Speaker 1: Guess what will what's that mango? So at our first
Speaker 1: week in college, I remember being in line for breakfast
Speaker 1: and and there was just this wall of amazing breakfast cereals,
Speaker 1: remember this, And we were of course away from our
Speaker 1: parents for the first time and being independent and responsible,
Speaker 1: and so I piled my bowl high with Lucky Charms.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it was Lucky Charms, but whatever
Speaker 1: was the most nutritious cereal out there. I love that
Speaker 1: when you were finally like free from the overside of
Speaker 1: your parents, like that was the first thing you did
Speaker 1: to express your freedom, was like, get a big bowl
Speaker 1: of cereal. But yes, I do remember that big, awesome
Speaker 1: wall of cereal. Yeah, and the people we were with
Speaker 1: started making fun of me for eating a kid cereal
Speaker 1: instead of musically or whatever. And then right then the
Speaker 1: star basketball recruit Eldon Brand walked up and got a
Speaker 1: bowl of the same thing, and it was just pure
Speaker 1: silent and I felt like such a trend setter. And
Speaker 1: I remember that that's when you became the most popular
Speaker 1: kid on campus. And not really but part of the
Speaker 1: reason I love breakfast cereals so much. And you know,
Speaker 1: we used to have big cereal old parties in metal
Speaker 1: flaws where everyone would bring a box of their favorite cereal.
Speaker 1: But uh, there's just such a wonderful association with childhood
Speaker 1: and Saturday Morning cartoons, and that's actually why we're talking
Speaker 1: about cereal today. Let's dig in today their podcast listeners,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
Speaker 1: always I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesh Ticketer
Speaker 1: and the man on the other side of the soundproof
Speaker 1: glass eating a big bowl of frosted many weeks good
Speaker 1: choice today as our producer, Tristan McNeil. But today we're
Speaker 1: heading back to the grocery all for a closer look
Speaker 1: at all things cereal, you know, the most whimsical or
Speaker 1: nutritionally questionable at all of this, at every part of
Speaker 1: a complete breakfast. And so we'll dig into the weird
Speaker 1: stories and surp rising facts behind our favorite brands, as
Speaker 1: well as a few of the lesser known breakfast cereals
Speaker 1: that time forgot. And then a little bit later we'll
Speaker 1: be joined by Gay Fonseca. He's a TV writer and
Speaker 1: he's spent more than a decade collecting childhood nostalgia in
Speaker 1: the form of vintage cereal boxes. It's a fascinating collection. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's also the host of this really fun YouTube
Speaker 1: series called cereal Time, which is the series on the
Speaker 1: subject of breakfast cereal. I mean, he's been doing it
Speaker 1: for a couple of years now, so I'm super excited
Speaker 1: to just hear how he got started. Yeah. Well, well,
Speaker 1: Gabs among the most devout of serial enthusiasts, but he's
Speaker 1: definitely not alone in this. I mean, lots of people
Speaker 1: love cereals, and in the hundred and fifty plus years
Speaker 1: since it came onto the market, cold breakfast cereal has
Speaker 1: become a staple for millions of people around the world.
Speaker 1: And you know, strangely, this love affair got its start
Speaker 1: in the late nineteenth century kind of as an accident.
Speaker 1: You know, it was this invention of fundamentalist Christians who
Speaker 1: were seeking to promote a healthy, sin free lifestyle. And
Speaker 1: much of this is you know, stories that people have heard,
Speaker 1: but it's still pretty interesting that the bland foods, as
Speaker 1: you know, like toasted corn and oats, where they were
Speaker 1: thought to help suppress sexual urges and prevent arousal. And
Speaker 1: so this thinking led to the creation of a few
Speaker 1: notable foods including Graham Crackers, of course, but the one
Speaker 1: that really caught on what the public was sereal. So
Speaker 1: Dr John Harvey Kellogg, the superintendent of a sanitarium in
Speaker 1: Battle Creek, Michigan, and his younger brother Well, they stumbled
Speaker 1: upon the recipe for what would ultimately become corn flakes.
Speaker 1: After allowing some of the cooked wheat to sit out
Speaker 1: for too long, the Kellogg's returned to find the wheat
Speaker 1: had gone stale, but rather than toss it out as
Speaker 1: you might think they would, they decided to roll it
Speaker 1: out into thin flakes and then toast them. And the
Speaker 1: corn flakes were a big hit with their patients, so
Speaker 1: the Kelloggs decided to start marketing them to a broader public. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and as interesting as that early history is, it's pretty
Speaker 1: familiar by this point. So instead of going deep on
Speaker 1: sanitariums and grape nuts, we're gonna focus mostly on the
Speaker 1: second act of the serial story. That's the period from
Speaker 1: about nine to the early nine is when marketing to
Speaker 1: children really took off and sugary cereals really began flooding
Speaker 1: grocery store aisles. Well, before we dive into that colorful history,
Speaker 1: I thought we could take a quick look at the
Speaker 1: state of cereal today, you know, just by the numbers,
Speaker 1: and it's amazing how far cereal has come from its
Speaker 1: early years as this niche product to the mammoth industry
Speaker 1: that it is now. So just looking at the US
Speaker 1: market alone, the breakfast cereal industry now generates nearly ten
Speaker 1: billion dollars in annual revenue. And that that's according to
Speaker 1: mord Or Intelligence. Did you say word or intelligent hobbit?
Speaker 1: It's kind of a jarring name if you're a Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings fan, But it's just the coincidence, unfortunately.
Speaker 1: But like I was saying, Americans lead the world and
Speaker 1: serial consumption. It ranks fourth on the list of the
Speaker 1: top ten package goods sold in the US, and of
Speaker 1: American households by a box of cereal at least once
Speaker 1: a year. And we're not the only ones who love it. Canada,
Speaker 1: the UK, Australia, they all have sereal markets that rival
Speaker 1: the size of our own, and in recent years, cereal
Speaker 1: has also gained in places like China and India and Brazil.
