Fan Favorite: Why are we so Nostalgic for Sugary Breakfast Cereals?

was the most nutritious cereal out there. I love that when you were finally like free from the overside of your parents, like that was the first thing you did to express your freedom, was like, get a big bowl of cereal. But yes, I do remember that big, awesome wall of cereal. Yeah, and the people we were with started making fun of me for eating a kid cereal

instead of musically or whatever. And then right then the star basketball recruit Eldon Brand walked up and got a bowl of the same thing, and it was just pure silent and I felt like such a trend setter. And I remember that that's when you became the most popular kid on campus. And not really but part of the reason I love breakfast cereals so much. And you know, we used to have big cereal old parties in metal flaws where everyone would bring a box of their favorite cereal.

But uh, there's just such a wonderful association with childhood and Saturday Morning cartoons, and that's actually why we're talking about cereal today. Let's dig in today their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesh Ticketer and the man on the other side of the soundproof glass eating a big bowl of frosted many weeks good

choice today as our producer, Tristan McNeil. But today we're heading back to the grocery all for a closer look at all things cereal, you know, the most whimsical or nutritionally questionable at all of this, at every part of a complete breakfast. And so we'll dig into the weird stories and surp rising facts behind our favorite brands, as well as a few of the lesser known breakfast cereals that time forgot. And then a little bit later we'll

be joined by Gay Fonseca. He's a TV writer and he's spent more than a decade collecting childhood nostalgia in the form of vintage cereal boxes. It's a fascinating collection. Yeah, and he's also the host of this really fun YouTube series called cereal Time, which is the series on the subject of breakfast cereal. I mean, he's been doing it for a couple of years now, so I'm super excited to just hear how he got started. Yeah. Well, well, Gabs among the most devout of serial enthusiasts, but he's

definitely not alone in this. I mean, lots of people love cereals, and in the hundred and fifty plus years since it came onto the market, cold breakfast cereal has become a staple for millions of people around the world. And you know, strangely, this love affair got its start in the late nineteenth century kind of as an accident. You know, it was this invention of fundamentalist Christians who

were seeking to promote a healthy, sin free lifestyle. And much of this is you know, stories that people have heard, but it's still pretty interesting that the bland foods, as you know, like toasted corn and oats, where they were thought to help suppress sexual urges and prevent arousal. And so this thinking led to the creation of a few notable foods including Graham Crackers, of course, but the one

that really caught on what the public was sereal. So Dr John Harvey Kellogg, the superintendent of a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, and his younger brother Well, they stumbled upon the recipe for what would ultimately become corn flakes. After allowing some of the cooked wheat to sit out for too long, the Kellogg's returned to find the wheat had gone stale, but rather than toss it out as you might think they would, they decided to roll it

out into thin flakes and then toast them. And the corn flakes were a big hit with their patients, so the Kelloggs decided to start marketing them to a broader public. Yeah, and as interesting as that early history is, it's pretty familiar by this point. So instead of going deep on sanitariums and grape nuts, we're gonna focus mostly on the

second act of the serial story. That's the period from about nine to the early nine is when marketing to children really took off and sugary cereals really began flooding grocery store aisles. Well, before we dive into that colorful history, I thought we could take a quick look at the state of cereal today, you know, just by the numbers, and it's amazing how far cereal has come from its early years as this niche product to the mammoth industry

that it is now. So just looking at the US market alone, the breakfast cereal industry now generates nearly ten billion dollars in annual revenue. And that that's according to mord Or Intelligence. Did you say word or intelligent hobbit? It's kind of a jarring name if you're a Lord of the Rings fan, But it's just the coincidence, unfortunately. But like I was saying, Americans lead the world and

serial consumption. It ranks fourth on the list of the top ten package goods sold in the US, and of American households by a box of cereal at least once a year. And we're not the only ones who love it. Canada, the UK, Australia, they all have sereal markets that rival the size of our own, and in recent years, cereal has also gained in places like China and India and Brazil. In fact, the breakfast cereal marketing industry rakes in about thirty five billion dollars in revenue each year from the

foreign markets. So when I took my kids to India last year, I remember waking up jet lag the first day and they were already up watching cartoons and we're wired on a bowl of chocos. We didn't have chacos in all my years ago in India though, we never ate breakfast cereals and we never ate in front the TV. So it was almost jarring to see this American experience transplanted to India. But you know, sugar and grain is

