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
Speaker 1: cereals and we were, of course away from our parents
Speaker 1: for the first time and being independent and responsible, and
Speaker 1: so I piled my bowl high with Lucky Charms. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it was Lucky Charles, but whatever was the
Speaker 1: most nutritious cereal out there. I love that when you
Speaker 1: were finally like free from the overside of your parents,
Speaker 1: like that was the first thing you did to express
Speaker 1: your freedom, was like, get a big bowl of cereal.
Speaker 1: But yes, I do remember that big, awesome wall of cereal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the people we were with started making fun of
Speaker 1: me for eating a kid cereal instead of musically or whatever.
Speaker 1: And and right then the star basketball recruit Eldon Brand
Speaker 1: walked up and got a bowl of the same thing,
Speaker 1: and it was just pure silent and I felt like
Speaker 1: such a trend setter. And I remember that that's when
Speaker 1: you became the most popular kid on campus. And not
Speaker 1: really but part of the reason I love breakfast cereals
Speaker 1: so much. And you know, we used to have big
Speaker 1: cereal parties that metal flaws where everyone would bring a
Speaker 1: box in their favorite cereal. But uh, there's just such
Speaker 1: a wonderful association with childhood and Saturday Morning cartoons, and
Speaker 1: that's actually why we're talking about cereal today. Let's dig
Speaker 1: in Ada. Their podcast listeners, Welcome to parts I'm genius,
Speaker 1: I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my
Speaker 1: good friend man Gesh Ticketer and the man on the
Speaker 1: other side of the soundproof glass eating a big bowl
Speaker 1: of frosted many weeks good choice today as our producer
Speaker 1: Tristan McNeil. But today we're heading back to the grocery
Speaker 1: all for a closer look at all things cereal, you know,
Speaker 1: the most whimsical or nutritionally questionable at all of this,
Speaker 1: at every part of a complete breakfast. And so we'll
Speaker 1: dig into the weird stories and so rising facts behind
Speaker 1: our favorite brands, as well as a few of the
Speaker 1: lesser known breakfast cereals that time forgot. And then a
Speaker 1: little bit later we'll be joined by Gave Fonseca. He's
Speaker 1: a TV writer and he spent more than a decade
Speaker 1: collecting childhood nostalgia in the form of vintage cereal boxes.
Speaker 1: It's a fascinating collection. Yeah, and he's also the host
Speaker 1: of this really fun YouTube series called cereal Time, which
Speaker 1: is the series on the subject of breakfast cereal. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's been doing it for a couple of years now,
Speaker 1: so I'm super excited 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 ninety 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 like
Speaker 1: a hobbit? It's kind of a jarring name if you're
Speaker 1: a Lord 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 brakes and 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 agoing to India though. We never
Speaker 1: ate breakfast cereals and we never ate in from 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 guess 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. According to NPR, serial consumption
Speaker 1: peaked right around ninete I guess it was, and has
Speaker 1: steadily gone downhill ever since, generally by a full percentage
Speaker 1: point each year. And while the stuff you mentioned has
Speaker 1: definitely played a part in that decline, it's really due
Speaker 1: to a combination of factors. You know. For example, back
Speaker 1: in lawmakers passed the Nutrition and Labeling Education Act, and
Speaker 1: that made it mandatory for all products to include the
Speaker 1: now commonplace list of nutrition facts on the packaging. And
Speaker 1: this made it easier than ever for consumers to see
Speaker 1: the nutritional value or lack thereof, I guess, and they
Speaker 1: could look at this and all of their cereals now
Speaker 1: at this point, and as more people became educated about
Speaker 1: just how much sugar and carbs they were eating or
Speaker 1: feeding to their kids, you know, they started to think
Speaker 1: twice before tossing a box in the car whenever they're
Speaker 1: with grocery store. So I looked into just how sugary
Speaker 1: cereal can be. And it's insane, Like the whole cereal
Speaker 1: industry uses around eight hundred sixty million pounds of sugar
Speaker 1: in its products every year, and apparently most of that's
Speaker 1: going into honey smacks, you know, for some reason, you
Speaker 1: don't know out there, that's the one with the cool
Speaker 1: frog wearing the backwards baseball cap on the box. I
Speaker 1: thought you were talking to me for a second, was like,
Speaker 1: I know, Honey Smacks, man, come on, well, honey Smacks
Speaker 1: is consistently ranked the worst cereal for your health because
Speaker 1: it has less than two grams of fiber per serving
Speaker 1: and its ingredients breakdown to almost sixty percent sugar. It's tasty,
Speaker 1: but according to the Environmental and Working Group, there's more
Speaker 1: sugar in one cup serving of honey Smacks than there
Speaker 1: isn't a Hostess twinkie, no way. And I know that
Speaker 1: it is sweet, obviously, and I knew it wasn't good
Speaker 1: for you. But honestly, like the taste of honey Smacks,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have guessed it was the most sugary cereal.
