Memories of Sugary Foods...
After all these years, I still fear the Ka-Boom Clown. Oh, it isn't the stark feeling I had as a small boy, when I first looked up at the cereal box on the shelf, saw the clown and thought "There is something wrong with that creature…Something…Evil." Now it is just vague uneasy tickle in the back of my head as I run full-tilt down the cereal aisle.
The ad agents who were active in my childhood have much to answer for. "Fruitpie the Magician" for example. Actually, the whole Hostess pantheon: "King Ding Dong", "Twinkie the Kid" and "Robin Ho Ho" not to mention "Captain Cup Cake."
They were cannibals. Every one of 'em. "Here, have a fruit pie!" says a fruit pie magician…"No no, have a cup cake!" urges a cup cake captain. "Nooooo!" screams the wee confection.
You'd see them, offering their brethren (or sistern, as far as I know, and who can tell with snak-foodz?) to be devoured by ravenous children. Horror, hideous, scarring.
Come to think of it though, one of the sights I miss most from my childhood was Kraft Peanut Butter. That metallic green label and the golden cubs-how can anybody not feel good about a peanut butter endorsed by bears? Was it my imagination that supplied the honey flavor? If these small cute cubs loved this peanut butter, then so could I. Ursine creatures know peanuts. I'd often eat it by the spoonful out of the jar (Mum frowned upon eating bear-fashion, which was holding the jar in your paws and licking the contents out…"Well, the bears did it!" cut no ice in our household).
But the sinister ones remained. Baron Von RedBerry hawking his Teutonic cereal in his Fokker DriDekker, faced only by Sir Grapefellow in his goddam purple Sopwith Camel - and are they fighting over the invasion of France? Oh Hell No- it's which cereal tastes better. That's right-aerial combat between fruit-like flavors. I find it interesting that my brother was the Baron-fan and I was all about Grape Squadron. Indicative, one would say. I also blame my habit of dropping boxes of cereal on enemy combatants directly on these two. Normally, one would open the helicopter door, unlimber da' biiig door cannon, but first, I'd drop several boxes of cereal on unsuspecting hostiles. There is a UN resolution against this and I was often written up for potentially causing unnecessary injuries during ground-strikes. General Mills, I hope you're proud of yourselves.
And while I'm ranting about cereal… those damn Honey Comb kids. What was their PROBLEM? Agoraphobia? And the Freakies? "Hellooo! Hallucination-Station, this is Train 2…I wanna live in a tree with snorkel-beasts." Why not just call it "LSD Crunch" and get it over with?
Incidentally? LSD turned out to be less of a trip than the cereal. Just sayin'. Less fun, and less freaky. And Freakies the cereal wasn't precisely a laugh-riot.
Pre-Sweetened cereal was a treat in my house. Hence my deep involvement. Malt-O-Meal and Cream-O-Wheat only get passim thought in my memory. Other than "Oh God NO" anyway. But all those characters...Quisp- if he had a space ship, Why the propeller head? And Quake? eah. Quangeroo? Quaker Oats-we love the First Letter of Our Name.
The ad agents who were active in my childhood have much to answer for. "Fruitpie the Magician" for example. Actually, the whole Hostess pantheon: "King Ding Dong", "Twinkie the Kid" and "Robin Ho Ho" not to mention "Captain Cup Cake."
They were cannibals. Every one of 'em. "Here, have a fruit pie!" says a fruit pie magician…"No no, have a cup cake!" urges a cup cake captain. "Nooooo!" screams the wee confection.
You'd see them, offering their brethren (or sistern, as far as I know, and who can tell with snak-foodz?) to be devoured by ravenous children. Horror, hideous, scarring.
Come to think of it though, one of the sights I miss most from my childhood was Kraft Peanut Butter. That metallic green label and the golden cubs-how can anybody not feel good about a peanut butter endorsed by bears? Was it my imagination that supplied the honey flavor? If these small cute cubs loved this peanut butter, then so could I. Ursine creatures know peanuts. I'd often eat it by the spoonful out of the jar (Mum frowned upon eating bear-fashion, which was holding the jar in your paws and licking the contents out…"Well, the bears did it!" cut no ice in our household).
But the sinister ones remained. Baron Von RedBerry hawking his Teutonic cereal in his Fokker DriDekker, faced only by Sir Grapefellow in his goddam purple Sopwith Camel - and are they fighting over the invasion of France? Oh Hell No- it's which cereal tastes better. That's right-aerial combat between fruit-like flavors. I find it interesting that my brother was the Baron-fan and I was all about Grape Squadron. Indicative, one would say. I also blame my habit of dropping boxes of cereal on enemy combatants directly on these two. Normally, one would open the helicopter door, unlimber da' biiig door cannon, but first, I'd drop several boxes of cereal on unsuspecting hostiles. There is a UN resolution against this and I was often written up for potentially causing unnecessary injuries during ground-strikes. General Mills, I hope you're proud of yourselves.
And while I'm ranting about cereal… those damn Honey Comb kids. What was their PROBLEM? Agoraphobia? And the Freakies? "Hellooo! Hallucination-Station, this is Train 2…I wanna live in a tree with snorkel-beasts." Why not just call it "LSD Crunch" and get it over with?
Incidentally? LSD turned out to be less of a trip than the cereal. Just sayin'. Less fun, and less freaky. And Freakies the cereal wasn't precisely a laugh-riot.
Pre-Sweetened cereal was a treat in my house. Hence my deep involvement. Malt-O-Meal and Cream-O-Wheat only get passim thought in my memory. Other than "Oh God NO" anyway. But all those characters...Quisp- if he had a space ship, Why the propeller head? And Quake? eah. Quangeroo? Quaker Oats-we love the First Letter of Our Name.
posted by Buccaneer | 13:39
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