obviously this winning combination. But I have seen a few reports about sagging sales as more and more people opt for, you know, either easier or healthier breakfast options, so pop tarts or avocado toast, or you know, maybe a quick trip to the drive through on the way to work. And and of course there's this growing segment of the

population that just doesn't eat breakfast period. So when you were listing those easier and healthier options and you said pop tarts, which one of them, I'm guessing that's the easier option there, but they are delicious. Well. As big as the cereal industry is today, there's no question that it used to be bigger. So according to NPR, serial consumption peaked right around ninete I guess it was, and has steadily gone downhill ever since, generally by a full

percentage point each year. And while the stuff you mentioned is definitely played a part in that decline, it's really due to a combination of factors. You know. For example, back in lawmakers passed the Nutrition and Labeling Education Act, and that made it mandatory for all products to include the now commonplace list of nutrition facts on the packaging.

And this made it easier than ever for consumers to see the nutritional value or lack thereof, I guess, and they could look at this and all of their cereals now at this point, and as more people became educated about just how much sugar and carbs they were eating or feeding to their kids, you know, they started to think twice before tossing a box in the car whenever

they're with grocery store. So I looked into just how sugary cere it can be, and it's insane, Like the whole cereal industry uses around eight hundred sixty million pounds of sugar in its products every year, and apparently most of that's going into honey smacks, you know, for some reason, you don't know out there, that's the one with the cool frog wearing the backwards baseball cap on the box.

I thought you were talking to me for a second, was like, I know, honey Smacks mango, Come on, well, honey Smacks is consistently ranked the worst cereal for your health because it has less than two grams of fiber per serving and its ingredients breakdown to almost sixty percent sugar. It's tasty, but according to the Environmental and Working Group, there's more sugar in one cup serving of honey Smacks

than there Isn't a Hostess twinkie, no way. And I know that it is sweet, obviously, and I knew it wasn't good for you, But honestly, like the taste of honey Smacks, I wouldn't have guessed it was the most sugary cereal. But it kind of makes my teeth are just thinking about that. But you know that that sugar to fiber ratio might make us cringe. But there's one particular serial eleating demographic that you're not going to hear complaining about this, and that's kids, or at least my kids. Yeah,

my kids. To actually do you Remember there was this great Calvin and Hobbs where Calvin's eating his favorite cereal. I think it's something like chocolate frostage sugar bombs, and he gives Hobbs to try, and Hobbs just starts shaking, gagging from the sweetness, and Calvin says, actually they're kind of bland until he scooped some sugar on. But what I find really interesting is how deeply ingrained the fondness for breakfast cereal is and so many people, and how

so much of that seems rooted in their childhood. Yeah. I mean, i'd say for most adults serial leaders, it's a big part of the allure. I mean, it's what you were saying about your kids. There's these memories of watching Saturday morning cartoons with a big bowl of Captain Crunch in your hand, or maybe indulging in a late night fix of Lucky Charms sitting in your college dorm. I don't know who you're talking about, right, Well, it's

sort of a comfort food in a way. I mean, it takes us back to simpler days when most of us were a little more carefree about what we ate and why. Yeah, So in nostalgia is definitely a strong factor. Actually, well, what are some of the weirdest discontinued cereals you can think of? I was trying to think about this earlier, and I remember seeing cuber cereal when I was a kid. Do you remember Cuberta that video game character, and and

also eating one with smurfberries? Like my parents only really bought a sugar Cereals for maybe a year or two, but I remember sampling some weird ones. Yeah, I mean I always thought it was completely bonkers that some cereals didn't even mask the fact that they were candy, Like you know, Kellogg's did a candy corn Pops. But even more blatant than that, there was a Nerds Cereal and I'm ticked off that I never tried it. Nerds Cereal.

