October 13, 2017 • 39 mins
Is Cap'n Crunch Really a Captain? Is the Silly Rabbit using psychological tricks on kids? And why did everyone stop putting prizes in cereal boxes? Will and Mango take a trip down memory lane, exploring why America is so nostalgic for those sugary sweet breakfast treats. Featuring Cereal Time TV's Gabe Fonseca.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what will what's that mango? So at our first
week in college, I remember being in line for breakfast
and and there was just this wall of amazing breakfast
cereals and we were, of course away from our parents
for the first time and being independent and responsible, and
so I piled my bowl high with Lucky Charms. I mean,
I think it was Lucky Charles, but whatever was the
(00:21):
most nutritious cereal out there. I love that when you
were finally like free from the overside of your parents,
like that was the first thing you did to express
your freedom, was like, get a big bowl of cereal.
But yes, I do remember that big, awesome wall of cereal. Yeah,
and the people we were with started making fun of
me for eating a kid cereal instead of musically or whatever.
And and right then the star basketball recruit Eldon Brand
(00:43):
walked up and got a bowl of the same thing,
and it was just pure silent and I felt like
such a trend setter. And I remember that that's when
you became the most popular kid on campus. And not
really but part of the reason I love breakfast cereals
so much. And you know, we used to have big
cereal parties that metal flaws where everyone would bring a
box in their favorite cereal. But uh, there's just such
(01:04):
a wonderful association with childhood and Saturday Morning cartoons, and
that's actually why we're talking about cereal today. Let's dig
in Ada. Their podcast listeners, Welcome to parts I'm genius,
(01:34):
I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my
good friend man Gesh Ticketer and the man on the
other side of the soundproof glass eating a big bowl
of frosted many weeks good choice today as our producer
Tristan McNeil. But today we're heading back to the grocery
all for a closer look at all things cereal, you know,
the most whimsical or nutritionally questionable at all of this,
(01:55):
at every part of a complete breakfast. And so we'll
dig into the weird stories and so rising facts behind
our favorite brands, as well as a few of the
lesser known breakfast cereals that time forgot. And then a
little bit later we'll be joined by Gave Fonseca. He's
a TV writer and he spent more than a decade
collecting childhood nostalgia in the form of vintage cereal boxes.
(02:15):
It's a fascinating collection. Yeah, and he's also the host
of this really fun YouTube series called cereal Time, which
is the series on the subject of breakfast cereal. I mean,
he's been doing it for a couple of years now,
so I'm super excited to just hear how he got started. Yeah. Well, well,
Gabs among the most devout of serial enthusiasts, but he's
definitely not alone in this. I mean, lots of people
love cereals, and in the hundred and fifty plus years
(02:38):
since it came onto the market, cold breakfast cereal has
become a staple for millions of people around the world.
And you know, strangely, this love affair got its start
in the late nineteenth century kind of as an accident.
You know. It was this invention of fundamentalist Christians who
were seeking to promote a healthy, sin free lifestyle. And
much of this is you know, stories that people have heard,
(02:58):
but it's still pretty interesting that the bland foods, as
you know, like toasted corn and oats, where they were
thought to help suppress sexual urges and prevent arousal. And
so this thinking led to the creation of a few
notable foods, including Graham crackers of course, but the one
that really caught on what the public was sereal. So
Dr John Harvey Kellogg, the superintendent of a sanitarium in
(03:20):
Battle Creek, Michigan, and his younger brother, Well, they stumbled
upon the recipe for what would ultimately become corn flakes.
After allowing some of the cooked wheat to sit out
for too long, the Kellogg's returned to find the wheat
had gone stale, but rather than toss it out as
you might think they would, they decided to roll it
out into thin flakes and then toast them. And the
corn flakes were a big hit with their patients, so
(03:42):
the Kelloggs decided to start marketing them to a broader public. Yeah,
and as interesting as that early history is, it's pretty
familiar by this point. So instead of going deep on
sanitariums and grape nuts, we're gonna focus mostly on the
second act of the serial story. That's the period from
about ninety to the early nine is when marketing to
children really took off and sugary cereals really began flooding
(04:04):
grocery store aisles. Well, before we dive into that colorful history,
I thought we could take a quick look at the
state of cereal today, you know, just by the numbers,
and it's amazing how far cereal has come from its
early years as this niche product to the mammoth industry
that it is now. So just looking at the US
market alone, the breakfast cereal industry now generates nearly ten
(04:26):
billion dollars in annual revenue. And that that's according to
mord Or Intelligence. Did you say word or intelligent like
a hobbit? It's kind of a jarring name if you're
a Lord of the rings fan. But it's just the coincidence, unfortunately.
