 This is the SF Productions Podcast Network. This show is part of Nutrious' Breakfast. From the Bob Gulcher Bunker, I'm Mindy. And I'm Mark. You can check out our audio podcast, How I Got My Wife to Read Comics on iTunes, or on our website, SFPodcastNetwork.com. Boomers like us were first introduced to advertising by the most important meal of the day, a.k.a. breakfast cereals and their cartoon mascots. What we think of as breakfast cereal actually began as a dietary food used in sanitariums of the late 19th century, mostly by the rich. It was thought that the use of grains was a better alternative to a heavy meat-based meal that was breakfast of the time. It avoided dyspepsia and lowered your libido if John Harvey Kellogg was to be believed. Kellogg's corn flakes were eventually sold to the public again as a health food. It would take John's brother William K. Kellogg to drop the health angle and push for massive advertising when he bought the rights to the cereal. Meanwhile, a patient at Kellogg's sanitarium, Charles W. Post, was so impressed by the all-grain diet that he invented a grain-based coffee substitute called Postum in a concentrated cereal called Grape Nuts with no nuts or grapes in it, by the way. Post turned these concepts into a huge concern that bought out other food companies and eventually became general foods. These two companies, both based in Battle Creek, Michigan, where Kellogg's sanitarium was founded, would spend the majority of the 20th century battling it out. A third company, Quaker Oats, was formed by the merger of multiple oat mills and used a painting of a man in Quaker Garb as the basis of the first cereal trademark in 1877. Another company, Perina, started outselling animal feed, then used an endorsement from a social movement called Ralstonism, which, among other things, pushed forced dietary guidelines and racial purity to sell Ralston cereals. At first, advertising was based on homespun images of mother and her baby, for instance, as well as statements about the wholesomeness of their products. It took a smaller company to make the first move on a cereal mascot. Forced cereal introduced a happy character named Sonny Jim in 1902, who was Sonny because he ate their product. At one time, Sonny Jim was as recognizable to the American public as Theodore Roosevelt. The company, however, overestimated themselves and went out of business a few years later. A British subsidiary had more luck and you could still buy forced cereal with Sonny Jim on the box there as late as 2013. In 1933, Kellogg's wanted to personify the sound made when you poured cereal on their Rice Krispies product, so they added a cartoon gnome named Snap to the box. Crackle and Pop were soon added. Over the years, the once elderly gnomes became younger and more elf-like. In 1934, Post paid a young animator $1.5 million for the rights to his characters for use on their Post Toasties boxes for one year. The animator, Walt Disney, who used the money to build his eventual empire. By this point, cereals were more and more marketed to kids who would pester their moms to pick it up at the grocery store, one of the most misad strategies ever. Kids' radio shows were sponsored by them. Kellogg's Pep, the super-delicious cereal, present the adventures of Superman. Kellogg's also started the prize-inside craze with military pins in 1943. So many boxes were ruined as kids would dig in them to keep the cheap toy inside. In 1939, Ranger Joe Popped wheat honeys became the first pre-sugared cereal. Under different names and companies, this product lasted until 1975. 1949 brought us the first animated TV cereal commercial for Post Sugarcrisp, featuring bears Handy, Dandy, and Candy. Fourteen years later, this was simplified into a single mascot, Sugar Bear. Can't get enough of that sugarcrisp. Serial companies would become the second-largest TV advertiser behind car companies. In 1951, Post introduced Sugar Crinkles, a caramel-coated rice cereal with a, in my humble opinion, terrifying clown on the box. After decades of debate, Kellogg's finally adopted a pre-sugared cereal, taking their best-selling corn flakes and frosting them in 1952. A set of mascots were introduced, Katie the Kangaroo, Elmo the Elephant, and Newt the New. But a fourth character stood hand and shoulders above them, reminding us how great the cereal is. Tony the Tiger is still around today, although the sugar part was dropped from the cereal's name, if not the ingredient list. Tony's son Tony Jr. would later get his own cereal, Frosted Rice. Kellogg's introduced Sugar Smacks with initially 56% sugar by weight. In 1953, as a competitor to Post Sugarcrisp, various mascots came and went until 1972 when Digum the Frog took over the front of the box, where he remains today. It's called Honey Smacks now. 1956 brought us Cocoa Puffs from General Mills, one of several cereals based on a puff corn formula called Kix, which is still available today. Sunny the Cuckoo Bird was added in 1962. I'm Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Kix had already produced a fruity variant known as Tricks two years earlier with an eponymous rabbit added in 1959. Silly rabbit, tricks are for kids. There have been many contests where kids send in box tops voting on whether tricks should get the cereal or not. The head of Post's product development and a pasta lover ran cereal ingredients through a macaroni-based making machine and invented alphabets in 1958. Cartoon characters rough and ready appeared on the box, which was part of an agreement between Post and Hanna-Barbera that continued for years, eventually resulting in the Flintstones hawking pebbles cereal. By the late 50s, there was a gold rush of cereal companies snapping up existing cartoon characters for their boxes. Post got Bugs Bunny for their top three cereal with corn, rice, and wheat. Kellogg's nabbed Helga Berry Hound for Sugar Stars. General Mills sponsored Rocky and Bowenkel. The last one is of particular interest as it