By the way, listeners, I just wanted to break for a second because Will and I have been debating what the official candy of Part Time Genius should be, and Will was saying it should be atomic fireballs, and I was thinking Nerds. So if you have any thoughts on this, please let us know on Facebook or Twitter. But well, you're right, Nerds Cereal is insane. But looking back, like the box was so cool. It came in these two flavors, just like the candies, and you could pour orange out

of one side and cherry out of the other. Can you imagine, Like, who would let their kids buy this? Probably? It also makes me wonder like if so much a serials appeal is rooted in the past, Like, what does this say about our future? Well, you know, there's a new generation of kids getting hooked on cereal now, and

many of them will stick with it into adulthood. And that's part of the reason there's so many brands duking it out, you know, trying to get kids to eat these cereal is because people's breakfast routines tend to be

the same, you know, pretty much every day. But there's another point to consider, and those declining sales numbers we mentioned earlier also coincide with declining birth rate, So you know, it's it's not like the birthrate will ever drop to zero or anything like that, but fewer kids does result

than fewer cereal fans, obviously. Yeah, It's it's funny that something that started out as health food became so dependent on selling sugar to kids, but I guess that's usually how it goes with food trends, like someone with these very altruistic intentions gets the ball rolling, hoping to better society, and and then you know, at a certain point, the

marketing team steps in write exactly Yeah. Dr Kellogg used to give lectures about his methods for leading a healthy lifestyle, and he would sometimes give out the recipes for his corn flax so that people could make them at home. And at one talk he told the crowd, you may say I'm destroying the health food business here by giving these recipes, but I'm not after the business. I'm after reform. I mean, he really did seem to believe and what he was selling, sure, but the problem was that the

same couldn't be said of his brother, Will Kellogg. And and Will try for years to convince his brother to add sugar to their cereal, believing it would add some flavor to what he called horse food. But the tipping point came into late forties when their competitor Post Cereals released Sugar Crisp, so Posted branched out beyond the health food market with its first sugarcoated cereal, and like it

or not, Kellog kind of had to follow his suit. Yeah, but it's really post World War Two that the industry started to focus on marketing directly to kids. I mean, companies had dabbled with these ads before, including Kellogg's use of Snap, Crackle and Pop as the characters for Rice Crispies, and that marketing began in the nineteen thirties. But even with cartoon gnomes pleading their case, you know, the these highly processed oats and grains were a tough sell without

adding something, you know, sweet to it. That's crazy though, I like, I had no idea that the Rice Christie's trio had been around that long. I thought they were post fifties like most other cereal mascots. Yeah, Snap Crackling Pop are actually one of the longest running ad campaigns in history, and as I was looking up at that, they're actually the longest for Cereal brands. Actually, by the way, did you know that their names are on amount of pia sounds for what you hear when milk is added

to the cereal. But apparently Rice Crispies were always marketed as the cereal you can hear, and this was even before the mascots came along. In fact, the guy who created the characters did so after being inspired by one of the brand's previous radio jingles. Because I know you're dying to know what it was. Here the lyrics, I jotted them down, So all right, listen to the fairy song of help the Mary Corus, sung by Kelloggs Rice Crispi as they merrily snap, crackle and pop in a

bowl of milk. If you've never heard food talking, now is your chance. I'm so hungry for a bowl of cereal now, why didn't we do this before? And also that was a jingle like it doesn't even rive. I was I was gonna put it to song that I just made up against it. So, I mean, obviously mascots were a smart move, since it's hard to market like

a fairy song of health without them. But wasn't there also a fourth gnome for a while, Yeah, you bet there was pal He stood for the Cereals nutritional punch, I think, And of course he didn't last very long. But let's get this back on track. So gradually the Sweden Cereals come to dominate the market, thanks, you know, because of product placement and children's programming, and they've never

looked back since. And in fact, the breakfast cereal industry is still one of the top spenders for a commercial air time. More than a million Cereal ads air on TV each year, which cost companies like Post and Kellogg's more than I want to say, like half a billion dollars. Yeah, well so, so all those old TV ads are a big part of why cold Cereal took such a hold in the hearts and minds of baby boomers, and then they of course passed on that fondness to their now

adult children. But you know, there's another element that helped in dear entire generations to breakfast Cereal that I want to talk about it, and that's the prizes that came packed inside those boxes. I mean, the prizes played such a big role. Like I might have wanted a box of Cookie Crisp, but if the Apple Jacks had one of those wacky wall walkers in it. I mean, you remember those sticky octopuses that were walked down the wall of course, Yeah, and then of course that's the box

I'd end up with. Yeah, I mean, I'm with you on that. Actually I would buy a box of Cereal for one of those. Now it's been years since I played, and they were awesome, but you know, let's talk a little bit about how toys and games ended up inside the boxes, as well as some of the coolest and strangest ones to come along over the years. But before we do that, let's break for a quiz. They've got