But like I was saying, Americans lead the world and
serial consumption. It ranks fourth on the list of the
top ten package goods sold in the US, and of
(04:49):
American households by a box of cereal at least once
a year. And we're not the only ones who love it. Canada,
the UK, Australia, they all have sereal markets that rival
the size of our own, and in recent years cereal
has also gained in places like China and India and Brazil.
In fact, the breakfast cereal marketing industry brakes and about
thirty five billion dollars in revenue each year from the
(05:11):
foreign markets. So when I took my kids to India
last year, I remember waking up jet lag the first
day and they were already up watching cartoons and we're
wired on a bowl of chocos. We didn't have chacos
in all my years agoing to India though. We never
ate breakfast cereals and we never ate in from the TV.
So it was almost jarring to see this American experience
(05:31):
transplanted to India. But you know, sugar and grain is
obviously this winning combination, but I have seen a few
reports about sagging sales as more and more people opt for,
you know, either easier or healthier breakfast options, so pop
tarts or avocado toast, or you know, maybe a quick
trip to the drive through on the way to work.
And and of course there's this growing segment of the
(05:53):
population that just doesn't eat breakfast period. So when you
were listing those easier and healthier options and you said
pop tarts, which one of them, I guess that's the
easier option there, but they are delicious. Well. As big
as the cereal industry is today, there's no question that
it used to be bigger. According to NPR, serial consumption
peaked right around ninete I guess it was, and has
(06:13):
steadily gone downhill ever since, generally by a full percentage
point each year. And while the stuff you mentioned has
definitely played a part in that decline, it's really due
to a combination of factors. You know. For example, back
in lawmakers passed the Nutrition and Labeling Education Act, and
that made it mandatory for all products to include the
now commonplace list of nutrition facts on the packaging. And
(06:37):
this made it easier than ever for consumers to see
the nutritional value or lack thereof, I guess, and they
could look at this and all of their cereals now
at this point, and as more people became educated about
just how much sugar and carbs they were eating or
feeding to their kids, you know, they started to think
twice before tossing a box in the car whenever they're
with grocery store. So I looked into just how sugary
(06:59):
cereal can be. And it's insane, Like the whole cereal
industry uses around eight hundred sixty million pounds of sugar
in its products every year, and apparently most of that's
going into honey smacks, you know, for some reason, you
don't know out there, that's the one with the cool
frog wearing the backwards baseball cap on the box. I
thought you were talking to me for a second, was like,
I know, Honey Smacks, man, come on, well, honey Smacks
(07:22):
is consistently ranked the worst cereal for your health because
it has less than two grams of fiber per serving
and its ingredients breakdown to almost sixty percent sugar. It's tasty,
but according to the Environmental and Working Group, there's more
sugar in one cup serving of honey Smacks than there
isn't a Hostess twinkie, no way. And I know that
(07:44):
it is sweet, obviously, and I knew it wasn't good
for you. But honestly, like the taste of honey Smacks,
I wouldn't have guessed it was the most sugary cereal.
