Usually once a cereal mascot gets popular, they stick around. Oh sure the designed may change or be refined, but it's the same character. Some cereals have trouble finding that perfect gimmick however. And even when they do the character inexplicably disappeared after a while. Usually the mascot vanishes because the product did (Poor Fruity Yummy Mummy) but not always. The creators just decided they had enough of one mascot and it was time for something new! This makes sense when the product is brand new and searching for an identity. Frosted Flakes had a kangaroo before they realized Tony was better. Cocoa Puffs had an uncle for Sonny who vanish (but did make a comeback) and even Lucky Charms dropped Lucky for a lame wizard. It didn't take.
Here are five cereals which had more trouble with mascots, switching them out for no really good reason,
Cookie Crisp
Ok I am going to date myself here and freely admit it. I remember seeing the old commercials with the wizard Jarvis. He was a wizard in the 70's. Jarvis later introduced cookie crook and the officer chasing him whose name eludes me. There were several commercials of these two before cookie crook got a dog sidekick. The dog always giving away the crime by crying coookiee crisp. These three did a bunch of ads before the cop and robber vanished and it just became about the crazy dog. But he outlived his usefulness eventually and today we have the silver fox in a jacket guy, if he has a name, I don't feel like looking it up. And yes I at Cookie Crisp and loved them, it's chocolate chip cookies for breakfast what's not to love???
Just in case you don't' remember cookie crook and officer...crumble? Maybe it was just Cookie Cop. IDC
Cinnamon Toast Crunch
Again, gonna date myself, I remember when this cereal was first introduced. And yeah, I tried it..guess it was ok. When it first came out the mascots were three bakers who were very proud of their creation. Somehow only one stood out, Wendell, and the other vanished and he became the sole star of the ad for years. The gimmick being he went nuts for the stuff. For whatever reason Wendell fazed out and we get the living cereal pieces which I really don't understand.
Mini Wheats
This is a quick one but worth a mention. Awhile back then Mini Wheats introduced a character who was a talking mini wheat. The non-frosted side and the frosted side had two different personalities and would argue with each other. That does kind of sound weird, maybe it's good they switched to the bland wheat thin guy with no personality at all.
Honeycomb
This was a cereal that really really wanted to appeal to kids. Too bad it had no idea how. They had commercials where kids would not allow adults in on out of their clubhouse because it had big kid taste or something. The mascots were lame and never stuck including a literal "Honeycomb Kid" based on cowboys. A later version would have an "Indiana Jones" slant to him. The 90's gave us a marsupial thing called Crazy Craving. Sort of Tasmanian Devil if he creepy as all hell. Later on they used a bee boy which was kinda weird. I ate these in the day and remember the rather large cereal (they even bragged about the size in the ads) was annoying to eat.
Honey Smacks
I wanted to talk about this one because it fascinates me. The cereal has been around forever but despite all the best efforts of Kelloggs it never seemed to catch on like there more popular brands. Their mascots included a clown, Quick Draw McGraw, The Smackin Brothers, a dog, a bear, and finally--Dig'Em Frog. And even though he is clearly the most famous mascot even he never got as much respect as others. You forget he exists until he pops up in an ad. Oh yeah, I remember him! Even the cereal dumped him briefly before he came back. Is the cereal awful I never tried them?
Yeah, I know. that bear sucked. Here is an old Dig'Em ad before he was 2.0'd later on and they dropped "Honey" from the name.
Did I miss your favorite? Comment and let me know.
No comments:
Post a Comment