Gabe Fon Sica on the program now. Gabs an accomplished TV writer, but he's also got the best unboxing series on YouTube. It's called Serial Time TV, and this is where he unboxes and reviews incredible breakfast cereals. Welcome to Part Time Genius, Gabe. Thanks for having me. I'm I'm a fan of the podcast, so I'm honored to be on the show. Thank you so much. Now, I know you're out in Los Angeles. Man Guesh is actually on

vacation today. He's out on your coast in Portland's so he sends his best but but I hope you're still willing to chat with me today, of course, of course. All right now, so okay, we've read that you have over three hundred cereal boxes in your collection, and I have to ask, like, how did you get into this in the first place, and what are some of your more prized cereal boxes. You know, I've always been a collector, and I think at one point I saw Old Spider Man,

so I think that was my first box. Um it was from zero and I saw it on eBay when I was just browsing, and I was like, that'd be cool to have on my bookshelf, and I bought it and then uh, and then I was like, well, you know what, there are some other ones that I remember from back in the day, and and then it kind of just turned into this black hole on eBay where I just was was scouring and finding old cereals that

brought back to these nostalgic memories to me. Wow. Wow, now I think I've read that you've tried some even some like thirty year old cereals. Is this right? Yeah? Yeah. When I first started this un boxing channel on YouTube, and I started it because I started to run out of room of just having these unopened cereal boxes on my shelf and it was like, you know, this is just taking up space and this is kind of silly.

I could just flatten them out, so I I decided like, well, let's for posterity, let's just record myself opening these boxes and and you know, recording with the cereal looks like and documenting it so I'll have it, you know, for posterity, and uh, and I never thought I was like going to try him, and then I'd opened some boxes and uh, I'd be like, well, let me just see if it

holds up. I think the oldest one I might have tried was a grim smiles giggles and last cereal, which was from the seventies I believe, and it was pretty grass. I'm guessing, Oh man, they're terrible. They just don't you know. It tastes mostly like it tastes like the plastic in a way. It takes very toxic and disgusting. But I would I definitely do not recommend it. I can't imagine now. And in terms of yereals, are there any that you wish you could have tasted if you could go back

in time? Yeah? Absolutely, There's one from before my time in the seventies called It's a Great Fellow. It was actually, um they released a Great Fellow and Baron von red Berry. There were General Mills cereals and uh, this is a Great Fellow. One tasted like you know, grape, the grape cereal or grape kool aid. I imagine I never actually got to try it, but I'm a I'm a sucker

for great flavored things. And uh and even though I got a nerd cereal which came out in the eighties, which I which I got to try back and back then, I it just wasn't the same, you know, it wasn't it wasn't that great great flavor. It was kind of it wasn't a great cereal. And sir, great fellow, just just like I look at the ad campaigns I see on YouTube and I'm just like this, this was like, this is great. I really wish I was alive for

this one. I could I could try that one. Yeah, yeah, Now, how about any boxes you'd love to add to your collection but haven't been able to get a hold of For me, I I kind of at this point, I feel like I'm at peace and I've kind of completed my collection and kind of everything I want. There is one really random cereal from General Mills in the nineties. It was called Buen You Litos, and I remember it. It was on shelves for a limited time and I

just can't find a box of that anywhere. And that's probably like the last you know, my great you know, white whale that I'm trying to obtain. Still, I don't know, Gabe. I'm hearing in your voice that maybe you're not quite at piece yet until you find that. So off, if if, if any of our listeners out there know how to get a hold of some did you say buenolitos? Yes, all right, we'll see what we can do for you. So there'll be a free part time genius t shirt

on the line for these people. But but before we let you go, Mango did leave me a quiz titled the most Important Meal Quiz of the Day. So I'm gonna ask you a few questions if you obscure serial questions and all you gotta do is answer them. How does that sounds? All right? I'll give it my best, alright? Question number one. According to a nineteen fifty six confidential magazine report, what Breakfast Cereal was supposedly responsible for Frank