Speaker 1: In fact, the breakfast cereal marketing industry rakes in about
Speaker 1: thirty five billion dollars in revenue each year from the
Speaker 1: foreign markets. So when I took my kids to India
Speaker 1: last year, I remember waking up jet lag the first
Speaker 1: day and they were already up watching cartoons and we're
Speaker 1: wired on a bowl of chocos. We didn't have chacos
Speaker 1: in all my years ago in India though, we never
Speaker 1: ate breakfast cereals and we never ate in front the TV.
Speaker 1: So it was almost jarring to see this American experience
Speaker 1: transplanted to India. But you know, sugar and grain is
Speaker 1: obviously this winning combination. But I have seen a few
Speaker 1: reports about sagging sales as more and more people opt for,
Speaker 1: you know, either easier or healthier breakfast options, so pop
Speaker 1: tarts or avocado toast, or you know, maybe a quick
Speaker 1: trip to the drive through on the way to work.
Speaker 1: And and of course there's this growing segment of the
Speaker 1: population that just doesn't eat breakfast period. So when you
Speaker 1: were listing those easier and healthier options and you said
Speaker 1: pop tarts, which one of them, I'm guessing that's the
Speaker 1: easier option there, but they are delicious. Well. As big
Speaker 1: as the cereal industry is today, there's no question that
Speaker 1: it used to be bigger. So according to NPR, serial
Speaker 1: consumption peaked right around ninete I guess it was, and
Speaker 1: has steadily gone downhill ever since, generally by a full
Speaker 1: percentage point each year. And while the stuff you mentioned
Speaker 1: is definitely played a part in that decline, it's really
Speaker 1: due to a combination of factors. You know. For example,
Speaker 1: back in lawmakers passed the Nutrition and Labeling Education Act,
Speaker 1: and that made it mandatory for all products to include
Speaker 1: the now commonplace list of nutrition facts on the packaging.
Speaker 1: And this made it easier than ever for consumers to
Speaker 1: see the nutritional value or lack thereof, I guess, and
Speaker 1: they could look at this and all of their cereals
Speaker 1: now at this point, and as more people became educated
Speaker 1: about just how much sugar and carbs they were eating
Speaker 1: or feeding to their kids, you know, they started to
Speaker 1: think twice before tossing a box in the car whenever
Speaker 1: they're with grocery store. So I looked into just how
Speaker 1: sugary cere it can be, and it's insane, Like the
Speaker 1: whole cereal industry uses around eight hundred sixty million pounds
Speaker 1: of sugar in its products every year, and apparently most
Speaker 1: of that's going into honey smacks, you know, for some reason,
Speaker 1: you don't know out there, that's the one with the
Speaker 1: cool frog wearing the backwards baseball cap on the box.
Speaker 1: I thought you were talking to me for a second,
Speaker 1: was like, I know, honey Smacks mango, Come on, well,
Speaker 1: honey Smacks is consistently ranked the worst cereal for your
Speaker 1: health because it has less than two grams of fiber
Speaker 1: per serving and its ingredients breakdown to almost sixty percent sugar.
Speaker 1: It's tasty, but according to the Environmental and Working Group,
Speaker 1: there's more sugar in one cup serving of honey Smacks
Speaker 1: than there Isn't a Hostess twinkie, no way. And I
Speaker 1: know that it is sweet, obviously, and I knew it
Speaker 1: wasn't good for you, But honestly, like the taste of
Speaker 1: honey Smacks, I wouldn't have guessed it was the most
Speaker 1: sugary cereal. But it kind of makes my teeth are
Speaker 1: just thinking about that. But you know that that sugar
Speaker 1: to fiber ratio might make us cringe. But there's one
Speaker 1: particular serial eleating demographic that you're not going to hear
Speaker 1: complaining about this, and that's kids, or at least my kids. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my kids. To actually do you Remember there was this
Speaker 1: great Calvin and Hobbs where Calvin's eating his favorite cereal.
Speaker 1: I think it's something like chocolate frostage sugar bombs, and
Speaker 1: he gives Hobbs to try, and Hobbs just starts shaking,
Speaker 1: gagging from the sweetness, and Calvin says, actually they're kind
Speaker 1: of bland until he scooped some sugar on. But what
Speaker 1: I find really interesting is how deeply ingrained the fondness
Speaker 1: for breakfast cereal is and so many people, and how
Speaker 1: so much of that seems rooted in their childhood. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, i'd say for most adults serial leaders, it's
Speaker 1: a big part of the allure. I mean, it's what
Speaker 1: you were saying about your kids. There's these memories of
Speaker 1: watching Saturday morning cartoons with a big bowl of Captain
Speaker 1: Crunch in your hand, or maybe indulging in a late
Speaker 1: night fix of Lucky Charms sitting in your college dorm.
Speaker 1: I don't know who you're talking about, right, Well, it's
Speaker 1: sort of a comfort food in a way. I mean,
Speaker 1: it takes us back to simpler days when most of
Speaker 1: us were a little more carefree about what we ate
Speaker 1: and why. Yeah, So in nostalgia is definitely a strong factor. Actually, well,
Speaker 1: what are some of the weirdest discontinued cereals you can
Speaker 1: think of? I was trying to think about this earlier,
Speaker 1: and I remember seeing cuber cereal when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: Do you remember Cuberta that video game character, and and
Speaker 1: also eating one with smurfberries? Like my parents only really
Speaker 1: bought a sugar Cereals for maybe a year or two,
Speaker 1: but I remember sampling some weird ones. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I always thought it was completely bonkers that some cereals
Speaker 1: didn't even mask the fact that they were candy, Like
Speaker 1: you know, Kellogg's did a candy corn Pops. But even
Speaker 1: more blatant than that, there was a Nerds Cereal and
Speaker 1: I'm ticked off that I never tried it. Nerds Cereal.
Speaker 1: By the way, listeners, I just wanted to break for
Speaker 1: a second because Will and I have been debating what
Speaker 1: the official candy of Part Time Genius should be, and
Speaker 1: Will was saying it should be atomic fireballs, and I
Speaker 1: was thinking Nerds. So if you have any thoughts on this,
Speaker 1: please let us know on Facebook or Twitter. But well,
Speaker 1: you're right, Nerds Cereal is insane. But looking back, like
Speaker 1: the box was so cool. It came in these two flavors,
Speaker 1: just like the candies, and you could pour orange out
Speaker 1: of one side and cherry out of the other. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine, Like, who would let their kids buy this? Probably?