Speaker 1: But it kind of makes my teeth are just thinking
Speaker 1: about that. But you know that that sugar to fiber
Speaker 1: ratio might make us cringe. But there's one particular serial
Speaker 1: eleating demographic that you're not going to hear complaining about this,
Speaker 1: and that's kids, or at least my kids. Yeah, my
Speaker 1: kids do. Actually, do you remember there was this great
Speaker 1: Calvin and Hobbs where Calvin's eating his favorite cereal I
Speaker 1: think it's something like chocolate frostage sugar bombs, and he
Speaker 1: gives Hobbs to try, and Hobbs just starts shaking, gagging
Speaker 1: from the sweetness, and Calvin says, actually they're kind of
Speaker 1: bland until he scoops some sugar off. But what I
Speaker 1: find really interesting is how deeply ingrained the fondness for
Speaker 1: breakfast cereal is and so many people, and how so
Speaker 1: much of that seems rooted in their childhood. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: i'd say for most adults seal leaders, it's a big
Speaker 1: part of the allure. I mean, it's what you were
Speaker 1: saying about your kids. There's these memories of watching Saturday
Speaker 1: morning cartoons with a big bowl of Captain Crunch in
Speaker 1: your hand, or maybe indulging in a late night fix
Speaker 1: of Lucky Charms sitting in your college dorm. I don't
Speaker 1: know who you're talking about, right, Well, it's sort of
Speaker 1: a comfort food in a way. I mean, it takes
Speaker 1: us back to simpler days when most of us were
Speaker 1: a little more carefree about what we ate and why. Yeah,
Speaker 1: 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 a Cuber Cereal when I was
Speaker 1: a kid. Do you remember Cuber? Yeah, that video game character,
Speaker 1: and and also eating one with smurfberries. Like my parents
Speaker 1: only really bought a sugar cereals for maybe a year
Speaker 1: or two, but I remember sampling some weird ones. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I always thought it was completely bonkers that
Speaker 1: some cereals didn't even mask the fact that they were candy,
Speaker 1: Like you know, Kellogg's did a candy corn Pops. But
Speaker 1: even more blatant than that, there was a Nerds Cereal
Speaker 1: and I'm ticked off that I never tried it. Nerd 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 isn't sane. 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 not like the birthrate will ever drop to zero
Speaker 1: or anything like that, but fewer kids does result than
Speaker 1: fewer cereal fans, obviously. Yeah, It's it's funny that something
Speaker 1: that started out as health food became so dependent on
Speaker 1: selling sugar to kids, but I guess that's usually how
Speaker 1: it goes with food. Trends, like someone with these very
Speaker 1: 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, right, 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 Flix 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. Yeah. He really did seem to believe and
Speaker 1: what he was selling, sure, but the problem was that
Speaker 1: the same couldn't be said of his brother, Will Kellogg.
