Buzz
Breakfast cereal is a beloved food enjoyed by millions worldwide, but surprisingly, it’s not as ancient as you might expect. It’s a modern staple that has taken over kitchens everywhere.
The first-ever breakfast cereal, Granula, was created in 1863. However, it never gained popularity because the bran nuggets needed to be soaked overnight to make them chewable. Fast forward to today, and we have a vast array of cereals filling supermarket shelves. The cereal industry has grown tremendously, with massive profits and a customer base ranging from sugar-loving children to health-conscious vegans. It’s all about that perfect breakfast bowl.
10. Pink Poop
In 1971, General Mills launched two monster-themed cereals: the sugary Count Chocula and its fruity counterpart, Franken Berry. The success of these cereals led to more flavors like Boo Berry, Fruit Brute, and the oddly named Fruity Yummy Mummy. This cereal line proved to be very profitable, but in 1972, General Mills encountered a PR nightmare. The dye used to give Franken Berry its signature pink color wasn’t always absorbed properly by the digestive system. Concerned parents found their children’s stool bright pink, and they rushed them to the emergency room fearing internal bleeding. This condition, called 'Franken Berry Stool,' was actually harmless, and the dye was eventually discontinued. Today, Franken Berry, Count Chocula, and Boo Berry are typically only available around Halloween.
9. Extinct Cereals
It’s no surprise that many of these rare, vintage cereal boxes have become sought-after collector’s items, fetching hundreds of dollars on websites like eBay. Some of the most valuable boxes feature famous athletes like Michael Jordan and Mickey Mantle.
mrt
8. Cap’n Crunch
7. Vegan
While cereal might seem like an ideal vegan option (unless paired with milk), many cereals actually contain animal-derived ingredients. For example, Vitamin D3, commonly found in cereals, is usually sourced from lanolin, which comes from sheep. Additionally, cereals that include marshmallows, such as Lucky Charms, often contain gelatin, which is made from the bones, cartilage, tendons, and skin of pigs. Many cereals also contain dairy-based ingredients, and vegans often question the vague term “natural flavoring” used on some packaging.
6. John Harvey Kellogg
The story of the Kellogg empire could easily fill its own list. In brief, it starts with John Harvey Kellogg, a trained doctor who embraced a vegetarian lifestyle, following the principles of his Seventh Day Adventist faith. Kellogg rejected the strict norms of the Victorian era and was determined to create his own path.
Among his many peculiar methods, Kellogg was an advocate of frequent enemas. After undergoing one, patients were served a pint of yogurt. They could eat half of it, but the remaining portion would be administered rectally, a practice meant to restore the digestive system’s bacterial balance.
However, Kellogg’s most lasting legacy is undoubtedly the corn flakes he developed with his brother William. Following the establishment of the Sanitas Food Company, the brothers found themselves in disagreement over whether sugar should be added to the cereal. William would go on to establish the company that eventually became Kellogg’s. The use of sugar has since played a major role in the success of products like Frosted Flakes and Pop Tarts. A largely fictionalized version of John Harvey Kellogg’s life is depicted in T.C. Boyle’s novel The Road to Wellville.
5. Mascots
Cereal mascots generally fall into one of two categories. The first group includes the classic spokesperson promoting the product’s virtues. Notable examples are Cap’n Crunch, Sugar Bear, and Tony the Tiger (voiced for fifty years by Thurl Ravenscroft, who also sang 'You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch' in the animated Dr. Seuss Christmas special).
The second category is much more pitiful: mascots with an obsessive, almost pathological craving for a cereal that always seems just out of reach. This group features characters like Barney Rubble (who’s always trying to steal neighbor Fred Flintstone’s Fruity Pebbles), Sonny the Cuckoo Bird, and of course, the Trix Rabbit.
The Trix Rabbit may be the world’s most tragic cereal addict. His elaborate and desperate schemes to snag Trix always ended in failure. Cruel children would taunt him with the phrase 'Trix are for kids.' However, in 1976 and 1980, public campaigns like 'Let the Rabbit Eat Trix' redeemed him, as the youth voted overwhelmingly to let the Rabbit enjoy his cereal.
4. Yukon Territory
In the 1950s, the popular CBS series *Sergeant Preston of the Yukon* received sponsorship from Quaker Oats. Bruce Baker, an advertising executive from Chicago, was tasked with crafting a promotion that would tie the two together. Instead of just placing a toy Mountie in a cereal box, Baker proposed a novel idea: Quaker would offer a deed for one square inch of Yukon Territory in exchange for a box top from their cereal. This promotion was far more successful than expected, with Quaker distributing 21 million deeds within just a few weeks.
The deeds read as follows: 'Witnesseth that the Grantor for good and valuable consideration now paid by the Grantee to the Grantor (the receipt whereof is hereby by it acknowledged) doth grant, bargain, sell, alien, enfeoff, release, remise, convey and confirm unto the Grantee, his heirs and assigns forever and estate in fee simple.' These deeds featured a corporate seal and included a line for the new landowner to sign. While people still write in to inquire about their land, the territory Quaker purchased was reverted back to the Canadian government in 1965. The remaining deeds can now be found on eBay for around $25.
3. Phreaking
John Draper, the son of an Air Force engineer, joined the USAF in 1964 and quickly applied his technical expertise by hacking into a telephone switchboard, enabling his friends to make free phone calls. Eccentric is a word that might best describe him, as Draper spent the following years running a pirate radio station from his van. His most notable achievement came when he discovered that a whistle included in a box of Cap’n Crunch cereal emitted a tone that granted him operator-level control over phone lines. His blind friends figured out that by sealing the hole in the whistle, they could replicate the tone used by AT&T.
After being featured in a 1971 *Esquire* article, Draper, nicknamed the 'phone phreaker' or 'Cap’n Crunch,' was arrested and placed on probation. He later served jail time for manipulating phone systems (he famously claimed to have called President Nixon directly using his skills) and even briefly collaborated with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak during Apple’s early years, helping develop software. Today, Draper continues his programming career and even runs his own website.
2. Crunch Berry Lawsuit
Nature has provided us with a fascinating variety of fruits, such as bananas, pumpkins, watermelons, and tomatoes. (Take a moment to read that again. Yes, it's true.) However, Crunch Berries are not one of them. In 2009, a woman from California, Janine Sugawara, filed a class-action lawsuit against PepsiCo, the parent company of Quaker, which manufactures Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries. Sugawara claimed she had been misled for four years by advertisements that portrayed Crunch Berries as real fruit. A judge in Sacramento, Morrison England, swiftly dismissed the frivolous case, stating, 'As far as this court has been made aware, there is no such fruit (Crunch Berries) growing in the wild or occurring naturally in any part of the world.'
1. Atomic Bomb Ring
In 1947, Kix cereal seized upon the growing public interest in atomic technology. While other cereals were handing out mundane toys like whistles and tops, Kix offered a silver bullet Lone Ranger ring. For just 15 cents and a box top, the ring contained trace amounts of radioactive polonium, which would glow when exposed to a zinc sulfide screen. Although this might seem questionable, the instructions assured consumers that the ring was entirely safe. They said: 'PERFECTLY SAFE—We guarantee you can wear the KIX Atomic ‘Bomb’ Ring with complete safety. The atomic materials inside the ring are harmless.'
Sadly, the polonium inside these rings had a short lifespan, and none of them function today. Much like the Yukon deeds, these rings can still be found for sale online.
