Sugar in the Morning, Sugar in the Evening, and on Saturday Mornings = Cereal Gold!

Salve Omni!

And greetings to you, Dear Reader!  I hope you had a great week!

This week, I found myself awake most nights, watching late night TV cartoon episodes from “the olden days”.  Yep, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I am officially old!  If you have cable or satellite TV, and remember the awesome weekday and Saturday morning cartoons that aired on TV during the late 1980s and ‘90s, then I highly-recommend two channels – HUB and Boomerang.  Between the two, they show classic cartoons and TV shows from a time almost forgotten.  In the wee hours of the morning, I found myself watching some old The Adventures of Captain Planet episodes (don’t judge me).  All I can say is the old episodes that I watched as a child seem so much different now from how I remember them.  Not as cool as I remembered…actually, a wee bit disappointing!  I found myself going, “huh?” a few times.  But I digress…Believe it or not, I am not here to talk about the cartoons of my childhood (I’ll save this for a lengthier future post), but rather, something equally important – breakfast cereal!!! 

It’s so strange, the thoughts that run through my mind late at night!  I, more than often will find myself analyzing some pretty random (and quite insanely genius) ideas.  This time, by watching “oldies” like The Adventures of Captain Planet, I started reminiscing about early morning cartoons and breakfast cereal.

As a child growing up in the 1980s and ‘90s, some of my fondest moments (other than my strange, nerdy elementary school fascination with completing lots and lots of extra homework) were spent before school and Saturday mornings, watching cartoons and eating some awesome breakfast cereal.  Unlike the foods of today, America didn’t seem as concerned with wheat and fiber being the main contents of kid’s breakfast cereals, but seemed more concerned with cereals appealing to kids and tasting pretty darn good to boot.  In my opinion, kid’s breakfast cereals of the past were full of yumminess, sugar-packed goodness and marshmallows and lots and lots of food coloring!

I considered myself to be a connoisseur of cereal.  Like fine wine, they must be sampled and rated.  I had my favorites and I had my dislikes (to be honest, I’m surprised I didn’t keep a cereal journal), but I rarely ever managed to finish a full box of anything before moving on to the next cereal – hey, my eyes were definitely bigger than my stomach!  And I also blame the darn TV commercials – how dare they try to appeal to me by making cereals based on my favorite TV shows and video games!  Almost weekly, there seemed to be a brand-new sparkly commercial boasting of a fantastic cereal that I just had to try. 

I’ll be honest, a lot of these cereals were very disappointing and tasted like crap, but I still had my favorites (some are still around today):

v  Super Golden Crisp

v  Apple Jacks

v  Kellogg’s Corn Pops

v  Fruity Pebbles

v  Lucky Charms – (I’ll admit it, I only ate the marshmallows – soooo good!)

v  Cocoa Krispies

v  Kix – (Okay, pretty bland, but for some reason, I Like It…and still do!)

v  Honey Comb

v  Reese’s Peanut Butter Puffs Cereal – Didn’t taste much like the candy, but still quite yummy!

v  Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes – “They’re ggggreat!”

v  Frosted Cheerios – Remember this?  Thank God for this version, because face it – regular Cheerios were not that great – unless you poured a ton of sugar on it.

v  Cinnamon Toast Crunch – The best bit – after you are done with the cereal, the milk is full of cinnamon/sugary goodness!

v  Nintendo Cereal System – Two cereals in one!  One side was Super Mario Bros., the other – The Legend of Zelda.  The Super Mario Bros. side tasted like crap, but The Legend of Zelda cereal, well, I hate to admit…was quite tasty!

v  Hidden Treasures – Some had fruit filling in the middle – a very interesting taste!

v  Circus Fun – Almost forgot about this one…was good, man!

v  Dino Pebbles – Pretty darn good!

v  Cap’n Crunch

v  Marshmallow Krispies – Shouldn’t have happened, but I ate it anyway.

v  Ghost Busters Cereal

v  Cookie Crisp – Didn’t taste much like chocolate chip cookies, but it was okay.  I prefer getting a box of the Mini Chips Ahoy! cookies, and pouring them into a bowl of milk – THE BEST CEREAL, EVER!!!

Well, there you have it – a visit from the ghosts of breakfast cereals past!  I hope you are pleasantly haunted by the thoughts of tastiness and nostalgic goodness.  And, just in time for today’s Saturday morning cartoons!

Happy Saturday, Everyone!