Sinatra's success with women. It's got it is wheaties. Yeah. The article claimed that Sinatra could thank wheaties for his reputation as the quote Tarzan of the Boudoir. So yes, congratulations there, alright? One for one. Question number two. Before a certain tiger became spokes animal for this breakfast cereal. He had to beat out three other contenders, Elmo the Elephant, Newt the new and Katie the Kangaroo. What cereal are

we talking about? Frosted flakes? That's right, it's frosted flakes. Now. Katie actually appeared on boxes in the nineteen fifties before Tony the Tiger started out selling her. All Right, here we go question number three. What popular breakfast cereal created by John Harvey Kellogg was eating aboard the Apollo eleven cereal Rice Christie. It's a pretty good guess. It was actually Kellogg's corn flakes, and so the cereal was mixed up with fruit and formed into cubes, since eating it

with milk was impossible without gravity. Alright, two for three the last question here the big prize is on the line. While Saddam Hussein loved Raisin brand and requested it for breakfast in prison, he detested this cereal. Oh, I actually read the article about that fruit. Yes, it is fruit looks and according to US soldiers, one of the few times he actually looked defeated in prison was when a

bowl of the fruity cereal was brought to him. But so congratulations, you got three out of four, which qualifies you for our top prize, which is a note to your mom or your boss singing your praises. So, Gabe, congratulations and thanks so much for joining us on Part Time Genius. Well thanks for having me. Well it's been it's great. Thank you very much. You're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about the heyday of breakfast cereal.

You know, when kids became the target market and nutrition kind of took a backseat to things like marshmallows and prizes, and you know, speaking of cereal box prizes, you know, those were another way that Kelloggs tried to attract kids to cereal in the pre sugar days and three, the company started putting pen back buttons inside boxes of their pep cereal. So they started with a series of thirty six pins that featured World War Two squadron insignia from

the US military. And this was before switching over to fictional heroes like comic book characters. Yeah, so those are some of the earliest inbox prizes we know about. But if we're talking buttons, my favorites are the Urkel for President campaign buttons. They were giving out during the Clinton Bush Senior campaign. Do you remember those we're talking Steve Erkel family that. I can't say I remember him running

for president? But what what cereal was that? Kels? Of course, it was one of those short lived novelty cereals that crops up for a few months and then disappears, Like basically it was a sweeter version of cheerios, but wackier with banana and strawberry flavors. But uh, obviously we're getting ahead of ourselves with all these in the box because Kellogg's actually got into the prize game long before that.

In the earlier days, the prizes, or premiums as they're called in the industry, weren't in the box at all. And as far as we know, the first prize used to market cereal was this nineteen o nine children's book. It was called The Funny Jungle Land Moving Pictures Book, and it was given to customers who bought two boxes of Kellogg's corn Flakes out they're participating grocery stores. After a couple of years, of course, Kellogg's decided to stop

handing out the books on location. Instead offered them as mail and offer, and within four years the company had distributed two point five million copies of the book. Isn't that insane? Like it was obviously a hit with customers, so Kelloggs kept releasing new editions, and they kept going on with jungle Land books all the way up until ninety seven. I mean, I guess that's pretty cool. But I have to say I was never a fan of those mail in prizes. I mean, I was all about

the instant gratification. You don't want to dig in there, like get elbow deep and some cocoa puffs or something and then just be able to like fish around and find that all of fane bag. Yeah, and then you gotta eat the cereal dust off your arm. But those were definitely the days. But I never really minded the mail ins like. I think it was partly the joy

of receiving any kind of mail as a kid. The fact that anyone was sending me anything was exciting enough, even if I had to save up like a bunch of box tops and wait six to eight weeks to make it happen. Though that was mostly dying out by the time we were kids. I only remember doing it

a few times. But you know that the real reason the cereal industry stepped up its game, and the prize game, specifically in the nineteen fifties is pretty interesting and it's it's thanks to this invention of what was called the screw injection molding machine, and and that's what made plastic prizes faster and cheaper to produce. And this wasn't the only time the inventor of injection molding his name was James Watson Henry would lend a hand to Cereal prizes.