Speaker 1: It also makes me wonder like if so much a
Speaker 1: serials appeal is rooted in the past, Like, what does
Speaker 1: this say about our future? Well, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: new generation of kids getting hooked on cereal now, and
Speaker 1: many of them will stick with it into adulthood. And
Speaker 1: that's part of the reason there's so many brands duking
Speaker 1: it out, you know, trying to get kids to eat
Speaker 1: these cereal is because people's breakfast routines tend to be
Speaker 1: the same, you know, pretty much every day. But there's
Speaker 1: another point to consider, and those declining sales numbers we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier also coincide with declining birth rate, So you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's not like the birthrate will ever drop to
Speaker 1: zero or anything like that, but fewer kids does result
Speaker 1: than fewer cereal fans, obviously. Yeah, It's it's funny that
Speaker 1: something that started out as health food became so dependent
Speaker 1: on selling sugar to kids, but I guess that's usually
Speaker 1: how it goes with food trends, like someone with these
Speaker 1: very altruistic intentions gets the ball rolling, hoping to better society,
Speaker 1: and and then you know, at a certain point, the
Speaker 1: marketing team steps in write exactly Yeah. Dr Kellogg used
Speaker 1: to give lectures about his methods for leading a healthy lifestyle,
Speaker 1: and he would sometimes give out the recipes for his
Speaker 1: corn flax so that people could make them at home.
Speaker 1: And at one talk he told the crowd, you may
Speaker 1: say I'm destroying the health food business here by giving
Speaker 1: these recipes, but I'm not after the business. I'm after reform.
Speaker 1: I mean, he really did seem to believe and what
Speaker 1: he was selling, sure, but the problem was that the
Speaker 1: same couldn't be said of his brother, Will Kellogg. And
Speaker 1: and Will try for years to convince his brother to
Speaker 1: add sugar to their cereal, believing it would add some
Speaker 1: flavor to what he called horse food. But the tipping
Speaker 1: point came into late forties when their competitor Post Cereals
Speaker 1: released Sugar Crisp, so Posted branched out beyond the health
Speaker 1: food market with its first sugarcoated cereal, and like it
Speaker 1: or not, Kellog kind of had to follow his suit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's really post World War Two that the industry
Speaker 1: started to focus on marketing directly to kids. I mean,
Speaker 1: companies had dabbled with these ads before, including Kellogg's use
Speaker 1: of Snap, Crackle and Pop as the characters for Rice Crispies,
Speaker 1: and that marketing began in the nineteen thirties. But even
Speaker 1: with cartoon gnomes pleading their case, you know, the these
Speaker 1: highly processed oats and grains were a tough sell without
Speaker 1: adding something, you know, sweet to it. That's crazy though,
Speaker 1: I like, I had no idea that the Rice Christie's
Speaker 1: trio had been around that long. I thought they were
Speaker 1: post fifties like most other cereal mascots. Yeah, Snap Crackling
Speaker 1: Pop are actually one of the longest running ad campaigns
Speaker 1: in history, and as I was looking up at that,
Speaker 1: they're actually the longest for Cereal brands. Actually, by the way,
Speaker 1: did you know that their names are on amount of
Speaker 1: pia sounds for what you hear when milk is added
Speaker 1: to the cereal. But apparently Rice Crispies were always marketed
Speaker 1: as the cereal you can hear, and this was even
Speaker 1: before the mascots came along. In fact, the guy who
Speaker 1: created the characters did so after being inspired by one
Speaker 1: of the brand's previous radio jingles. Because I know you're
Speaker 1: dying to know what it was. Here the lyrics, I
Speaker 1: jotted them down, So all right, listen to the fairy
Speaker 1: song of help the Mary Corus, sung by Kelloggs Rice
Speaker 1: Crispi as they merrily snap, crackle and pop in a
Speaker 1: bowl of milk. If you've never heard food talking, now
Speaker 1: is your chance. I'm so hungry for a bowl of
Speaker 1: cereal now, why didn't we do this before? And also
Speaker 1: that was a jingle like it doesn't even rive. I
Speaker 1: was I was gonna put it to song that I
Speaker 1: just made up against it. So, I mean, obviously mascots
Speaker 1: were a smart move, since it's hard to market like
Speaker 1: a fairy song of health without them. But wasn't there
Speaker 1: also a fourth gnome for a while, Yeah, you bet
Speaker 1: there was pal He stood for the Cereals nutritional punch,
Speaker 1: I think, And of course he didn't last very long.
Speaker 1: But let's get this back on track. So gradually the
Speaker 1: Sweden Cereals come to dominate the market, thanks, you know,
Speaker 1: because of product placement and children's programming, and they've never
Speaker 1: looked back since. And in fact, the breakfast cereal industry
Speaker 1: is still one of the top spenders for a commercial
Speaker 1: air time. More than a million Cereal ads air on
Speaker 1: TV each year, which cost companies like Post and Kellogg's
Speaker 1: more than I want to say, like half a billion dollars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well so, so all those old TV ads are a
Speaker 1: big part of why cold Cereal took such a hold
Speaker 1: in the hearts and minds of baby boomers, and then
Speaker 1: they of course passed on that fondness to their now
Speaker 1: adult children. But you know, there's another element that helped
Speaker 1: in dear entire generations to breakfast Cereal that I want
Speaker 1: to talk about it, and that's the prizes that came
Speaker 1: packed inside those boxes. I mean, the prizes played such
Speaker 1: a big role. Like I might have wanted a box
Speaker 1: of Cookie Crisp, but if the Apple Jacks had one
Speaker 1: of those wacky wall walkers in it. I mean, you
Speaker 1: remember those sticky octopuses that were walked down the wall
Speaker 1: of course, Yeah, and then of course that's the box
Speaker 1: I'd end up with. Yeah, I mean, I'm with you
Speaker 1: on that. Actually I would buy a box of Cereal
Speaker 1: for one of those. Now it's been years since I played,
Speaker 1: and they were awesome, but you know, let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about how toys and games ended up inside
Speaker 1: the boxes, as well as some of the coolest and
Speaker 1: strangest ones to come along over the years. But before
Speaker 1: we do that, let's break for a quiz. They've got
Speaker 1: Gabe Fon Sica on the program now. Gabs an accomplished
Speaker 1: TV writer, but he's also got the best unboxing series
Speaker 1: on YouTube. It's called Serial Time TV, and this is
Speaker 1: where he unboxes and reviews incredible breakfast cereals. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius, Gabe. Thanks for having me. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: a fan of the podcast, so I'm honored to be
Speaker 1: on the show. Thank you so much. Now, I know
Speaker 1: you're out in Los Angeles. Man Guesh is actually on
Speaker 1: vacation today. He's out on your coast in Portland's so
Speaker 1: he sends his best but but I hope you're still
Speaker 1: willing to chat with me today, of course, of course.