Speaker 1: And and Will try for years to convince his brother
Speaker 1: to add sugar to their cereal, believing it would add
Speaker 1: some flavor to what he called horse food. But the
Speaker 1: tipping point came into late forties when their competitor Post
Speaker 1: Cereals released Sugar Crisp, so Posted branched out beyond the
Speaker 1: health food market with its first sugarcoated cereal, and like
Speaker 1: it or not, Kellogg kind of had to follow 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 Cracklin 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, these highly
Speaker 1: processed oats and grains were a tough sell without adding
Speaker 1: something you know, sweet to it. That's crazy though, I like,
Speaker 1: I had no idea that the Rice Christie's trio had
Speaker 1: been around that long. I thought they were post fifties
Speaker 1: like most other Cereal mascots. Yeah, Snap Cracklin Pop are
Speaker 1: actually one of the longest running ad campaigns in history,
Speaker 1: and as I was looking up at that, they're actually
Speaker 1: the longest for Cereal brands. Actually, by the way, did
Speaker 1: you know that their names are on amount of pia
Speaker 1: sounds for what you hear when milk is added to
Speaker 1: the cereal. But apparently Rice Crispies were always marketed as
Speaker 1: the cereal you can hear, and this was even before
Speaker 1: the mascots came along. In fact, the guy who created
Speaker 1: the characters did so after being inspired by one of
Speaker 1: the brand's previous radio jingles, because I know you're dying
Speaker 1: to know what it was. Here the lyrics, I jotted
Speaker 1: them down, So all right, listen to the fairy song
Speaker 1: of help the Mary Corus sung by Kelloggs Rice Crispi
Speaker 1: as they merrily snap, crackle and pop in a bowl
Speaker 1: of milk. If you've never heard food talking, now is
Speaker 1: your chance. I'm so hungry for a bowl of cereal? Now,
Speaker 1: why didn't I do this before? And also that was
Speaker 1: a jingle like it doesn't even rive? Was I was
Speaker 1: gonna put it to song that I just made up
Speaker 1: against it? So, I mean, obviously mascots were a smart move,
Speaker 1: since it's hard to market like a fairy song of
Speaker 1: health without them. But wasn't there also a fourth gnome
Speaker 1: for a while, Yeah, you bet there was Pal He
Speaker 1: stood for the cereals nutritional punch, I think, And of
Speaker 1: course he didn't last very long. But let's get this
Speaker 1: back on track. So gradually the Sweden Cereals come to
Speaker 1: dominate the market, thanks, you know, because of product placement
Speaker 1: and children's programming, and they've never looked back since. And
Speaker 1: in fact, the breakfast cereal industry is still one of
Speaker 1: the top spenders for a commercial air time. More than
Speaker 1: a million Cereal ads air on TV each year, which
Speaker 1: cost companies like Post and Kelloggs more than I want
Speaker 1: to say, like half a billion dollars. Yeah, well so,
Speaker 1: so all those old TV ads are a big part
Speaker 1: of why Cold Cereal took such a hold in the
Speaker 1: hearts and minds of baby boomers, and then they of
Speaker 1: course passed on that fondness to their now adult children.
Speaker 1: But you know, there's another element that helped the dear
Speaker 1: entire generations to breakfast Cereal that I want to talk
Speaker 1: about it, and that's the prizes that came packed inside
Speaker 1: those boxes. I mean, the prizes played such a big role.
Speaker 1: Like I might have wanted a box of Cookie Crisp,
Speaker 1: but if the Apple Jacks had one of those wacky
Speaker 1: wall walkers in it. I mean you remember those sticky
Speaker 1: octopuses that were walked down the wall of course, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then of course that's the box I'd end up with. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm with you on that. Actually I would
Speaker 1: buy a box of Cereal for one of those. Now
Speaker 1: it's been years since I played one. They were awesome.