So in the nineteen seventies, Henry's developed the first gas assisted injection molding process, and this is what made it possible to produce these finally detailed hollow plastic objects, you know, the ones that environmental group love so much. This cut caused even more and paved the way to a golden age of these in box serial prizes. That explains why so many of the cool prizes I found were from

the sixties and seventies. And and of course I'd be remiss if we didn't mention the Boson's whistle that came inside the box of Captain Crunch in the early seventies. We're talking about things we'd be remiss not mentioning about Captain Crunch. What about Gen Lafoote, which was Captain Crunch's stinky,

barefooted rival. But anyway, gone with your whistle story. Well, obviously the whistle was this like really high pitched little whistle, and the Boson's whistle was one that was historically used on naval ships when commanders needed to pass orders to the crew but couldn't be heard because of the waves or weather or whatever. And these days it's mostly used

in naval ceremonies. But in Captain Crunch's case, it turned out that when you covered one of the whistles holes in blue, it produced this frequency of twenty hurts, which was the exact tone a T and T used to control its long distance lines. And basically, this legendary hacker, John Thomas Drape, who was also known as Captain Crunch or Crunch or crunch Man, he learned that he could use one of the whistles to hack the phone system and get free long distance calls. I love that they

figured that. It's why that old hacking magazine was actually called hundred, and then why Steve Jobs and Steve Woznia even tracked down the whistle and built a box that replicated the frequency to try and prank call the Pope. I love that as I love that they pretended to be Henry Kissinger. And it almost got there until this like suspicious bishop caught on like and and then the

Pope didn't get on those pesky bishops. And you know, while injection molding allowed for all kinds of awesome plastic toys, you know, some of the funniest ones that came across were actually even like metal, or some of them even paper. Like in nineteen fifty four, Wheaties gave away these miniature state license plates and they were made of solid steel, and you got one in each box, but you could also buy them in four sets of twelve by mailing in a box top and a quarter a whopping quarter.

And that was the only hitch to this was that Alaska and Hawaii had not yet become states, so there were actually only forty eight plates and all man So do you think people were like pissed when those two states got statehood a few years later and suddenly their collections were incomplete? Well, actually, Post Serials did release a set of the full fifty later on, but apparently wed still gets letters about the original campaign to this day. So maybe there's still a few determined fans out there

just pestering them about their missing plates or something. I hope so. But one of the most unique prizes I read about was this paper prize. It was a deed to one inch of land in the Yukon, so like a serial company was giving away land by the inch. Yeah, it's a great idea, right, So Quaker Oaths sponsored a show in the fifties called Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.

You remember Sergeant President of the Yukon, And this was their way of linking the show to the product and full disclosure, this was a mail in prize, but this one was totally worth the weight. So for just a single box top kids would receive a deed for one square inch at the nineteen acres of Yukon territory that Quaker purchased, and they had actually purchased this from the

Canadian government for a thousand dollars. The promotion was this massive success, and Quaker actually sent out more than twenty one million deeds in just a few weeks away. Yeah, and then lots of people would write the company or even the Canadian government from time to time to check in on their property. But sadly the reply was not good news. Apparently none of the deed holders were actually landowners because the individual deeds were never formally registered after

the recipients signed them. Devastating, I know, and in the end, Canada repossessed all the land in nineteen due to non payment of get this, thirty seven dollars and twenty cents in property taxes. I mean. It also reminds me of the time during the eighties when General Mills started giving out actual one dollar bills as prizes and boxes of cherios, which it just sounds kind of like lazy, like let's let's just put a dollar in there, and except in

this case the prize was actually worth something. Yeah, and it's way better than the promotion Cheerios offered in the fifties when they gave away color reper reductions of Confederate money and an album to keep them in all. That's so strange. I actually, I think I'd rather have the phony d than But we sort of transition into these more lackluster I don't know, dare I say, like crappy prizes,

but honestly, at least they're still prizes. And and much like serial sales, serial premium seemed to be on the decline these days. Yeah, so I noticed last time I was in cerealisles there seemed to be fewer boxes advertising physical prizes, but there were a bunch of boxes offering some kind of digital prize, like access to an online

video game. And I I guess serial premiums changed to reflect the times and and most kids these days would prefer some type of like instant online entertainment over a plastic figure. But I also read a report from the Center for Science and the Public Interest. Then it determined that it was far cheaper to make an online game than to produce a traditional plastic premium, and that definitely figures into the decision to scale back the physical prizes. Yeah,

I think you're right. And and not to mention that there have been a few safety scares that lead to recalls on mill lillions and millions of these plastic prizes that were deemed choking hazards. And that's actually the reason prizes were moved from the inside of the Cereal bag itself to between the bag and the box lining. This happened in the early nineties. Is you know Sereal companies saw that this was kind of a risk or a great risk if kids accidentally started gobbling up these prizes.

