They’re Grrreat!

It's nice side with Boston's news Radio.

We are the Freakki's. We are the Freaki's. This is a freaky tree e.

D.

Why am I humming that? Because that was my favorite cereal and that was a jingle about my favorite cereal. Periodically we talk about cereal here on WBZ, whether it's The Morgan Show or Night Side, and it's always to for Ellis tofa good evening, Happy holidays. Oh and I mean, can you hear me?

I'm hoping so I can you hear me now?

Loud and clear?

Excellent?

So let me start again. Of all the premiums that came in Cereal boxes, two separate questions. What is the most soughtmium everybody wants to own that the winning of the Pool spoon sliders or the deed to Land from Quaker Oats. And what items would bring the most at a auction for Cereal items.

Oh, great question. My personal favorite. You've just named both of them. The wing of the Pooh Spoon Sitters, of which the whole collection of the different winning the Pool characters would either slide onto your spoon and sit right on your spoon, or they could also hang on the side of your bowl. They came in nice colors and they came into Bisco packages of cereal. Absolutely love those a lot of fun. My other favorite one is the Yukon Land Rush, Quaker Roats, Klondike Big inch Land Deeds.

Have it right. I still have my Boss Moss T shirt and my snow Holdorf T shirt from the Freakis. Naturally, when those cereals are popular and I ordered them, I was a different size then. I couldn't put them on now if my life depended on it. But I remember. I even remember the jingle for the Spoonsitters. We need the pool we NEI the pool Cuddliobar has a prize for you, A prize for you to do. Do it's your own. We need the pooh there.

How's that outstanding?

Thank you? How many people could do that? Lo these forty to fifty years.

Later, I'd say, you're in the minority.

Story of my life. I am going to ask I'm going to ask people to call in if you have memories of a certain cereal. You want to know the backstory. You want to know what happened to the fourth elf in rice krispies. Yes there was a fourth one. Anything you might want to know about a cereal, hot cereal, cold cereal, anything in between six one, seven, two, five, four ten thirty or eight eight, eight, nine to nine, ten thirty. And I want to talk about the cereals

Well, they were. They didn't do well enough to hang around for very many years, but they were wildly popular for nostalgic reasons much later, And of course they show up occasionally in movies and things like that.

How about C three POS, the Star Wars serial.

That came and went it was it was promotional for one of the movies. As you know, a lot of the serials have these movie tie ins will come out at the same time as the movie, and it's a one shot deal typically, okay.

And I'm trying to think of the unusual serials that offered something more than the cereal in the box, and I know alphabets and a few of the post serials offered the Monkeys, the Jackson five, and if I'm not mistaken, the Osmans record on the back of the box. Oh you're really right, a real record.

Yes, these were thirty three and a third speed records, a little but not sebut the size of a forty five. But there were three and a third. To understand, Bobby Sherman had three different records. The Archies I think had three different records, Sandwich Jackson five, and the Monkeys. I think Gary Lewis and the Playboys also had a record. Those are the ones I'm I'm sure of, and I'll bet there's others as well.

Are they with any money? If you kept them without being scratched up, maybe left them alone on the box, not cut them off.

Yes, if the box is intact, it's certainly worth a lot more than if you clipped it off the box and actually listen to it.

Unfortunately, mine a gone went away the Dodo bird because I did save some of those. But oh well, and give me a second. I lost my train of thought talking about Cereal boxes. Some of them had a mask that if you wanted to look like Frankenberry you could cut the mask off the back of the box and where it did Halloween with the appropriate costume, a sheet or whatever. Speak to those.

Oh okay, There any number of boxes that offer different things you had. I mean, if you go back even further, like a Lone Ranger or a Tato mask, did you clip off the side of the box. Simptically, there'd be like little characters that you could clip off the box. There would be you could cut houses and whatnot out of the back of the box. Lots of of course, games and other things like that you can do with them.

Now, how often are there conventions around the country that you can attend and meet other collectors in trade seeal boxes and the premiums that are in them. How often does that happen?