Speaker 1: But you know, let's talk a little bit about how
Speaker 1: toys and games ended up inside the boxes, as well
Speaker 1: as some of the coolest and strangest ones to come
Speaker 1: along over the years. But before we do that, let's
Speaker 1: break for a quiz. They we've got Gabe fon Sica
Speaker 1: on the program now. Gabs an accomplished TV writer, but
Speaker 1: he's also got the best unboxing series on YouTube. It's
Speaker 1: called Serial Time TV and this is where he unboxes
Speaker 1: and reviews incredible breakfast cereals. Welcome to part time Genius, Gabe.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. I'm I'm a fan of the podcast,
Speaker 1: so I'm on it to be on the show. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Now, I know you're out in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Man Guesh is actually on vacation today. He's out on
Speaker 1: your coast in Portland's so he sends his best but
Speaker 1: but I hope you're still willing to chat with me today,
Speaker 1: of course, of course. All right now, so, Gay, we've
Speaker 1: read that you have over three hundred cereal boxes in
Speaker 1: your collection, and I have to ask, like, how did
Speaker 1: you get into this in the first place, and what
Speaker 1: are some of your more prized cereal boxes. You know,
Speaker 1: I've always been a collector and I think at one
Speaker 1: point I saw Old Spider Man Surreal. I think that
Speaker 1: was my first box. Um it was from zero and
Speaker 1: I saw it on eBay when I was just browsing,
Speaker 1: and I was like, that'd be cool to have on
Speaker 1: my bookshelf, and I bought it and then uh, and
Speaker 1: then I was like, well, you know what, there are
Speaker 1: some other ones that I remember from back in the day,
Speaker 1: and and then it kind of just turned into this
Speaker 1: black hole on eBay where I just was was scouring
Speaker 1: and finding old cereals that that brought back these nostalgic
Speaker 1: memories to me. Wow. Wow, now I think I've read
Speaker 1: that you've tried some even some like thirty year old cereals.
Speaker 1: Is this right? Yeah? Yeah. When I first started this
Speaker 1: unboxing channel on YouTube, and I started it because I
Speaker 1: started to run out a room of just having these
Speaker 1: unopened Cereal boxes on my shelf and it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, this is just taking up space and this
Speaker 1: is kind of silly. I could just flatten them out,
Speaker 1: So I I decided like, well, let's for posterity, let's
Speaker 1: just record myself opening these boxes and and you know,
Speaker 1: recording with the Cereal looks like and documenting it so
Speaker 1: I'll have it, you know, for posterity, and uh, and
Speaker 1: I never thought I was like going to try him,
Speaker 1: and then I'd opened some boxes and uh, I'd be like, well,
Speaker 1: let me just see if it holds up. I think
Speaker 1: the oldest one I might have tried was a grim
Speaker 1: smiles giggles and last cereal, which was from the seventies,
Speaker 1: I believe, and it was pretty grass. I'm guessing, Oh man,
Speaker 1: they're terrible. They just don't you know. It tastes mostly
Speaker 1: like it tastes like the plastic in a way. It
Speaker 1: takes very toxic and disgusting. But I would I definitely
Speaker 1: do not recommend it. I can't imagine now. In terms
Speaker 1: of cereals, are there any that you wish you could
Speaker 1: have tasted if you could go back in time? Yeah? Absolutely.
Speaker 1: There's one from before my time in the seventies called
Speaker 1: a Great Fellow. It was actually, um they released a
Speaker 1: Great Fellow and Baron von red Berry. There were General
Speaker 1: Mills cereals and uh, this is a Great Fellow. One
Speaker 1: tasted like you know, grape the grape cereal or great
Speaker 1: kool Aid. I imagine I never actually got to try it,
Speaker 1: but I'm a I'm a sucker for great flavored things.
Speaker 1: And uh and even though I got a Nerds cereal
Speaker 1: which came out in the eighties, which I which I
Speaker 1: got to try back and back then, I it just
Speaker 1: wasn't the same, you know, it wasn't it wasn't that
Speaker 1: great great flavor. It was kind of it wasn't a
Speaker 1: great cereal, And Sir, great fellow, just just like I
Speaker 1: look at the ad campaigns I see on YouTube and
Speaker 1: I'm just like this, this was like, this is great.
Speaker 1: I really wish I was alive for this one. I
Speaker 1: could I could try that one. Yeah, yeah, Now, how
Speaker 1: about any boxes you'd love to add to your collection
Speaker 1: but haven't been able to get ahold of For me?