Speaker 1: All right now, so okay, we've read that you have
Speaker 1: over three hundred cereal boxes in your collection, and I
Speaker 1: have to ask, like, how did you get into this
Speaker 1: in the first place, and what are some of your
Speaker 1: more prized cereal boxes. You know, I've always been a collector,
Speaker 1: and I think at one point I saw Old Spider Man,
Speaker 1: so I think that was my first box. Um it
Speaker 1: was from zero and I saw it on eBay when
Speaker 1: I was just browsing, and I was like, that'd be
Speaker 1: cool to have on my bookshelf, and I bought it
Speaker 1: and then uh, and then I was like, well, you
Speaker 1: know what, there are some other ones that I remember
Speaker 1: from back in the day, and and then it kind
Speaker 1: of just turned into this black hole on eBay where
Speaker 1: I just was was scouring and finding old cereals that
Speaker 1: brought back to these nostalgic memories to me. Wow. Wow,
Speaker 1: now I think I've read that you've tried some even
Speaker 1: some like thirty year old cereals. Is this right? Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 1: When I first started this un boxing channel on YouTube,
Speaker 1: and I started it because I started to run out
Speaker 1: of room of just having these unopened cereal boxes on
Speaker 1: my shelf and it was like, you know, this is
Speaker 1: just taking up space and this is kind of silly.
Speaker 1: I could just flatten them out, so I I decided like, well,
Speaker 1: let's for posterity, let's just record myself opening these boxes
Speaker 1: and and you know, recording with the cereal looks like
Speaker 1: and documenting it so I'll have it, you know, for posterity,
Speaker 1: and uh, and I never thought I was like going
Speaker 1: to try him, and then I'd opened some boxes and uh,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, well, let me just see if it
Speaker 1: holds up. I think the oldest one I might have
Speaker 1: tried was a grim smiles giggles and last cereal, which
Speaker 1: was from the seventies I believe, and it was pretty grass.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing, Oh man, they're terrible. They just don't you know.
Speaker 1: It tastes mostly like it tastes like the plastic in
Speaker 1: a way. It takes very toxic and disgusting. But I
Speaker 1: would I definitely do not recommend it. I can't imagine now.
Speaker 1: And in terms of yereals, are there any that you
Speaker 1: wish you could have tasted if you could go back
Speaker 1: in time? Yeah? Absolutely, There's one from before my time
Speaker 1: in the seventies called It's a Great Fellow. It was actually,
Speaker 1: um they released a Great Fellow and Baron von red Berry.
Speaker 1: There were General Mills cereals and uh, this is a
Speaker 1: Great Fellow. One tasted like you know, grape, the grape
Speaker 1: cereal or grape kool aid. I imagine I never actually
Speaker 1: got to try it, but I'm a I'm a sucker
Speaker 1: for great flavored things. And uh and even though I
Speaker 1: got a nerd cereal which came out in the eighties,
Speaker 1: which I which I got to try back and back then,
Speaker 1: I it just wasn't the same, you know, it wasn't
Speaker 1: it wasn't that great great flavor. It was kind of
Speaker 1: it wasn't a great cereal. And sir, great fellow, just
Speaker 1: just like I look at the ad campaigns I see
Speaker 1: on YouTube and I'm just like this, this was like,
Speaker 1: this is great. I really wish I was alive for
Speaker 1: this one. I could I could try that one. Yeah, yeah, Now,
Speaker 1: how about any boxes you'd love to add to your
Speaker 1: collection but haven't been able to get a hold of
Speaker 1: For me, I I kind of at this point, I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm at peace and I've kind of completed
Speaker 1: my collection and kind of everything I want. There is
Speaker 1: one really random cereal from General Mills in the nineties.
Speaker 1: It was called Buen You Litos, and I remember it.
Speaker 1: It was on shelves for a limited time and I
Speaker 1: just can't find a box of that anywhere. And that's
Speaker 1: probably like the last you know, my great you know,
Speaker 1: white whale that I'm trying to obtain. Still, I don't know, Gabe.
Speaker 1: I'm hearing in your voice that maybe you're not quite
Speaker 1: at piece yet until you find that. So off, if if,
Speaker 1: if any of our listeners out there know how to
Speaker 1: get a hold of some did you say buenolitos? Yes,
Speaker 1: all right, we'll see what we can do for you.
Speaker 1: So there'll be a free part time genius t shirt
Speaker 1: on the line for these people. But but before we
Speaker 1: let you go, Mango did leave me a quiz titled
Speaker 1: the most Important Meal Quiz of the Day. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask you a few questions if you obscure serial
Speaker 1: questions and all you gotta do is answer them. How
Speaker 1: does that sounds? All right? I'll give it my best, alright?
Speaker 1: Question number one. According to a nineteen fifty six confidential
Speaker 1: magazine report, what Breakfast Cereal was supposedly responsible for Frank
Speaker 1: Sinatra's success with women. It's got it is wheaties. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The article claimed that Sinatra could thank wheaties for his
Speaker 1: reputation as the quote Tarzan of the Boudoir. So yes,
Speaker 1: congratulations there, alright? One for one. Question number two. Before
Speaker 1: a certain tiger became spokes animal for this breakfast cereal.