I don't see very many of that type of convention just for Cereal. I have seen conventions which are like pop conventions or nostalgic type conventions where you'll see a little bit of this tucked in different areas that the cons the I don't know what that would be like an example of where you'd see some of this there.

All right, and tell me about the last one of those you attended.

Oh, okay, I was in one in Chicago. That was a lot of fun. We had our Great American Cereal book out at the time, so we were promoting that, and as different characters came by. Let's say someone was dressed as Spider Man, I would flip to a page that had a Spider Man cereal and he'd hold up the book and take a picture of them. So we had any number of comic con characters come by that were on cereal boxes, so we took advantage of it.

Okay, let me take my break. I have a call already in hall. John Redding will be our first call. Anyone else out there, you want to talk about breakfast cereal, your favorite anything unique you might remember about the particular cereal you and your family loved. Six one, seven, two, five, four, ten, thirty eight, eight, eight, nine, two, nine, ten thirty For the final hour of Nightside, I try to pick something light that is fun to discuss. Last hour we talked

Now back to Dan Way Mike from the Window World night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.

Beyond behind a great thank you. This is the boss we call them make curious, spell.

It right, snuggled what they call them so handsome and think he's doing a weird No, I really have to see.

My name is Gumbo.

You're standing on.

My foot his mom.

This is my game.

I know more than you do it, so don't I'm pretty goody ie O you what's right? Prince?

I freaky serials because.

It's not.

Youpe Joe Canna have crunky freaky siel is part of your good breakfast.

Then there's a free freaky especially Mark Foxes. Okay, Bob, thank you very much. That was a trip down memory lane for me. John and Redding, You're next here on night side. Good evening to you, John.

Hey, Moryan, how you doing all right?

Happy holiday?

Happy holiday? Hey. I think it's just interesting to go over the cereal for the next hour. I think that's an interesting topic.

Well, that's what we're going to do up until midnight. What was your favorite cereal?

Honestly, I like pops, you know, regular pops. That's my favorite cereal. My sister here likes.

Grape grain, grape grain, great brain.

I've never heard of it.

I've heard a grape nuts.

Grape nuts. I've never heard a great brain.

Yeah, I've heard a great mess.

He likes all sorts of good food, but just be very picky eata, you know, grape brain. But I was wondering, is it you guys know a lot about there's so many foreign cereals, do or any of US cereals.

Far to my question, Let's talk about going both ways, foreign cereals that we got here and our cereals that do well in foreign countries.

That's that's an interesting interesting thing.

Okay, First, I think he might be referring to great grains g R E A T. Great that's from posts. They have a number of great grain cereals out that are out based with different mixims into them relative relative international. Yeah, a lot of our cereals do show up overseas. Uh, but they might, but but they won't be called like

Do they still have Tony the Tiger run them?

Yes, in many cases they do, but there are some other critters that also appear depending on the country.

Okay, and.

About toys. The other question of toys, is there any rules against toys in the cereals? Is that a regulated thing?

Good question.

The toys you'll see occasionally. I think the last great that we saw there was maybe like a hot Wheels toy inside a box of Hot Wheels cereal, But it's been a while. Most of the time they now like to do like a mail in that way, they don't have to worry about someone accidentally swallowing it or you know those type of lawsuits, right, and you will see characters occasionally little plastic characters inside of plastic package inside

I'm going to set you up to answer for John. His first cereal mentioned was sugar Pops. Tell the story of that, why the name change roughly around nineteen seventy to seventy two, and who was on the box back in the sixties.

Oh okay, well, sugar Pops. Pete was one of the main characters for the Sugar Pops back in the day, right, primarily the reason to get the you know, the sugar. Of course, back in the sixties there was a congressional hearings and things like that into the health of cereals.

Right, but.