Speaker 1: I I kind of at this point, I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm at peace and that's kind of completed my collection
Speaker 1: and kind of everything I want. There is one really
Speaker 1: random cereal from General Mills in the nineties. It was
Speaker 1: called Buen You Litos, and I remember it. It was
Speaker 1: on shelves for a limited time, and I just can't
Speaker 1: find a box of that anywhere. And that's probably like
Speaker 1: the last you know, my great you know, white whale
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: if if any of our listeners out there know how
Speaker 1: to get ahold of some did you say boren Alito's 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's
Speaker 1: 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 to be wheat It
Speaker 1: is Wheaties. Yeah. The article claimed that Sinatra could thank
Speaker 1: Wheatie's for his reputation as the quote Tarzan of the Boudoir.
Speaker 1: So yes, congratulations there, all right? One for one? Question
Speaker 1: number two. Before a certain tiger became spokes animal for
Speaker 1: this breakfast cereal. He had to beat out three other contenders,
Speaker 1: Elmo the Elephant, Newt the new and Katie the Kangaroo.
Speaker 1: What cereal are we talking about? Frosted flakes? That's right,
Speaker 1: it's frosted flakes. Now. Katie actually appeared on boxes in
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties before Tony the Tiger started out selling her.
Speaker 1: All right, here we go question number three. What popular
Speaker 1: breakfast cereal created by John Harvey Kellogg was eating aboard
Speaker 1: the Apollo eleven cereal? Christ, It's a pretty good guess.
Speaker 1: It was actually Kellogg's corn flakes, And so the cereal
Speaker 1: was mixed up with fruit and formed into cube since
Speaker 1: eating it with milk was impossible without gravity. Alright, two
Speaker 1: for three. The last question here the big prize is
Speaker 1: on the line. While Saddam Hussein loved Raisin brand and
Speaker 1: requested it for breakfast in prison, he detested this cereal. Oh,
Speaker 1: I actually read the article about that. Yes, it is
Speaker 1: fruit looks and according to US soldiers, one of the
Speaker 1: few times he actually looked defeated in prison was when
Speaker 1: a bowl of the fruity cereal was brought to him.
Speaker 1: But so, congratulations, you've got three out of four, which
Speaker 1: qualifies you for our top prize, which is a note
Speaker 1: to 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 pens 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: Urkel from Family. 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 nine nine children's book. It
Speaker 1: was called the Funny Jungle Land Moving Pictures Book, and
Speaker 1: it was given to customers who bought two boxes of
Speaker 1: Kellogg's corn flakes that they're participating grocery stores. After a
Speaker 1: couple of years, of course, Kelloggs decided to stop handing
Speaker 1: out the books on location. Instead offered them as mail
Speaker 1: and offer, and within four years the company had distributed
Speaker 1: two point five million copies of the book, isn't that insane? Like,
Speaker 1: it was obviously a hit with customers, so Kelloggs kept
Speaker 1: releasing new editions, and they kept going on with jungle
Speaker 1: Land books all the way up until ninety seven. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess that's pretty cool. But I have to say
Speaker 1: I was never a fan of those mail in prizes.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was all about the instant gratification. You
Speaker 1: don't want to dig in there, like get elbow deep
Speaker 1: and some cocoa puffs or something and then just be
Speaker 1: able to like fish around and find that all aphane bag. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you gotta eat the cereal dust off your arm.
Speaker 1: But those were definitely the days. But I never really
Speaker 1: minded the mail ins like I think it was partly
Speaker 1: the joy of receiving any kind of mail as a kid,
Speaker 1: The 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 and the
Speaker 1: prize game, specifically in the nineteen fifties is pretty interesting
Speaker 1: and it's it's thanks to this invention of what was
Speaker 1: called the screw injection molding machine, and and that's what
Speaker 1: made plastic prizes faster and cheaper to produce. And this
Speaker 1: wasn't the only time the inventor of injection molding his
Speaker 1: name was James Watson Henry would lend a hand to
Speaker 1: cereal prizes. So in the nineteen seventies, Henry's developed the
Speaker 1: first gas assisted injection molding process, and this is what
Speaker 1: made it possible to produce these finally detailed hollow plastic objects,
Speaker 1: you know, the ones that environmental group love so much.