But it kind of makes my teeth are just thinking
about that. But you know that that sugar to fiber
ratio might make us cringe. But there's one particular serial
eleating demographic that you're not going to hear complaining about this,
and that's kids, or at least my kids. Yeah, my
(08:05):
kids do. Actually, do you remember there was this great
Calvin and Hobbs where Calvin's eating his favorite cereal I
think it's something like chocolate frostage sugar bombs, and he
gives Hobbs to try, and Hobbs just starts shaking, gagging
from the sweetness, and Calvin says, actually they're kind of
bland until he scoops some sugar off. But what I
(08:25):
find really interesting is how deeply ingrained the fondness for
breakfast cereal is and so many people, and how so
much of that seems rooted in their childhood. Yeah. I mean,
i'd say for most adults seal leaders, it's a big
part of the allure. I mean, it's what you were
saying about your kids. There's these memories of watching Saturday
morning cartoons with a big bowl of Captain Crunch in
your hand, or maybe indulging in a late night fix
(08:46):
of Lucky Charms sitting in your college dorm. I don't
know who you're talking about, right, Well, it's sort of
a comfort food in a way. I mean, it takes
us back to simpler days when most of us were
a little more carefree about what we ate and why. Yeah,
so in nostalgia is definitely a strong factor. Actually, well,
what are some of the weirdest discontinued cereals you can
think of? I was trying to think about this earlier,
and I remember seeing a Cuber Cereal when I was
(09:09):
a kid. Do you remember Cuber? Yeah, that video game character,
and and also eating one with smurfberries. Like my parents
only really bought a sugar cereals for maybe a year
or two, but I remember sampling some weird ones. Yeah,
I mean, I always thought it was completely bonkers that
some cereals didn't even mask the fact that they were candy,
Like you know, Kellogg's did a candy corn Pops. But
(09:30):
even more blatant than that, there was a Nerds Cereal
and I'm ticked off that I never tried it. Nerd Cereal.
By the way, listeners, I just wanted to break for
a second because Will and I have been debating what
the official candy of Part Time Genius should be, and
Will was saying it should be atomic fireballs, and I
was thinking Nerds. So if you have any thoughts on this,
(09:51):
please let us know on Facebook or Twitter. But well,
you're right, Nerds Cereal isn't sane. But looking back, like
the box was so cool. It came in these two flavors,
just like the candies, and you could pour orange out
of one side and cherry out of the other. Can
you imagine, Like, who would let their kids buy this? Probably?
It also makes me wonder like if so much a
(10:12):
serials appeal is rooted in the past, Like, what does
this say about our future? Well, you know, there's a
new generation of kids getting hooked on cereal now, and
many of them will stick with it into adulthood. And
that's part of the reason there's so many brands duking
it out, you know, trying to get kids to eat
these cereal is because people's breakfast routines tend to be
the same, you know, pretty much every day. But there's
(10:34):
another point to consider, and those declining sales numbers we
mentioned earlier also coincide with declining birth rate, So you know,
it's not like the birthrate will ever drop to zero
or anything like that, but fewer kids does result than
fewer cereal fans, obviously. Yeah, It's it's funny that something
that started out as health food became so dependent on
selling sugar to kids, but I guess that's usually how
(10:56):
it goes with food. Trends, like someone with these very
altruistic intentions gets the ball rolling, hoping to better society,
and and then you know, at a certain point, the
marketing team steps in, right, exactly. Yeah. Dr Kellogg used
to give lectures about his methods for leading a healthy lifestyle,
and he would sometimes give out the recipes for his
corn Flix so that people could make them at home.
And at one talk he told the crowd, you may
(11:18):
say I'm destroying the health food business here by giving
these recipes, but I'm not after the business. I'm after reform.
I mean. Yeah. He really did seem to believe and
what he was selling, sure, but the problem was that
the same couldn't be said of his brother, Will Kellogg.
And and Will try for years to convince his brother
to add sugar to their cereal, believing it would add
some flavor to what he called horse food. But the
(11:39):
tipping point came into late forties when their competitor Post
Cereals released Sugar Crisp, so Posted branched out beyond the
health food market with its first sugarcoated cereal, and like
it or not, Kellogg kind of had to follow suit. Yeah,
but it's really post world War two that the industry
started to focus on marketing directly to kids. I mean,
companies had dabbled with these ads before, including Kellogg's use
(12:01):
of Snap Cracklin Pop as the characters for Rice Crispies,
and that marketing began in the nineteen thirties. But even
with cartoon gnomes pleading their case, you know, these highly
processed oats and grains were a tough sell without adding
something you know, sweet to it. That's crazy though, I like,
I had no idea that the Rice Christie's trio had
been around that long. I thought they were post fifties