Speaker 1: He had to beat out three other contenders, Elmo the Elephant,
Speaker 1: Newt the new and Katie the Kangaroo. What cereal are
Speaker 1: we talking about? Frosted flakes? That's right, it's frosted flakes. Now.
Speaker 1: Katie actually appeared on boxes in the nineteen fifties before
Speaker 1: Tony the Tiger started out selling her. All Right, here
Speaker 1: we go question number three. What popular breakfast cereal created
Speaker 1: by John Harvey Kellogg was eating aboard the Apollo eleven
Speaker 1: cereal Rice Christie. It's a pretty good guess. It was
Speaker 1: actually Kellogg's corn flakes, and so the cereal was mixed
Speaker 1: up with fruit and formed into cubes, since eating it
Speaker 1: with milk was impossible without gravity. Alright, two for three
Speaker 1: the last question here the big prize is on the line.
Speaker 1: While Saddam Hussein loved Raisin brand and requested it for
Speaker 1: breakfast in prison, he detested this cereal. Oh, I actually
Speaker 1: read the article about that fruit. Yes, it is fruit
Speaker 1: looks and according to US soldiers, one of the few
Speaker 1: times he actually looked defeated in prison was when a
Speaker 1: bowl of the fruity cereal was brought to him. But
Speaker 1: so congratulations, you got three out of four, which qualifies
Speaker 1: you for our top prize, which is a note to
Speaker 1: your mom or your boss singing your praises. So, Gabe,
Speaker 1: congratulations and thanks so much for joining us on Part
Speaker 1: Time Genius. Well thanks for having me. Well it's been
Speaker 1: it's great. Thank you very much. You're listening to Part
Speaker 1: Time Genius and we're talking about the heyday of breakfast cereal.
Speaker 1: You know, when kids became the target market and nutrition
Speaker 1: kind of took a backseat to things like marshmallows and prizes,
Speaker 1: and you know, speaking of cereal box prizes, you know,
Speaker 1: those were another way that Kelloggs tried to attract kids
Speaker 1: to cereal in the pre sugar days and three, the
Speaker 1: company started putting pen back buttons inside boxes of their
Speaker 1: pep cereal. So they started with a series of thirty
Speaker 1: six pins that featured World War Two squadron insignia from
Speaker 1: the US military. And this was before switching over to
Speaker 1: fictional heroes like comic book characters. Yeah, so those are
Speaker 1: some of the earliest inbox prizes we know about. But
Speaker 1: if we're talking buttons, my favorites are the Urkel for
Speaker 1: President campaign buttons. They were giving out during the Clinton
Speaker 1: Bush Senior campaign. Do you remember those we're talking Steve
Speaker 1: Erkel family that. I can't say I remember him running
Speaker 1: for president? But what what cereal was that? Kels? Of course,
Speaker 1: it was one of those short lived novelty cereals that
Speaker 1: crops up for a few months and then disappears, Like
Speaker 1: basically it was a sweeter version of cheerios, but wackier
Speaker 1: with banana and strawberry flavors. But uh, obviously we're getting
Speaker 1: ahead of ourselves with all these in the box because
Speaker 1: Kellogg's actually got into the prize game long before that.
Speaker 1: In the earlier days, the prizes, or premiums as they're
Speaker 1: called in the industry, weren't in the box at all.
Speaker 1: And as far as we know, the first prize used
Speaker 1: to market cereal was this nineteen o nine children's book.
Speaker 1: It was called The Funny Jungle Land Moving Pictures Book,
Speaker 1: and it was given to customers who bought two boxes
Speaker 1: of Kellogg's corn Flakes out they're participating grocery stores. After
Speaker 1: a couple of years, of course, Kellogg's decided to stop
Speaker 1: handing out the books on location. Instead offered them as
Speaker 1: mail and offer, and within four years the company had
Speaker 1: distributed two point five million copies of the book. Isn't
Speaker 1: that insane? Like it was obviously a hit with customers,
Speaker 1: so Kelloggs kept releasing new editions, and they kept going
Speaker 1: on with jungle Land books all the way up until
Speaker 1: ninety seven. I mean, I guess that's pretty cool. But
Speaker 1: I have to say I was never a fan of
Speaker 1: those mail in prizes. I mean, I was all about
Speaker 1: the instant gratification. You don't want to dig in there,
Speaker 1: like get elbow deep and some cocoa puffs or something
Speaker 1: and then just be able to like fish around and
Speaker 1: find that all of fane bag. Yeah, and then you
Speaker 1: gotta eat the cereal dust off your arm. But those
Speaker 1: were definitely the days. But I never really minded the
Speaker 1: mail ins like. I think it was partly the joy
Speaker 1: of receiving any kind of mail as a kid. The
Speaker 1: fact that anyone was sending me anything was exciting enough,
Speaker 1: even if I had to save up like a bunch
Speaker 1: of box tops and wait six to eight weeks to
Speaker 1: make it happen. Though that was mostly dying out by
Speaker 1: the time we were kids. I only remember doing it
Speaker 1: a few times. But you know that the real reason
Speaker 1: the cereal industry stepped up its game, and the prize game,
Speaker 1: specifically in the nineteen fifties is pretty interesting and it's
Speaker 1: it's thanks to this invention of what was called the
Speaker 1: screw injection molding machine, and and that's what made plastic
Speaker 1: prizes faster and cheaper to produce. And this wasn't the
Speaker 1: only time the inventor of injection molding his name was
Speaker 1: James Watson Henry would lend a hand to Cereal prizes.
Speaker 1: So in the nineteen seventies, Henry's developed the first gas
Speaker 1: assisted injection molding process, and this is what made it
Speaker 1: possible to produce these finally detailed hollow plastic objects, you know,
Speaker 1: the ones that environmental group love so much. This cut
Speaker 1: caused even more and paved the way to a golden
Speaker 1: age of these in box serial prizes. That explains why
Speaker 1: so many of the cool prizes I found were from
Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies. And and of course I'd be
Speaker 1: remiss if we didn't mention the Boson's whistle that came
Speaker 1: inside the box of Captain Crunch in the early seventies.