Speaker 1: This cut costs even more and paved the way to
Speaker 1: a golden age of these in box serial prizes. That
Speaker 1: explains why so many of the cool prizes I found
Speaker 1: were from the sixties and seventies. And of course I'd
Speaker 1: be remiss if we didn't mention the Boson's whistle that
Speaker 1: came inside the box of Captain Crunch in the early seventies.
Speaker 1: We're talking about things we'd remiss not mentioning about Captain Crunch.
Speaker 1: What about Gen Lafoote which was Captain Crunch's stinky, barefooted rival.
Speaker 1: But anyway, gone with your whistle story. Well, obviously the
Speaker 1: whistles just like really high fished little whistle, and the
Speaker 1: Boson's whistle was one that was historically used on naval
Speaker 1: ships when commanders needed to pass orders to the crew
Speaker 1: but couldn't be heard because of the waves or weather
Speaker 1: or whatever. And these days it's mostly used in naval ceremonies.
Speaker 1: But in Captain Crunch's case, it turned out that when
Speaker 1: you covered one of the whistles holes in blue, it
Speaker 1: produced this frequency of twenty hurts, which was the exact
Speaker 1: tone a T and T used to control its long
Speaker 1: distance lines. And basically, this legendary hacker, John Thomas Drape,
Speaker 1: who was also known as Captain Crunch or Crunch or
Speaker 1: crunch Man, he learned that he could use one of
Speaker 1: the whistles to hack the phone system and get free
Speaker 1: long distance calls. I love that they figured that. It's
Speaker 1: why that old hacking magazine was actually called hundred, and
Speaker 1: then why Steve Jobs and Steve Wosna even tracked down
Speaker 1: the whistle and built a box that replicated the frequency
Speaker 1: to try and prank call the Pope. I love that
Speaker 1: as I love that they pretended to be Henry Kissinger.
Speaker 1: And it almost got there until this like suspicious bishop
Speaker 1: caught on like and and then the Pope didn't get
Speaker 1: on those pesky bishops. And you know, while injection molding
Speaker 1: allowed for all kinds of awesome plastic toys, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the funniest ones that came across were actually
Speaker 1: even like metal, or some of them even paper. Like
Speaker 1: in nineteen four, Wheaties gave away these miniature state license
Speaker 1: plates and they were made of solid steel, and you
Speaker 1: got one in each box, but you could also buy
Speaker 1: them in four sets of twelve by mailing in a
Speaker 1: box top and a quarter a whopping quarter, and that
Speaker 1: would be The only hitch to the was that Alaska
Speaker 1: and Hawaii had not yet become states, so there were
Speaker 1: actually only forty eight plates and all. Oh 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 we
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 a
Speaker 1: 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 actually purchased this from the Canadian
Speaker 1: government for a thousand dollars. The promotion was this massive success,
Speaker 1: and Quaker actually sent out more than twenty one million
Speaker 1: deeds in just a few weeks away. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: lots of people would write the company or even the
Speaker 1: Canadian government from time to time to check in on
Speaker 1: their property. But sadly the reply was not good news.
