I miss the cereal that had the plastic toys in it. I miss the Winnie the Pooh pencil toppers that came in a rainbow of BPA in every box. And the ones that you could hang from the edge of your cereal bowl so that it looked as if Eeyore was trying to eat your soggy Corn Poohs. There was also a strange blue and red disk that when spun on a image from Peter Pan revealed a 3D image of Hook getting eaten by the Crock! I would just hold the pieces of plastic over my eyes and walk around the house looking at all the things that were in 3D.
It was always a battle in my house to see who could get up the earliest on Saturday morning to claim the prize. If it sucked, like yet another wacky tracing thing that drew a sketchy picture of Snow White then it was left on the counter for my sisters and I would proceed to fill my bowl with as much cereal as possible so that a replacement box would have to be purchased sooner rather than later.
I also dreaded the awful “Coupon inside Every Box!” prize. A coupon is not a prize. It is not fun to play with and has a cash value of $.001 cents. Almost as bad were the cereals where the “prize” was a puzzle on the outside of the box. Can you find Count Chocula on the other side of chocolatey castle maze? No, I can’t. And I won’t. That’s just a rip off for kids. And don’t ask me to send away for something. I just didn’t have that kind of energy. It was all burnt out after my bucket of Sugar Puffs and an hour of Kroft Supershow.
I guess kids these days don’t care for prizes in their cereal boxes because they just don’t exist anymore. Now kids just scan the box with their smart phones and log into the site where they can meet millions of other kids scanning their cereal boxes for animated penguins with hockey sticks. I’m not bitter and I’m not being cranky. It would be awesome if my Value Sized Club Pack box of Bran Flakes had something cool inside like a telescope or X-ray glasses but these days I am just hoping it meets my fibre requirement so I can have lunch with Chef Boyardee.
He’s a real Chef you know.