Speaker 1: We're talking about things we'd be remiss not mentioning about
Speaker 1: Captain Crunch. What about Gen Lafoote, which was Captain Crunch's stinky,
Speaker 1: barefooted rival. But anyway, gone with your whistle story. Well,
Speaker 1: obviously the whistle was this like really high pitched little whistle,
Speaker 1: and the Boson's whistle was one that was historically used
Speaker 1: on naval ships when commanders needed to pass orders to
Speaker 1: the crew but couldn't be heard because of the waves
Speaker 1: or weather or whatever. And these days it's mostly used
Speaker 1: in naval ceremonies. But in Captain Crunch's case, it turned
Speaker 1: out that when you covered one of the whistles holes
Speaker 1: in blue, it produced this frequency of twenty hurts, which
Speaker 1: was the exact tone a T and T used to
Speaker 1: control its long distance lines. And basically, this legendary hacker,
Speaker 1: John Thomas Drape, who was also known as Captain Crunch
Speaker 1: or Crunch or crunch Man, he learned that he could
Speaker 1: use one of the whistles to hack the phone system
Speaker 1: and get free long distance calls. I love that they
Speaker 1: figured that. It's why that old hacking magazine was actually
Speaker 1: called hundred, and then why Steve Jobs and Steve Woznia
Speaker 1: even tracked down the whistle and built a box that
Speaker 1: replicated the frequency to try and prank call the Pope.
Speaker 1: I love that as I love that they pretended to
Speaker 1: be Henry Kissinger. And it almost got there until this
Speaker 1: like suspicious bishop caught on like and and then the
Speaker 1: Pope didn't get on those pesky bishops. And you know,
Speaker 1: while injection molding allowed for all kinds of awesome plastic toys,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the funniest ones that came across
Speaker 1: were actually even like metal, or some of them even paper.
Speaker 1: Like in nineteen fifty four, Wheaties gave away these miniature
Speaker 1: state license plates and they were made of solid steel,
Speaker 1: and you got one in each box, but you could
Speaker 1: also buy them in four sets of twelve by mailing
Speaker 1: in a box top and a quarter a whopping quarter.
Speaker 1: And that was the only hitch to this was that
Speaker 1: Alaska and Hawaii had not yet become states, so there
Speaker 1: were actually only forty eight plates and all man So
Speaker 1: do you think people were like pissed when those two
Speaker 1: states got statehood a few years later and suddenly their
Speaker 1: collections were incomplete? Well, actually, Post Serials did release a
Speaker 1: set of the full fifty later on, but apparently wed
Speaker 1: still gets letters about the original campaign to this day.
Speaker 1: So maybe there's still a few determined fans out there
Speaker 1: just pestering them about their missing plates or something. I
Speaker 1: hope so. But one of the most unique prizes I
Speaker 1: read about was this paper prize. It was a deed
Speaker 1: to one inch of land in the Yukon, so like
Speaker 1: a serial company was giving away land by the inch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a great idea, right, So Quaker Oaths sponsored a
Speaker 1: show in the fifties called Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.
Speaker 1: You remember Sergeant President of the Yukon, And this was
Speaker 1: their way of linking the show to the product and
Speaker 1: full disclosure, this was a mail in prize, but this
Speaker 1: one was totally worth the weight. So for just a
Speaker 1: single box top kids would receive a deed for one
Speaker 1: square inch at the nineteen acres of Yukon territory that
Speaker 1: Quaker purchased, and they had actually purchased this from the
Speaker 1: Canadian government for a thousand dollars. The promotion was this
Speaker 1: massive success, and Quaker actually sent out more than twenty
Speaker 1: one million deeds in just a few weeks away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then lots of people would write the company or
Speaker 1: even the Canadian government from time to time to check
Speaker 1: in on their property. But sadly the reply was not
Speaker 1: good news. Apparently none of the deed holders were actually
Speaker 1: landowners because the individual deeds were never formally registered after
Speaker 1: the recipients signed them. Devastating, I know, and in the end,
Speaker 1: Canada repossessed all the land in nineteen due to non
Speaker 1: payment of get this, thirty seven dollars and twenty cents
Speaker 1: in property taxes. I mean. It also reminds me of
Speaker 1: the time during the eighties when General Mills started giving
Speaker 1: out actual one dollar bills as prizes and boxes of cherios,
Speaker 1: which it just sounds kind of like lazy, like let's
Speaker 1: let's just put a dollar in there, and except in
Speaker 1: this case the prize was actually worth something. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's way better than the promotion Cheerios offered in the
Speaker 1: fifties when they gave away color reper reductions of Confederate
Speaker 1: money and an album to keep them in all. That's
Speaker 1: so strange. I actually, I think I'd rather have the
Speaker 1: phony d than But we sort of transition into these
Speaker 1: more lackluster I don't know, dare I say, like crappy prizes,
Speaker 1: but honestly, at least they're still prizes. And and much
Speaker 1: like serial sales, serial premium seemed to be on the
Speaker 1: decline these days. Yeah, so I noticed last time I
Speaker 1: was in cerealisles there seemed to be fewer boxes advertising
Speaker 1: physical prizes, but there were a bunch of boxes offering
Speaker 1: some kind of digital prize, like access to an online
Speaker 1: video game. And I I guess serial premiums changed to
Speaker 1: reflect the times and and most kids these days would
Speaker 1: prefer some type of like instant online entertainment over a
Speaker 1: plastic figure. But I also read a report from the
Speaker 1: Center for Science and the Public Interest. Then it determined
Speaker 1: that it was far cheaper to make an online game
Speaker 1: than to produce a traditional plastic premium, and that definitely
Speaker 1: figures into the decision to scale back the physical prizes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you're right. And and not to mention that
Speaker 1: there have been a few safety scares that lead to
Speaker 1: recalls on mill lillions and millions of these plastic prizes
Speaker 1: that were deemed choking hazards. And that's actually the reason
Speaker 1: prizes were moved from the inside of the Cereal bag
Speaker 1: itself to between the bag and the box lining. This
Speaker 1: happened in the early nineties. Is you know Sereal companies
Speaker 1: saw that this was kind of a risk or a
Speaker 1: great risk if kids accidentally started gobbling up these prizes.
