp’s rival, which only makes sense if you remember Quisp: the cereal with the little pink alien on the box. Quaker advertised the two against each other, then asked shoppers to vote for their favorite in 1972. Quisp won, and Quake was off shelves by 1973. That’s a rough way to lose breakfast.
Infrogmation of New Orleans, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
Pink Panther Flakes
Post’s Pink Panther Flakes were pink, sweetened corn flakes that turned the milk pink, too. They arrived in 1973, tied to The Pink Panther Show, and even offered a little spy kit as a box prize. The character lasted much longer than his cereal: by 1976, the flakes had already been dropped.
Clackers Graham
Clackers had oversized, gear-shaped pieces and a graham cracker flavor. Its commercials kept interrupting ordinary scenes with a box of cereal, but the advertising couldn’t fix its sales. A 1971 court case records that sales were falling fast enough for General Mills to move a planned Clackers promotion to another cereal.
Fruit Brute
Fruit Brute joined General Mills’ monster cereals in the 1970s, with a werewolf on the box and fruit-flavored cereal inside. Unlike some of the brands here, it made it a little way into the next decade: General Mills retired the original version in 1982. It has made occasional returns, but those weren’t the box kids first knew.
Jonathunder, Wikimedia Commons
Corny-Snaps
Kellogg’s introduced Corny-Snaps in 1975. The sweetened corn-and-oat pieces were curled into shapes that looked a bit like crooked S’s. Then came Shelly the Turtle, whose look changed during the cereal’s run. If you remember the turtle more clearly than what was in the bowl, you probably aren’t alone.
Sir Grapefellow
Grape-flavored cereal sounds unusual now, and Sir Grapefellow went all in: grape-flavored oat pieces, grape marshmallow “starbits,” and a British pilot mascot. General Mills introduced him alongside a cereal rival, Baron Von Redberry, and advertised the pair as competitors. It was quite a production for a bowl of cereal.
Baron Von Redberry
On the other side of General Mills’ cereal rivalry was Baron Von Redberry, with berry-flavored pieces and marshmallow bits. His feud with Sir Grapefellow gave the company two characters to put in the same commercials. By 1976, TIME was already counting the Baron among the new cereals that had come and gone.
Mr. Wonderfull’s Surprize
The “surprize” was inside the puff: General Mills sold this cereal with vanilla or chocolate-flavored filling. That sounds pretty good until you hear what sometimes happened on the way to the breakfast table. Some puffs broke open, leaving hollow pieces and hardened bits of filling. The company hasn’t documented that as the reason it disappeared, though.
Freakies
Freakies had a whole cast of little creatures, and the characters became a big part of the appeal. The original cereal arrived in the 1970s, followed by cocoa and fruity versions. Ralston even tried bringing the name back in 1987 with a different cereal, but that revival lasted only about a year.
Sugar Rice Krinkles
This one didn’t simply vanish. A surviving Sugar Rice Krinkles box dates to 1970, and Post says the cereal was underperforming when it decided to rework it. With changes to the cereal and a license to use The Flintstones characters, Post launched Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Pebbles nationally in 1971. Same company, much more successful idea.
Cocoa Hoots
Kellogg’s Cocoa Hoots arrived in 1972 with Newton the Owl on the box. It was a sweetened chocolate cereal advertised as containing eight essential vitamins. Newton gave shoppers one more cartoon face to recognize in an already crowded aisle, but the owl and his cereal eventually disappeared. Kellogg’s hasn’t left a clear public explanation for why.
Orange Quangaroos
Quaker wasn’t quite finished with Quake after Quisp beat him. He turned up again in ads for Orange Quangaroos, an orange-flavored cereal led by a new character named Simon the Quangaroo. It gave the company another chance to put a Quake-related cereal opposite Quisp, but Quangaroos didn’t last either.
Winnie-the-Pooh Great Honey Crunchers
Nabisco tried giving its older Rice Honeys and Wheat Honeys cereals a new name and a very familiar face: Winnie-the-Pooh. The switch came after sales had started to sag. Pooh was a major character to have on a cereal box, but the change didn’t turn sales around, and another name was soon on the way.
Old Photo Profile, Wikimedia Commons
Grins & Smiles & Giggles & Laughs
Yes, all of that was the cereal’s name. Ralston introduced it in 1976, with smiling cereal pieces and a machine named Cecil in the commercials. Get Cecil laughing and he’d make the cereal. It took some explaining, but you had to give Ralston credit for making a box that was hard to forget.
Super Orange Crisp
Post took its familiar Super Sugar Crisp puffs, added orange-flavored rings, and called the result Super Orange Crisp. Introduced in the early 70s, it was promoted partly on its vitamin C content. Orange juice with breakfast was normal. Orange-flavored cereal mixed with sweetened wheat puffs was a much bigger ask.
Klondike Pete’s Crunchy Nuggets
Remember Pooh’s honey cereals? This is what Nabisco called them next. Klondike Pete was a prospector with a mule named Thorndike, and his Crunchy Nuggets came in rice and wheat versions. It was the last rebrand for cereals whose sales had been struggling for years. Nabisco discontinued them in 1975.
Moonstones
Ralston introduced Moonstones in 1976 with fruit-flavored pieces shaped like stars, half-moons, and planets. The box had a whole story about the Moonbeams who made the cereal. You didn’t need to follow the plot to eat breakfast, but it certainly gave kids something to read while they did.
Vanilly Crunch
Quaker’s Vanilly Crunch was a vanilla-flavored member of the Cap’n Crunch family, introduced in 1971. Its packaging featured Seadog and, later, Wilma the White Whale. If the regular Cap’n’s cereal was your usual choice, this gave you a reason to try a different box. The spin-off eventually left shelves while Cap’n Crunch carried on.
Crunchy Loggs
Kellogg’s introduced Crunchy Loggs in 1978. They were sweetened corn-and-oat pieces with Bixby Beaver as their mascot, and the box promoted their added vitamins and minerals. That may sound like a fairly ordinary cereal, but a beaver selling you a bowl of little logs made it hard to mistake for anything else.
Magic Puffs
General Mills’ Magic Puffs came with a magician’s hat character and a magic trick inside the box. The cereal itself was made of crunchy frosted puffs. General Mills’ own archive gives this one a clear timeline: Magic Puffs debuted in 1974 and lasted until 1977. Even the disappearing act has a date.
Graham Cracko’s
Kellogg’s introduced Graham Cracko’s in 1978 with a promise of graham cracker taste that would stay crunchy in milk. George the Milkman helped sell it in commercials, including one from 1980. That makes it one of the entries that stretches into our early-80s leeway. A reliable exact date for its final box is harder to pin down.
Which one did you actually eat?
Some of these lasted only a few years. Others got a new mascot, a new name, or one more attempt to win shoppers over before they were gone. And in the case of Sugar Rice Krinkles, the cereal’s next life became a much bigger hit. So which box do you remember bringing home?
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