Speaker 1: Apparently none of the deed holders were actually landowners because
Speaker 1: the individual deeds were never formally registered after the recipients
Speaker 1: signed them, I know. And in the end, Canada repossessed
Speaker 1: all the land in nineteen five due to non payment
Speaker 1: of get this, thirty seven dollars and twenty cents in
Speaker 1: property taxes. You know. I mean. It also reminds me
Speaker 1: of the time during the eighties when General Mills started
Speaker 1: giving out actual one dollar bills as prizes and boxes
Speaker 1: of cherios. It just sounds kind of like lazy, like
Speaker 1: let's let's just put a dollar in there, and except
Speaker 1: in this case the prize was actually worth something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's way better than the promotion Cherios offered in
Speaker 1: the fifties when they gave away color rep productions of
Speaker 1: Confederate Money and an album to keep them in. Oh
Speaker 1: that's so strange. I actually I think I'd rather have
Speaker 1: the phony d than But we sort of transition into
Speaker 1: these more lackluster I don't know, dare I say, like
Speaker 1: crappy prizes, but honestly, at least they're still prizes and
Speaker 1: and much like serial sales, Serial Premium seemed to be
Speaker 1: on the decline these days. Yes, so I noticed last
Speaker 1: time I was in Cereal aisles there seemed to be
Speaker 1: fewer boxes advertising physical prizes, but there were a bunch
Speaker 1: of boxes offering some kind of digital prize, like access
Speaker 1: to an online video game. And I guess serial premiums
Speaker 1: changed to reflect the times and and most kids these
Speaker 1: days would prefer some type of like instant online entertainment
Speaker 1: over a plastic figure. But I also read a report
Speaker 1: from the Center for Science and the Public Interest, and
Speaker 1: it determined that it was far cheaper to make an
Speaker 1: online game than to produce a traditional plastic premium, and
Speaker 1: that definitely figures into the decision to scale back the
Speaker 1: physical prizes. Yeah, I think you're right. And not to
Speaker 1: mention that there have been a few safety scares that
Speaker 1: lead to recalls on mill millions and millions of these
Speaker 1: plastic prizes that were deemed choking hazards, and that's actually
Speaker 1: the reason prizes were moved from the inside of the
Speaker 1: Cereal bag itself to between the bag and the box lining.
Speaker 1: This happened in the early nineties. Is you know, Sereal
Speaker 1: companies saw that this was kind of a risk, or
Speaker 1: a 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 in there,
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 eighty 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 am 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 at 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 they wanted to
Speaker 1: make eye contact with their target markets. But 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: six percent more brand trust probas silly 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, for
Speaker 1: participants who made eye contact with rabbit actually said they
Speaker 1: enjoyed the serial more compared with another cereal 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 a 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's an
Speaker 1: upside to the research because now healthy cereals that are
Speaker 1: well intentioned can actually make mascots that do the same thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But you know, I don't want to leave this subject
Speaker 1: of tricks because actually I found some interesting stuff during
Speaker 1: our research here. So for instance, did you know that
Speaker 1: before he was an animated character, the Tricks Rabbit was
Speaker 1: this really like Jankee looking hand puppet, and I guess
Speaker 1: General Mills it was. You know, they were unsure early
Speaker 1: on of how to sell the concept of a serial
Speaker 1: of cessed rabbit, because you know, the original slogan for
Speaker 1: the serial was I'm a rabbit and rabbits are supposed
Speaker 1: to like carrots, but I hate carrots. I like tricks.
Speaker 1: That really rolls off the tongue. Yeah, and it also
Speaker 1: makes the whole silly Rabbit Tricks are for Kids campaign
Speaker 1: sound like poetry, Yeah, but that campaign had problems of
Speaker 1: its own. I mean, for one thing, it made General
Speaker 1: Mills worry that they were sending a bad message, you know,
Speaker 1: by having this rabbit continually failed to achieve his goal.
Speaker 1: You know, but where Charles Schultz concluded that Charlie Brown
Speaker 1: missing the football was what made the whole thing work.
Speaker 1: General Mills took the more democratic round in nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 1: They put this question to a vote, should the tricks
Speaker 1: rabbit finally get to eat the cereal? He craves and
Speaker 1: kids also turned out to be more merciful than Schultza,
Speaker 1: so almost a hundred percent of the votes were in
Speaker 1: favor of giving the rabbit his long awaited bowl. And
Speaker 1: that same verdict came again during a campaign I think
Speaker 1: it was in nineteen eighty, which was the last time
Speaker 1: the rabbit got his own bowl of tricks. That's been
Speaker 1: a long time. I mean, you can tell why he's
Speaker 1: jonesing for a bowl, No kidding, I mean, so these
Speaker 1: cereal mascots tend to break down into two camps. So
Speaker 1: there's the more laid back, confident, relaxed characters like Tony
Speaker 1: the Tiger or like Golden Crisp Bear, and they mostly
Speaker 1: sell cereal on the basis of their friendly demeanor and
Speaker 1: cool look. I mean, how cool is tony bandana jacket? Awesome?