Speaker 1: It's it's funny because Crackerjack went through like a similar
Speaker 1: adjustment with the prizes inside their boxes and concerns about
Speaker 1: safety and rising cost of production. Next anything but paper prizes,
Speaker 1: whereas they used to have really cool stuff, and they're
Speaker 1: like Dakota rings and tin soldiers mixed in. And and
Speaker 1: since Crackerjack was the first food to actually offer box
Speaker 1: prizes way back in, it kind of seems fitting that
Speaker 1: cereal premiums would follow suit. Yeah, I mean that's true.
Speaker 1: But but but all is not lost for these in
Speaker 1: the box cereal prizes. I mean there's still some physical
Speaker 1: knickknacks sprinkled in there, but most of these are just
Speaker 1: tie in with usually like big media events or maybe
Speaker 1: movie releases. You know, the new Star Wars movie had
Speaker 1: some of these accompany that. And besides, there's another serial
Speaker 1: philosophy that suggests it's what's on the outside of the
Speaker 1: box that matters, not the inside. Okay, mango, So we've
Speaker 1: covered the actual cereal as well as the cool prizes
Speaker 1: that you find inside the bag or just outside it.
Speaker 1: So how about we conclude our anatomical tour of the
Speaker 1: cereal box by focusing on the box itself. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: sounds good, So I'll start us off with a little
Speaker 1: cereal box psychology. Back in two thousand fourteen, researchers from
Speaker 1: the Cornell Food and Brand Lab study eighties six different
Speaker 1: cereal box mascots and ten grocery stores throughout New York
Speaker 1: in Connecticut. And from this whirlwind tour, they found that
Speaker 1: boxes are strategically positioned to make eye contact with children.
Speaker 1: On average, the kid targeted cereal boxes are placed on
Speaker 1: the lower shelves, usually at a height of twenty three inches,
Speaker 1: while adult aim cereals tend to sit higher at forty
Speaker 1: eight inch shelves. And UH to capitalize on this ideal,
Speaker 1: like the mascots on the kids cereal boxes tend to
Speaker 1: feature mascots with eyes pointing downward an average angle of
Speaker 1: nine point six degrees, but the spokes characters on boxes
Speaker 1: of adult cereal generally looks straight a head. Wow, that's
Speaker 1: almost kind of creepy. So both the manufacturer and the
Speaker 1: retailer in on this scheme, and and and they wanted
Speaker 1: to make eye contact with their target markets. So why
Speaker 1: is that? I mean, I understand wanting your product as
Speaker 1: visible as possible so it attracts more attention, but why
Speaker 1: is making eye contact with the character or the spokesperson
Speaker 1: matter that much? Yeah? Well that was the question behind
Speaker 1: a second study where researchers looked into how much eye
Speaker 1: contact with Cereal box characters influences people's feelings towards the brand,
Speaker 1: and they asked sixty three participants from a private Northeastern
Speaker 1: university to examine a box of tricks Cereal and rate
Speaker 1: their feelings of trust and connection to the brand. And
Speaker 1: the catch was that some participants were given a box
Speaker 1: where the tricks rabbit was looking straight ahead and others
Speaker 1: had this box where the rabbit was looking away or
Speaker 1: down from the view. And I'm guessing people preferred, you know,
Speaker 1: whichever rabbit was looking their way or Yeah, but by
Speaker 1: a wide margin. It's really incredible. So the finding showed
Speaker 1: that participants who had eye contact with the rabbit felt
Speaker 1: sixty percent more brand trust promos shilly rabbit, and their
Speaker 1: feeling of connection to the brand was twenty eight percent
Speaker 1: higher than participants who looked at a box of tricks
Speaker 1: with the rabbit looking away. And not only that, were
Speaker 1: participants who made eye contact with rabbit actually said they
Speaker 1: enjoyed the serial more compared with another sereal that lacked
Speaker 1: eye contact component. Oh way, I mean, that's so creepy,
Speaker 1: like it's it's also notes that looking at the picture
Speaker 1: of a cartoon rabbit in the eyes can generate so
Speaker 1: much good will and actually cause us to buy the party,
Speaker 1: and and the fact that they chose this crazy rabbit
Speaker 1: that it works is just baffling. Yeah, but there is
Speaker 1: an upside to the research because now healthy cereals that
Speaker 1: are well intentioned can actually make mascots that do the
Speaker 1: same thing. Yeah, but you know, I don't want to
Speaker 1: leave this subject of tricks because actually I found some
Speaker 1: interesting stuff during our research here. So for instance, did
Speaker 1: you know that before he was an animated character the
Speaker 1: Tricks rabbit was this really like Jankee looking hand puppet,
Speaker 1: and I guess General Mills it was. You know, they
Speaker 1: were unsure early on of how to sell the concept
Speaker 1: of a serial of sessed rabbit because you know, the
Speaker 1: original slogan for the serial was I'm a rabbit and
Speaker 1: rabbits are supposed to like carrots, but I hate carrots.
Speaker 1: I like tricks that really rolls off the tongue. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it also makes the whole silly Rabbit Tricks Are
Speaker 1: for Kids campaign sound like poetry. Yeah. But that campaign
Speaker 1: had problems of its own. I mean, for one thing,
Speaker 1: it made General Mills worry that they were sending a
Speaker 1: bad message, you know, by having this rabbit continually failed
Speaker 1: to achieve his goal. You know, but where Charles Schultz
Speaker 1: concluded that Charlie Brown missing the football was what made
Speaker 1: the whole thing work. General Mills took the more democratic
Speaker 1: round in nineteen seventy six. They put this question to
Speaker 1: a vote, should the tricks rabbit finally get to eat
Speaker 1: the cereal? He craves and kids also turned out to
Speaker 1: be more merciful than Schultza, so almost a hundred percent
Speaker 1: of the votes were in favor of giving the rabbit
Speaker 1: his long awaited bowl. And that same verdict came again
Speaker 1: during a campaign I think it was in which was
Speaker 1: the last time the rabbit got his own bowl of tricks?