So they came out with a sugar cereal and it was wildly popular for about thirty years, and then it just swung up as a direction, Hey, you can't. We don't want sugar in the cereal, get it out of there. So the sixties seventies they started working it out or change it, so it went from super sugar to sugar to just playing honey or some other words like that, and then just become specs. For example, used to be

That's out of the name, and they went to honey smacks.

Honey Smacks, here you go. And it doesn't mean that there's a lot less sure, and it just it's just less advertised because it's not what people want anymore. They did want it, ali don't necessarily want well. Bottom line is they want it, but they don't want to know they want it.

John, thank you for the call. Happy New Year, today, willyambe all right? Anyone else wants to call in and talk cereals six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty eight, eight, eight, nine, two, nine, ten thirty. I still have a huge smile on my face because Rob found the original commercial for Freakys by Ralston Purina, and I teased about this information. But so that's why I have you here. I'll let you tell the story of the fourth elf in Rice Chrispies.

Oh okay, Well, as most folks are where, you've got Snap, Crackle and Pop. They came out in the early thirties, and then of course Snap was the first one. He was the youngest. He's the oldest. Brother were born in nineteen thirty three. Pop was born in forty one, as it was Crackle, But somewhere around the mid nineteen fifties there was a fourth brother named Powell, who was supposed

Him go away as fast as they introduced him.

Yeah, pretty much.

Okay, I've got another question. Tricks raspberry, red, lemon, yellow, orange, orange. Tricks originally was the standard General Mills circle cereal. It was like cocoa puffs where chocolate Tricks was colorful. Kicks had no color, but they had that same round ball look and then they started to do the shapes of fruit like a purple was great. Talk about that transformation and why they went back to the original look.

Oh okay, Well, Tricks was originally launched in fifty four as a fruit flavored cereal. It was the first fruit flavored cereal on the market. Of course, they were, as you mentioned, a lot of different types of corn puff cereals that had come out before that, and you know, Jets was also one of the very popular ones. The Tricks of her Kids slogan was incredibly popular, and oh

And I'm gonna go with that fruit flavor because I remember the mid sixties when they came up with oot frey oop lay the convoluted language to say fruit loops because it was supposed to be a secret. Nobody supposed to know that there was this cereal, and that cereal has been depending on their commercials for five decades and it's still very popular, I'm assuming because it pretty much has had the same shape, style and look.

Well, fru loops has been one of the key staples from Kellogg's. Certainly the big, the big round pieces of cereal on the different food flavors with two kin same on the box right, very popular.

And when they came up with two kin Sam, he had nephews. As in all the cartoon characters in Cereal sixties and seventies, a younger character would be a pest and annoying to an older character, Sonny and Gramps with cocoa puffs as an example. And how come they stopped with two can Sam's nephews?

I was opposed to, Well, each there's lots of reasons for any given uh line. You've got two kN Sam and he only had the nephews. You've got those other foils all the times as a villain with several serials, they're just they're trying to create an image and easy to remember tag for any given any given cereal, and so you don't want too many of the same thing. You want to can Sam also having the gramps, it starts getting for folks.

And I'm thinking of Captain Crunch with the Pirate Jehan the Foot, which was art imitating life because there was a pirate that pretty much almost had that name. Tell you what Joline and Beverly. Beverly will get to you. After the break, I've got to take a news hit my guest Toefer Ellis and we'll talk more about his book about cereal. Trust me, you'll love this book. It'll take you back in time, and we'll talk more about

You're on night Side with Dan Ray on w b Z Boston's news radio.

Well, they the name of Powl.

Powell Beaves power and powers Nice Ri Stress face Power, Hello Ray Rice. Yes, Kellogg's famous Fresh guys Snap, Crackle and Pop want you to know their silent partner, Paul Pow doesn't say much. He just does things like putting power on everybody, lightweight, spoonful of Kellogg's rice crispies.

Oh that's all there was, darn it. I wanted more tof Did you hear that commercial?

That was impressive.

That's awesome.

Rob finds things that I don't. It amazes me how he locates these things on the system. And we were talking about power before the break and puff no excuse me, Powe, Rob comes up with a commercial. All right, let's go to the phone. Joline and Beverly. You held about him and that's too long.