It's it's funny because Crackerjack went through like a similar adjustment with the prizes inside their boxes and concerns about safety and rising cost of production. Next anything but paper prizes, whereas they used to have really cool stuff, and they're like Dakota rings and tin soldiers mixed in. And and since Crackerjack was the first food to actually offer box prizes way back in, it kind of seems fitting that cereal premiums would follow suit. Yeah, I mean that's true.

But but but all is not lost for these in the box cereal prizes. I mean there's still some physical knickknacks sprinkled in there, but most of these are just tie in with usually like big media events or maybe movie releases. You know, the new Star Wars movie had some of these accompany that. And besides, there's another serial philosophy that suggests it's what's on the outside of the

box that matters, not the inside. Okay, mango, So we've covered the actual cereal as well as the cool prizes that you find inside the bag or just outside it. So how about we conclude our anatomical tour of the cereal box by focusing on the box itself. Yeah, that sounds good, So I'll start us off with a little

cereal box psychology. Back in two thousand fourteen, researchers from the Cornell Food and Brand Lab study eighties six different cereal box mascots and ten grocery stores throughout New York in Connecticut. And from this whirlwind tour, they found that boxes are strategically positioned to make eye contact with children. On average, the kid targeted cereal boxes are placed on the lower shelves, usually at a height of twenty three inches, while adult aim cereals tend to sit higher at forty

eight inch shelves. And UH to capitalize on this ideal, like the mascots on the kids cereal boxes tend to feature mascots with eyes pointing downward an average angle of nine point six degrees, but the spokes characters on boxes of adult cereal generally looks straight a head. Wow, that's almost kind of creepy. So both the manufacturer and the retailer in on this scheme, and and and they wanted to make eye contact with their target markets. So why

is that? I mean, I understand wanting your product as visible as possible so it attracts more attention, but why is making eye contact with the character or the spokesperson matter that much? Yeah? Well that was the question behind a second study where researchers looked into how much eye contact with Cereal box characters influences people's feelings towards the brand, and they asked sixty three participants from a private Northeastern university to examine a box of tricks Cereal and rate

their feelings of trust and connection to the brand. And the catch was that some participants were given a box where the tricks rabbit was looking straight ahead and others had this box where the rabbit was looking away or down from the view. And I'm guessing people preferred, you know, whichever rabbit was looking their way or Yeah, but by

a wide margin. It's really incredible. So the finding showed that participants who had eye contact with the rabbit felt sixty percent more brand trust promos shilly rabbit, and their feeling of connection to the brand was twenty eight percent higher than participants who looked at a box of tricks with the rabbit looking away. And not only that, were participants who made eye contact with rabbit actually said they enjoyed the serial more compared with another sereal that lacked

eye contact component. Oh way, I mean, that's so creepy, like it's it's also notes that looking at the picture of a cartoon rabbit in the eyes can generate so much good will and actually cause us to buy the party, and and the fact that they chose this crazy rabbit that it works is just baffling. Yeah, but there is an upside to the research because now healthy cereals that are well intentioned can actually make mascots that do the

same thing. Yeah, but you know, I don't want to leave this subject of tricks because actually I found some interesting stuff during our research here. So for instance, did you know that before he was an animated character the Tricks rabbit was this really like Jankee looking hand puppet,

and I guess General Mills it was. You know, they were unsure early on of how to sell the concept of a serial of sessed rabbit because you know, the original slogan for the serial was I'm a rabbit and rabbits are supposed to like carrots, but I hate carrots. I like tricks that really rolls off the tongue. Yeah. And it also makes the whole silly Rabbit Tricks Are for Kids campaign sound like poetry. Yeah. But that campaign

had problems of its own. I mean, for one thing, it made General Mills worry that they were sending a bad message, you know, by having this rabbit continually failed to achieve his goal. You know, but where Charles Schultz concluded that Charlie Brown missing the football was what made the whole thing work. General Mills took the more democratic round in nineteen seventy six. They put this question to a vote, should the tricks rabbit finally get to eat

the cereal? He craves and kids also turned out to be more merciful than Schultza, so almost a hundred percent of the votes were in favor of giving the rabbit his long awaited bowl. And that same verdict came again during a campaign I think it was in which was the last time the rabbit got his own bowl of tricks? That's been a long time. I mean, you can tell why he's jonesing for a bowl. No kidding, I mean, so these sereal mascots tend to break down into two camps.

