Representational Cereal

[urbpan]

I'm eating Boo Berry cereal, and it occurs to me that there are marshmallow bits in the shape of something, and I never thought to check what they are. This is my last bowl of it, and I don't think I'm going to buy another box, as I bought it basically on a whim. How can eat something and not know what it represents?! (this is probably not a problem for most people, but it really bothers me)

After a moment of staring into my bowl I realize that the marshmallow bits represent the three main Monster Cereals: bluish blobs for Boo Berry, Pink lobed heads for Frankenberry, and purple bats for Count Chocula. (The actual cereal itself is shaped like Pac Man ghosts.) I then think about these characters. Boo Berry is a ghost--cuddly with stoned eyes, wearing a hat and bowtie, and flavored like blueberry--but a ghost nonetheless, the spirit one who has departed the earthly coil. Frankenberry, we must assume, is a strawberry flavored monster made of reanimated corpses. And of course Count Chocula (famous for being the cereal most resembling Mr. Burns) is a cocoa flavored vampire, cursed to a living death as a nocturnal blood sucker who turns milk chocolatey.

(note to my brother and others: Shut up about the werewolf. 1. I've never seen the cereal, 2. It doesn't fit in with my point) ((the mummy probably does fit in, but I haven't seen that one either))

Are these the only group of cereals with mascots that are the living dead of one form or another? (If Mr. T dies, will Mr. T cereal count? and will the value of the boxes skyrocket?)

The infantilization of halloween icons has meant for some fascinating characters. The Count, from Sesame Street comes to mind--does he feed on the blood of monsters that have been lured to the castle and hypnotized by his obsessive counting? (For a very nice cross between the Munsters/Addams Family and Peanuts, see Steven Weissman's "Yikes," and other comics.)

My fascination has some distance to it, because even though I like horror movies, I don't much care for ghost and vampire horror. I prefer mutant and monster animals and robots. Zombies are pretty good, because they are kind of mutant/monster animal/robots.

Are there any zombie cereals (besides Frankenberry)? Robot cereals? Mutant animal cereals? Does Tony the Tiger count? Should I go back to writing about Urban Nature (don't worry, there are only four more months of winter, then I'll be out there taking pictures of bugs and weeds again!)

Comments

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

dude. it's a ghost. :)

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

Fruity Pebbles has always seemed kind of zombie-like to me - when the colors run together, it looks a bit like brains, especially when they do their limited runs of Fruity Pebbles with Marshmallows.

However, the cereal itself is disgusting, so I would not recommend actually eating it.

[brush-rat.livejournal.com]

It's a little known fact that Cap'n Crunch is supposed to be the walking dead. Nice point. I can't think of any other "Living dead" cereal, but I'll keep my eyes open. I bet zombies stay crunchy in milk.

Oh yeah, and Booberry isn't stoned. In the commercials, he used to sound like Peter Lorre, so it's his eyes that you're seeing.

wikipedia agrees!

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

The practice of emulating Peter Lorre's unforgettable voice, look, and mannerisms is quite notable throughout television and cinema, dating from impersonations in various cartoons such as Looney Tunes and characters such as Ren from Ren and Stimpy, Morocco Mole from Secret Squirrel, Rocky Rococo from various Firesign Theatre sketches, Surface Agent X20 from Stingray, Mr. Gruesome from The Flintstones, Staring Herring from Beany and Cecil, Marlon Fraggle from Fraggle Rock, Cruel from Count Duckula, Harry Slime from Avenger Penguins, Doctor N. Gin from the Crash Bandicoot series, Boo Berry from Boo Berry cereal, the hanging lamp from The Brave Little Toaster, Cosmos from Transformers, Flattop from The Dick Tracy Show, Wart from Rescue Rangers, and Digitamamon from Digimon were based on Lorre's mannerisms. In the episode "The Tick vs. Chairface Chippendale" from The Tick animated series, one of the villians attending Chairface's birthday party is "The Man Who Looks Like Peter Lorre." The script for Godspell includes a line which is suggested as being done in the style of Peter Lorre. Also, Rob Schneider ably played Lorre's character in the Saturday Night Live sketch, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." Even today, films show his distinct characteristics in characters, such as a routine Robin William's genie character did in Disney's Aladdin and the maggot in Corpse Bride. And even in video games, the 2005 video game Destroy All Humans features aliens that look similar to Lorre. As well, during gameplay, some humans will shout; "Help! We're being invaded by Peter Lorre!"


you're not going to even try to bring up Fruit Brute?

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

Man, I thought Irish cereals were gross, but these things sound dreadful! And I don't mean the death imagery, just all those marshmallows and chocolate in the one cereal! And you're an adult eating them!

There's a whole range of monster cereals from the cheapo supermarket where we shop that my boyfriend eats. They're all different sorts of hairy, big eyed monsters, only distinguisable by their different-coloured fur. Oh yeah, and one's a girl monster. You can tell by the eyelashes. No vampires though, as far as I'm aware.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Most of our cereals are frosting or chocolate covered, with marshmallow bits. I bought it on impulse--it tastes pretty good, but it gives me that weird blood sugar/adrenaline feeliong that makes me need to lay down. I prefer Meuslix (with dates, not raisins, please) but it costs 6 bucks for a tiny box.

I'd love to see pictures of Irish monster cereals!

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

Well, they wouldn't be Irish cos we shop in the cheapo German supermarket.

Drat! There are none online!
Just this:

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

"Benefit Flakes?" that's terrible! Bob Geldof should be on the box!

Cheapo German supermarket? In Ireland? The world is a weirder place than I thought!