I'm the one who called in last time we were talking about cereals. I have a large cereal box collection. In fact, I have an aracle cereal box.

Berks what I have, And.

I was just calling in to say, I think that this cereal is from England called wait a bit.

Oh we to bix?

I think.

Yes it is. And if I'm not mistaken, the Patriots used to have a field goal kicker named John Smith and he did we to bix commercials oh here in the United States?

Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

And I'm wondering if you have an autographed serial boxer. For an example, Doug Flutie had flute flakes, and I know for a fact that he autographed some boxes at conventions, and those boxes with a real Doug Flutie autograph have a value. Telford, do you want to speak to that.

I have.

I would think that that would be a very popular idol. And yeah, I would certainly consider that a valuable cereal box.

And do you remember weed to Bix an association with John Smith.

John Smith, No, he was a field goal kicker.

For the Patriots in the seventies. He had about three or four years.

Okay, I can tell you more about Weeda Bex than I could about John Smith.

Though, tell me about tell me about we debates.

Okay.

Weeda Bex was produced in the United Kingdom since about the early nineteen thirties. It's the British version of the original Australian wheat bix w E t dash bix. They were both invented by an Australian named Benison and Osborne for what it's worth. But anyway, so while everyone knows that it is weed x wed the bits from UK, it's really an original Australian.

Cereal, all right, Juline, anything else?

I just wanted to say that I think I heard this cereal from a guy who was on an afternoon show years ago that was co hosted by Robin Young from NPR now she works at. And he mentioned piltered which was a kind of tuna fish that was inexpensive, and he also mentioned that he ate wee to bits where I heard about it on the show from like the seventies on late afternoon. I think it came on. No, it wasn't after dark Shadows. That was in the sixties. Anyway.

All the Rispy Critters the one and only cereal that comes in the shape of animals.

That was it.

That was their jingle.

And way back when film costs a lot of money. With my little Kodak camera and it would cost three or four dollars to have twelve prints made, I took twelve pictures of cereal boxes and we used to play card games with twelve.

That was creative.

And then candy Land we had going all through the house on rainy days with different boxes that would represent the figures that candy Land had and it was played like that and if you landed on another one, you'd have to go backwards and anyway the rooms. Yeah, that was a lot of Well, thank you very much for this very interesting trill.

Joline, thank you for participating with the show. Unhappy Happy New Year to you.

Yeah, thank you.

Bye bye. Let's go to Kingston, mass and speak to Tom or it could be Kingston, Jamaica, could be Kingston, New York.

I'm assuming mass Massachusetts. All right, Tom, listen, you said Krispy Kringles. It's the only going on animals.

Crispy Critters c R I T T e r s not not Kringles, Crispy Critters Critters.

We used to run around the kitchen table, six of us kids, and my mother used to go crazy. He was to sing that song. But the other one was rice Crinkles, one of my best cereals I had.

Both of those cereals were from Post and I'll lect toe for speak to Crispy Critters, and it became a controversial cereal with their characters So High on rice Crinkles tofa.

Okay, we'll start with the rice crinkles and you're writ his post chuber coated rice crinkles. Oh yeah, it was basically sugar frosted rice rice Krispies essentially. And if you look at the box, it's a really cute little Chinese boy or Japanese boy named so High.

And so you know, basically that looks like a dish upside down.

You're actually, well, I think he had that was a bowl of cereal. I think you might have had in his head.

It was. Here's the other one is that I enjoy It was my mother brought Kellogg's cornflakes. And in the back of that you're talking about records, we have the Gary Lewis and the Playboys singing this diamond ring and then also on there was doing the flake. Okay, cut that out. We used to play that the Siria, I loved this an adult that's been gone now for a thousand years, about nine hundred years now. It was buckwheats.