would later result into the most well-known original cereal mascots. Jay Ward, the creator of Rocky and Bowenkel, was hired by Quaker Oats to develop new cereal mascots with the company and commercials. In 1963, they had a sweetened corn and oat cereal which stayed crunchy in milk. Ward created the character Captain Crunch, and a wave of cereals and characters were born. There have been no less than 30 variants made since then. Today, you can still tear up the roof of your mouth with a bowl of it. Two years later, a cereal duo was introduced. Spaceman Quisp and Minor Quake, both created by Jay Ward. There were endless contests where kids sent in box tabs to vote to keep either Quisp or Quake, culminating in a 1972 event where Quake was discontinued. Quisp remains in limited distribution today. This was Mark's favorite cereal as a kid. Jay Ward would go on to create King Vitamin in 1968. Meanwhile, Pose created a half-hour commercial in cartoon form called Linus the Lionhearted in 1964 with a series of characters, all of which appeared on the front of their cereal boxes. Sugar Bear from Sugar Crisp, Lovable Truly from Alphabets, So High from Rice Crinkles, and Rory Raccoon Post-Toasties were all on the half-hour cartoon. The show ran for years until the FCC ruled that children's show characters couldn't appear on advertisements during the same program in 1969. And you thought He-Man went too far. FYI, Fred and Barney hooked cigarettes during their show. Google Flintstones and Winston. Back to more traditional mascots. 1963 brought us the David Niven-esque Toucan Sam Hawking Fruit Loops. Follow my nose, it's Halloween nose, the flavor of fruit wherever it grows. Kellogg's tried to sell kids on the idea that each of the loop colors represented a different flavor, but that wasn't actually the case. 1964 saw a product developed at General Mills given the task of finding a unique cereal combo and tried to mix existing cereal with bits of circus peanuts. An ad guy suggested a theme of charm bracelets and Lucky Charms was born. Lucky the leprechaun came along as the mascot. Always after me, Lucky Charms. There have been countless periods of the marshmallow surprises over the years and you can buy a bag of all marshmallows if you want. 1971 introduced the General Mills Monster Cereals, Count Chocula and Frankenberry, later followed by Boo Berry and then Fruit Brute Slash Fruity Yummy Mummy. They were all marshmallow-based cereals with different colors and flavors. The Count, Frank and Boo have remained around for decades, but the other two disappeared with the exception of special limited runs around Halloween. In 1973, Ralston introduced Freakies, a cereal based on the bumpy monster toys included in each box. There was a huge rush to collect all the variant figures. While people debated the nutritional value of cereal, Ralston went over the line in 1977 with Cookie Cresp, a cereal made of tiny cookies. The cereal went through various mascots over the years from Cookie Jarvis to Cookie Crook and the Cop, chipped the dog and then chipped the wolf. 1979 saw a version of General Mills Venerable Cheerios with Honey Nut added and Anthropomorphic Bee, eventually named Buzz, came along for the ride. 1982 saw the first cereal with a video game mascot, Donkey Kong Cereal. He would not be the last. 1984 started a trend of cereals based on movie and film characters. C-3PO's, E.T. and Gremlins all arrived. The first cereal based on a video game system, Nintendo Cereal System appeared in 1988 with two separate cereal bags in each box, one for Super Mario Brothers and the other for Zelda Adventures. Ralston went all in on film and TV marketing cereals. Batman, Ghostbusters 2, Breakfast with Barbie and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1989. Many of these were the exact same cereals with different boxes. This has become Ralston's bread and butter since then with the other companies jumping in as well. Since that time, new mascots not connected with an existing media property have been few and far between, which is a shame. The cereal aisle at your local Mega Mart, assuming you can get there right now, is basically a set of pop culture billboards. Yeah, pretty much. You can check out Mark's collection of cereal boxes during our podcast here. And then you can listen to our audio podcast, How I Got My Wife Tree Comics on iTunes or on our website sfpodcastnetwork.com. From the Pop Culture Bunker, I'm Mindy. And I'm Mark. Thanks for watching. Can't get enough of that sugarcress. So we mentioned on the show that I do have a small cereal box collection and this is what I have. These are the monster cereals that came out as special premiums maybe five or six years ago. So the three that you can easily get, but you also could get Fruit Brut and Fruity Yummy Mummy. Now, these are all the Simpsons cereals that came out basically when the movie came out. So there's a lot of stuff here. That's actually a popcorn bag on the right there. And again, more and more of these cereals based on the movie, but they're pretty much for the most part existing cereals. I did want to note this one. Now, I bought this probably 15 more years ago when I was on a trip and I went across the border to Canada to buy it because I had read that there was a special Star Trek box. I literally went across the border from Detroit to Windsor, Canada, found a 7-Eleven, bought it, and came back. Now, these ones down here are all these DC cereals. This one came out for Superman Returns. These two came out for Batman vs. Superman. There's another Star Trek one and that's for the Abrams vs. movies coming out. And then over here, there's one more thing from the Simpsons, there's a Pop-Tarts one, but these came out when the Justice League movie came out. So they kind of turned their mascots into the heroes. So that just gives you a kind of idea. It's not a big collection, but it's kind of interesting and it's easy to just kind of use up the cereal and staple them up to the wall.