So there's the more laid back, confident, relaxed characters like Tony the Tiger or the Golden Crisp Bear, and they mostly sell cereal on the basis of their friendly demeanor and cool look. I mean, how cool is Tony know, bandana jacket awesome? You know. And then that's these unhinged cereal junkies who looked like they just don't know, like busted out of the looney bin. So these are your tricks Rabbits and Sonny the Cuckoo Bird and like all

of these crazy characters. Yeah, those guys are pretty terrifying and and most of their designs have only gotten more over the top as time's gone by. What do you mean by that? So too can Sam used to have the proportions of an actual bird, but you know his body, shave, wings and feet have slowly become more human like, and and the colors too, like they're all super exaggerated and brighter and bolder, and it's crazy. And actually, have you

seen Captain Crunch's latest look? Like he used to be this old, weary he captain, but now he has these huge popping eyes and wide grin and even his eyebrows have gotten more excited, like their way up over his hat.

Now his hat has eyebrows. It's very impressive. Well, I mean there's always been something suspect about that guy anyway, if we're being honest that did you hear the controversy a few years back somebody had noticed that the sleeves of his uniform only had three yellow stripes instead of four. I love that people are paying this close attention to it, but apparently that pegs him as a commander in the Navy,

not a captain. So to his credit, when fans called him out, Crunch took to Twitter to plead his case. And so here's what he said, all hearsay and misunderstandings. I captain the SS Guppy with my crew, which makes an official captain in my book. Besides, it's the Crunch, not the clothes that make a man. It almost gives me goose. It's always been my belief that the facts make the man. So I think it's time for a little fact off. All right, let's do it. I'll go

first here. So um alright, So, speaking of Captain Crunch, did did you know that in two thousand nine, a woman in California, filed a class action suit against the maker of Captain Crunch's crunch berries. And she did this because she said, for four long years she'd been eating these crunch berries and thinking they were real fruit. I mean, you know, you've got strawberries and blueberries, raspberries, and of course crunch berries. But of course the judge and Sacramento

did not see it her way and quickly dismissed the suit. So, according to one study commissioned by Kellogg, more than ten percent of Americans had tried eating cereal with orange juice or coffee instead of milk. I mean, is that true, Like, have you ever done that? I have never done that before. That would ruin a ball. No, absolutely not. All right, Well, according to a different study, women who regularly ate cereal

before conception are slightly more likely to have boys. There's something about having a high energy intake before conceiving that leads to these greater odds, And the food that seemed to increase the odds the most was cereal. That's crazy. So you're an oatmeal leader, right, well, I mean sometimes yeah, yeah, Well did you know that the quote strawberries and peaches and quicker instant oatmeal are actually dehydrated apples, and the blueberries are dehydrated figs. And for a quicker sake, I

hope that the crunch Ferry Lady doesn't find out. But at least the real fruits, that's true. They're real fruits, yeah, unlike the crunchberries. So well, as kids, we always heard that we should eat a good breakfast anytime we need to do anything important that day, and studies do back that up, often showing that breakfast eaters will perform about ten better on memory tests than those who skipped. But it also appears that eating not just breakfast, but specifically

cereal leads to a better mood. So according to research from Bristol University, there are long term effects of eating cereal for breakfast, and their findings quote people feel better cereals boosted their mood. So I mean that's just the kind of support we needed as cereal leaders. And what a happy way to end this episode. I'm gonna let you take home the trophy this week, and listeners, if there are any great serial facts we forgot, please let

us know. You can always write us at part time genius at how stuff works dot com or call us on our seven fact hotline Why eight for four pt Genius. You know we love hearing from you well, and don't forget to join us again next week when we publish episodes asking the questions how big is the US military and what are the worst jobs in the world, including a peek into the important world of Wales not collecting. That's gonna be pretty interesting. Are you sure that's right? Yeah,

that's right. All right. Well, that's it for today's episode. Thanks for listening, Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of how stuff works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy mixy sound thing. Gerry Roland does the exact

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