Speaker 1: You know? And then that these unhinged cereal junkies who
Speaker 1: looked like they just don't know, like busted out of
Speaker 1: the looney bin. So these are your tricks Rabbits and
Speaker 1: Sonny the Cuckoo Bird and like all of these crazy characters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those guys are pretty terrifying and and most of their
Speaker 1: designs have only gotten more over the top as time's
Speaker 1: gone by. What do you mean by that? So too
Speaker 1: can Sam used to have the proportions of an actual bird,
Speaker 1: but you know his body, shave, wings, and feet have
Speaker 1: slowly become more human like, and and the colors too,
Speaker 1: like they're all super exaggerated and brighter and bolder, and
Speaker 1: it's crazy. And actually, have you seen Captain Crunch's latest look?
Speaker 1: Like he used to be this old, weary he captain,
Speaker 1: but now he has these huge popping eyes and wide
Speaker 1: grim and even his eyebrows have gotten more excited, like
Speaker 1: their way up over his hat. Now his hat has eyebrows.
Speaker 1: It's very impressive. Well, I mean, there's always been something
Speaker 1: suspect about that guy anyway, if we're being honest that
Speaker 1: did you hear the controversy a few years back somebody
Speaker 1: had noticed that the sleeves of his uniform only had
Speaker 1: three yellow stripes instead of four. I love that people
Speaker 1: were paying this close attention to it, But apparently that
Speaker 1: pegs him as a commander in the Navy, not a captain.
Speaker 1: So to his credit, when fans called him out, Crunch
Speaker 1: took to Twitter to plead his case. And so here's
Speaker 1: what he said, all hearsay and misunderstandings. I captain the
Speaker 1: ss Guppy with my crew, which makes an official captain
Speaker 1: in my book. Besides, it's the crunch, not the clothes,
Speaker 1: that make a man. It almost gives me goose. It's
Speaker 1: always been my belief that the facts make the man.
Speaker 1: So I think it's time for a little fact off.
Speaker 1: All right, let's do it. I'll go first here. So um, alright, So,
Speaker 1: speaking of Captain Crunch, did did you know that in
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, a woman in California filed a class
Speaker 1: action suit against the maker of Captain Crunch's crunch Berries
Speaker 1: and she did this because she said, for four long
Speaker 1: years she'd been eating these crunch berries and thinking they
Speaker 1: were real fruit. I mean, you know, you've got strawberries
Speaker 1: and blueberries, raspberries and of course crunch berries. But of
Speaker 1: course the judge and Sacramento did not see it her
Speaker 1: way and quickly dismissed the suit. So, according to one
Speaker 1: study commissioned by Kellogg, more than ten percent of Americans
Speaker 1: had tried eating cereal with orange juice or coffee instead
Speaker 1: of milk. I mean, is that true, Like, have you
Speaker 1: ever done that? I have never done. I don't or
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 percent better on memory tests than those who skipped.
Speaker 1: But it also appears that eating not just breakfast, but
Speaker 1: specifically cereal leads to a better mood. So according to
Speaker 1: research from Bristol University, there are long term effects of
Speaker 1: eating cereal for breakfast, and their findings quote people feel
Speaker 1: better cereals boosted their mood. So I mean that's just
Speaker 1: the kind of support we needed as cereal leaders. And
Speaker 1: what a happy way to end this episode. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: let you take over the trophy this week, and listeners,
Speaker 1: if there are any great serial facts we forgot, please
Speaker 1: let us know. You can always write us at part
Speaker 1: time genius at how stuff works dot com or call
Speaker 1: us on our seven fact hotline one eight for a
Speaker 1: four pt genius. You know we love hearing from you well,
Speaker 1: and don't forget to join us again next week when
Speaker 1: we published episodes asking the questions how big is the U. S? 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 MIXI MIXI sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the exact
Speaker 1: producer thing. Gay Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support
Speaker 1: from the Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and
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