Well, if you will allow me, I'll give you some background information on Crispy Critters. Okay, they post produced a cartoon show called Linus the Lion Hearted and they yeah, yes, roar for Linus the Lion Lines is the one. I'm out, I don't stop singing. I'm sorry, but the key, the key is. They had four of their cereals box representaurs like sugar Bear was a little bear who got into adventures in the woods. Alphabets had a postman Lovable Bee truly, and the dog Lawrence h am I leaving off of.

So high.

Was and I can't remember if he was Chinese or Japanese, and that's it's disrespectful to say Asian. But that was a cereal that got the company in trouble because they felt it was racist with the image that they showed. And there's another one that I can't think of right now. Oh and Linus the Lionhearted because he promoted Crispy Critters

Well here's the other one. I don't know what cereal was, but you talk about masks. They had one the Huckleberry Hound that I got to wear around the house.

Right.

I don't know what cereal that.

Was, though I do, and I'm sure Tofer knows tofer.

Go ahead, you got me on that one.

Kellogg's All Stars was Huckleberry Hound cereal. Yokie Bear was on Okay's right, and I'm trying to think quick drummergraws on a cereal. I just can't place it right now, bear with me, yes to for thank you? So Tom, are you happy?

What cereal is that?

Corn pops or sugar pops? I think he preceded sugar pop Pete.

Bring him back a lot of good memories.

Oh that's why we're here, Tom.

Yes, you guys have a good New Year's coming up. Thank you.

You have a great New Years as well, and we'll speak to you later. Anybody else who wants to join TOFA and I. You'll have about ten minutes of show because we end at midnight, and maybe one of you out there is a millionaire by now. Maybe it's me. Time and temperature here on Nightside eleven forty seven thirty five degrees Now back to.

Dan Ray live from the Window World Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.

I have only about seven more minutes with my guest tofer is here to for Ellis and to for bring people back to the days of Cisp and Quake. Let people know who they were and how that rivalry just took off in the mid sixties.

Well, that was certainly one of the big rivalries and it was part of the Jay Ward Animation studios. J Ward was also responsible for the entire lineup of Captain Crunch, among others. Quisp, basically in mid sixties is probably one of the most popular animated characters of all time for folks that don't remember him. He was a kind of a pink skin propeller driven alien who wore a green jumpsuit.

I loved them. And when you think of Jay Ward, he as you mentioned, he did all of the Captain Crunch commercials, and Captain Crunch originally had a crew and then they kind of faced out the crew and just kept Sea Dog as his crew, and eventually they got rid of Sea Dog and it was one upsmanship with

Absolutely well, as you know, the original crunchberries came out in the mid the late sixties where they had the crunchberry beast that they found on Crunchberry Island, and the Crunchberry Island, of course was found in the seed of milk, but the crunchberries tasted like strawberries, and that was a very popular cereal. Come about nineteen eighty seven, Captain Crunch came out with a holiday Christmas crunch. It contained red and green round crunchberries within the Captain Crunch cereal. It

And now they had like all the other and that's Quake Road Cereals. They are available year round and to for before I let you go, what was your favorite cereal as a kid?

Quisp?

I too had a number of months where I like Quisp. I never tried Quake, so I couldn't be a fair judge because I only ate quisp and I like the way it tasted, and I like the way it fit on my spoon. And that's all I needed to be happy, which.

Was nice because they quite along with like the Captain chrisch cereals kind of tore up your mouth.

Oh you were a little I'm glad I never tried it. To Ford, thank you for being a part of my show. I love having you on because you bring back such pleasant memories, as you heard from some of the callers earlier, and I hope you have a very healthy, happy, be pleasant twenty twenty five.

Sincerely appreciate it, love to be on the show. Thank you, Sam, to you, thank you to for take care.

Bye bye. All right, a couple of things. I'm on tomorrow The Morgan Show, Andrew Fielding will be my guest. I'll be back Monday and Tuesday. I'm just going to give you the Monday lineup. I have Jerry Beck looked upon as being one of the more knowledgeable people about animation, going back to Disney and Warner Brothers, Hannah Barbera and