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

Well, most of our cereals aimed at children. Adult cereals tend to be marketed on fiber content, ability to make you lose weight, or the possibility of containing dessicated fruit bits to distract you from the fact that bran flakes taste like cardboard. There's also bizarre, utterly indigestible products like Grape Nuts, which has the texture of wet cement and sits in your stomach like a rock.

Children's cereals contain the maximum amount of sugar and artificial colors that can sneak past parental radar. (somewhat decreased from the heyday of the 1980s, as I can tell.) Out of this category, hands down, there's no competition for Reese's Puffs, which contains nothing approaching nutrition. It's candy masquerading as breakfast.

[meryddian.livejournal.com]

I cannot find BooBerry cereal in Chicago and it totally annoys me. :) It's also difficult to find Count Chocula and Frankenberry, so I assume that Chicagoans are not fond of eating the undead for breakfast.

I've seen some other "monster" cereals but unfortunately cannot remember the brand names!

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

BooBerry and FrankenBerry are typically only available around Halloween, so you may just need to wait until next October.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

They disappeared from Boston supermarket shelves for a while, and suddenly appeared with new (but retro) packaging recently. That's partly why I bought a box. (mind control)

[melannen.livejournal.com]

You may know this already, but Sesame Street's count is based on a real characteristic of folklore vampires - they often have an OCD-ish need to count anything numerous near them, so you can foil a vampire by throwing a handful of seeds or beads in his path and running away while he counts them (or scattering them over his grave so he spends all night counting and has no time to stalk the night.) So actually, the monsters have to keep the Count counting in order to *protect* themselves from his sanguinary rampages ... it's kind of sad and pathetic, really.

And I have to admit I've never ventured past Lucky Charms in my exploration of representational cereal. Although really, eating a bunch of anti-evil talismans (like the hornéd crescent moon, that keep the night vapours sweet; horeshoes of cold iron, that mustn't be turned over lest all the luck pours our;e; the pink heart-shape that's descended from ancient vulvar talismans; and the four-leaf clovers that let you see the fair folk - so long as the fair folk don't catch you and put your eyes out for it. And then there's the red balloons, and what are they symbolic of? Nuclear apocalypse?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that about vampires. Do they wash their hands obsessively, too, or compulsively touch certain spots on certain objects? That was smart of the SS monsters to distract the count, without hurting him (except for the torment of undead existance, and no food). What would happen if Cookie Monster wasnt' fed cookies (and edible letters, numerals, and set pieces)?

According to an unscientific google search, red balloons are symbolic of friendship, happiness, and the Holy Spirit. Don't forget the rainbows, which are symbols of Gay Pride and Liberation, or perhaps God's agreement not to drown us all (again).

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

What would happen if Cookie Monster wasnt' fed cookies (and edible letters, numerals, and set pieces)?

Well, he's said himself that "cookies are a sometimes food", so I'm guessing he bulks up on roughage when he can't get that sweet sweet chocolate chip.

[brush-rat.livejournal.com]

They did a funny bit on that on the X-files in an episode Titled "Bad Bood". It's one of those really delightful episodes that has a lot of humor in the mix. Mulder thwarts a vampire by throwing a handfull of sunflower seeds in front of him. Ironically enough, the first hit on my google search turned up an opsessive compulsive recounting of the entire episode.

http://www.monkeyhouselounge.com/features/badblood.html

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

I totally forgot about this guy:


He's the Honey Monster, do you have him there?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

No, we don't have the Honey Monster in the U.S.; not in my market, anyway.

Our honey flavored cereals have a bee (logical), a bear (even better), a frog (say what?), and Andre the Giant, as mascots/endorsers.

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

Wow, Andre the Giant recommending cereal from beyond the grave! Spooooky!

This is probably the best online conversation I ever had.

[drocera.livejournal.com]

Hey I can't think of any other undead cereals, but I CAN give you a good film recommendation:

Cemetery Man, with Rupert Everett

Undead galore, masterfully and somewhat cheekily done...and a bit, um...erotic.

Check it out on Netflix.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I checked on it, and I apparently put it in my queue some time ago!

[mandy-moon.livejournal.com]

I skimmed the comments here, so sorry if this was repeated:
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/8/86/150px-Yummy_Mummy.jpeg

Yummy mummy is kind of like a zombie.

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

Brilliant icon there Mandy!

[markurock.livejournal.com]

Wow! This has been some of the most entertaining posting that I've read in quite some time!
In Washington state, we have a chain of stores called the __________ (your town name on line) Grocery Outlet, for example, in my town it's the Bellingham Grocery Outlet. Anyway, they get all kinds of awesome, funky, essoteric and nostalgic food items. Things like Captain Crunch with Hebrew writing on the box, or Top Raman in Ukranian packaging. They quite frequently have all three of the 'main' undead cerials, and they're quite reasonably priced. A large box goes for about $2.50 or so. I haven't eaten them in ages, but as a kid, it was mandatory in October to eat any one of the three (I loved Boo Berry!) and watch Scooby Doo on Saturday mornings before the parental units even thought about being awake! Good times with undead cerials.
I hadn't heared of the Honey Monster, but I'd give it a shot... the fruit mummy was interesting too. And I'll ditto the Fruity Pebble comment, as it kind makes you feel undead too.
One last thought, who was the German chick a few years ago who sang the song '99 luftalunes'? That song translated is 99 red baloons... red baloons are good.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

That would be Nena. I loved that song!

[aemiis-zoo.livejournal.com]

This post had me ROTFLOL!

I remember those cereals from when I was a kid, but I don't think I ever ate them. Maybe I did. It seems like it would have been right up my alley since Scooby Doo and Godzilla movies were my favorite thing to watch. The question is would my parents have bought it for me?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I want there to be Godzilla cereal now!!

[aemiis-zoo.livejournal.com]

That would rock!