Speaker 1: That's been a long time. I mean, you can tell
Speaker 1: why he's jonesing for a bowl. No kidding, I mean,
Speaker 1: so these sereal mascots tend to break down into two camps.
Speaker 1: So there's the more laid back, confident, relaxed characters like
Speaker 1: Tony the Tiger or the Golden Crisp Bear, and they
Speaker 1: mostly sell cereal on the basis of their friendly demeanor
Speaker 1: and cool look. I mean, how cool is Tony know,
Speaker 1: bandana jacket awesome? You know. And then that's these unhinged
Speaker 1: cereal junkies who looked like they just don't know, like
Speaker 1: busted out of the looney bin. So these are your
Speaker 1: tricks Rabbits and Sonny the Cuckoo Bird and like all
Speaker 1: of these crazy characters. Yeah, those guys are pretty terrifying
Speaker 1: and and most of their designs have only gotten more
Speaker 1: over the top as time's gone by. What do you
Speaker 1: mean by that? So too can Sam used to have
Speaker 1: the proportions of an actual bird, but you know his body, shave,
Speaker 1: wings and feet have slowly become more human like, and
Speaker 1: and the colors too, like they're all super exaggerated and
Speaker 1: brighter and bolder, and it's crazy. And actually, have you
Speaker 1: seen Captain Crunch's latest look? Like he used to be
Speaker 1: this old, weary he captain, but now he has these
Speaker 1: huge popping eyes and wide grin and even his eyebrows
Speaker 1: have gotten more excited, like their way up over his hat.
Speaker 1: Now his hat has eyebrows. It's very impressive. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean there's always been something suspect about that guy anyway,
Speaker 1: if we're being honest that did you hear the controversy
Speaker 1: a few years back somebody had noticed that the sleeves
Speaker 1: of his uniform only had three yellow stripes instead of four.
Speaker 1: I love that people are paying this close attention to it,
Speaker 1: but apparently that pegs him as a commander in the Navy,
Speaker 1: not a captain. So to his credit, when fans called
Speaker 1: him out, Crunch took to Twitter to plead his case.
Speaker 1: And so here's what he said, all hearsay and misunderstandings.
Speaker 1: I captain the SS Guppy with my crew, which makes
Speaker 1: an official captain in my book. Besides, it's the Crunch,
Speaker 1: not the clothes that make a man. It almost gives
Speaker 1: me goose. It's always been my belief that the facts
Speaker 1: make the man. So I think it's time for a
Speaker 1: little fact off. All right, let's do it. I'll go
Speaker 1: first here. So um alright, So, speaking of Captain Crunch,
Speaker 1: did did you know that in two thousand nine, a
Speaker 1: woman in California, filed a class action suit against the
Speaker 1: maker of Captain Crunch's crunch berries. And she did this
Speaker 1: because she said, for four long years she'd been eating
Speaker 1: these crunch berries and thinking they were real fruit. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, you've got strawberries and blueberries, raspberries, and of
Speaker 1: course crunch berries. But of course the judge and Sacramento
Speaker 1: did not see it her way and quickly dismissed the suit. So,
Speaker 1: according to one study commissioned by Kellogg, more than ten
Speaker 1: percent of Americans had tried eating cereal with orange juice
Speaker 1: or coffee instead of milk. I mean, is that true, Like,
Speaker 1: have you ever done that? I have never done that before.
Speaker 1: That would ruin a ball. No, absolutely not. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: according to a different study, women who regularly ate cereal
Speaker 1: before conception are slightly more likely to have boys. There's
Speaker 1: something about having a high energy intake before conceiving that
Speaker 1: leads to these greater odds, And the food that seemed
Speaker 1: to increase the odds the most was cereal. That's crazy.
Speaker 1: So you're an oatmeal leader, right, well, I mean sometimes yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Well did you know that the quote strawberries and peaches
Speaker 1: and quicker instant oatmeal are actually dehydrated apples, and the
Speaker 1: blueberries are dehydrated figs. And for a quicker sake, I
Speaker 1: hope that the crunch Ferry Lady doesn't find out. But
Speaker 1: at least the real fruits, that's true. They're real fruits, yeah,
Speaker 1: unlike the crunchberries. So well, as kids, we always heard
Speaker 1: that we should eat a good breakfast anytime we need
Speaker 1: to do anything important that day, and studies do back
Speaker 1: that up, often showing that breakfast eaters will perform about
Speaker 1: ten better on memory tests than those who skipped. But
Speaker 1: it also appears that eating not just breakfast, but specifically
Speaker 1: cereal leads to a better mood. So according to research
Speaker 1: from Bristol University, there are long term effects of eating
Speaker 1: cereal for breakfast, and their findings quote people feel better
Speaker 1: cereals boosted their mood. So I mean that's just the
Speaker 1: kind of support we needed as cereal leaders. And what
Speaker 1: a happy way to end this episode. I'm gonna let
Speaker 1: you take home the trophy this week, and listeners, if
Speaker 1: there are any great serial facts we forgot, please let
Speaker 1: us know. You can always write us at part time
Speaker 1: genius at how stuff works dot com or call us
Speaker 1: on our seven fact hotline Why eight for four pt Genius.
Speaker 1: You know we love hearing from you well, and don't
Speaker 1: forget to join us again next week when we publish
Speaker 1: episodes asking the questions how big is the US military
Speaker 1: and what are the worst jobs in the world, including
Speaker 1: a peek into the important world of Wales not collecting.
Speaker 1: That's gonna be pretty interesting. Are you sure that's right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. All right. Well, that's it for today's episode.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius
Speaker 1: is a production of how stuff works and wouldn't be
Speaker 1: possible without several brilliant people who do the important things
Speaker 1: we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan McNeil does the
Speaker 1: editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song and does
Speaker 1: the mixy mixy sound thing. Gerry Roland does the exact
Speaker 1: producer thing. Gabe Louesier is our lead researcher, with support
Speaker 1: from the Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and
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