(12:22):
like most other Cereal mascots. Yeah, Snap Cracklin Pop are
actually one of the longest running ad campaigns in history,
and as I was looking up at that, they're actually
the longest for Cereal brands. Actually, by the way, did
you know that their names are on amount of pia
sounds for what you hear when milk is added to
the cereal. But apparently Rice Crispies were always marketed as
the cereal you can hear, and this was even before
(12:43):
the mascots came along. In fact, the guy who created
the characters did so after being inspired by one of
the brand's previous radio jingles, because I know you're dying
to know what it was. Here the lyrics, I jotted
them down, So all right, listen to the fairy song
of help the Mary Corus sung by Kelloggs Rice Crispi
as they merrily snap, crackle and pop in a bowl
of milk. If you've never heard food talking, now is
(13:06):
your chance. I'm so hungry for a bowl of cereal? Now,
why didn't I do this before? And also that was
a jingle like it doesn't even rive? Was I was
gonna put it to song that I just made up
against it? So, I mean, obviously mascots were a smart move,
since it's hard to market like a fairy song of
health without them. But wasn't there also a fourth gnome
for a while, Yeah, you bet there was Pal He
(13:27):
stood for the cereals nutritional punch, I think, And of
course he didn't last very long. But let's get this
back on track. So gradually the Sweden Cereals come to
dominate the market, thanks, you know, because of product placement
and children's programming, and they've never looked back since. And
in fact, the breakfast cereal industry is still one of
the top spenders for a commercial air time. More than
(13:47):
a million Cereal ads air on TV each year, which
cost companies like Post and Kelloggs more than I want
to say, like half a billion dollars. Yeah, well so,
so all those old TV ads are a big part
of why Cold Cereal took such a hold in the
hearts and minds of baby boomers, and then they of
course passed on that fondness to their now adult children.
But you know, there's another element that helped the dear
(14:08):
entire generations to breakfast Cereal that I want to talk
about it, and that's the prizes that came packed inside
those boxes. I mean, the prizes played such a big role.
Like I might have wanted a box of Cookie Crisp,
but if the Apple Jacks had one of those wacky
wall walkers in it. I mean you remember those sticky
octopuses that were walked down the wall of course, Yeah,
and then of course that's the box I'd end up with. Yeah,
(14:28):
I mean, I'm with you on that. Actually I would
buy a box of Cereal for one of those. Now
it's been years since I played one. They were awesome.
But you know, let's talk a little bit about how
toys and games ended up inside the boxes, as well
as some of the coolest and strangest ones to come
along over the years. But before we do that, let's
break for a quiz. They we've got Gabe fon Sica
(14:52):
on the program now. Gabs an accomplished TV writer, but
he's also got the best unboxing series on YouTube. It's
called Serial Time TV and this is where he unboxes
and reviews incredible breakfast cereals. Welcome to part time Genius, Gabe.
Thanks for having me. I'm I'm a fan of the podcast,
so I'm on it to be on the show. Thank
you so much. Now, I know you're out in Los Angeles.
(15:12):
Man Guesh is actually on vacation today. He's out on
your coast in Portland's so he sends his best but
but I hope you're still willing to chat with me today,
of course, of course. All right now, so, Gay, we've
read that you have over three hundred cereal boxes in
your collection, and I have to ask, like, how did
you get into this in the first place, and what
are some of your more prized cereal boxes. You know,
(15:36):
I've always been a collector and I think at one
point I saw Old Spider Man Surreal. I think that
was my first box. Um it was from zero and
I saw it on eBay when I was just browsing,
and I was like, that'd be cool to have on
my bookshelf, and I bought it and then uh, and
then I was like, well, you know what, there are
some other ones that I remember from back in the day,
and and then it kind of just turned into this
black hole on eBay where I just was was scouring
(15:58):
and finding old cereals that that brought back these nostalgic
memories to me. Wow. Wow, now I think I've read
that you've tried some even some like thirty year old cereals.
Is this right? Yeah? Yeah. When I first started this
unboxing channel on YouTube, and I started it because I
started to run out a room of just having these
unopened Cereal boxes on my shelf and it was like,
you know, this is just taking up space and this
(16:19):
is kind of silly. I could just flatten them out,
So I I decided like, well, let's for posterity, let's
just record myself opening these boxes and and you know,
recording with the Cereal looks like and documenting it so
I'll have it, you know, for posterity, and uh, and
I never thought I was like going to try him,
and then I'd opened some boxes and uh, I'd be like, well,
let me just see if it holds up. I think
(16:39):
the oldest one I might have tried was a grim
smiles giggles and last cereal, which was from the seventies,
I believe, and it was pretty grass. I'm guessing, Oh man,
they're terrible. They just don't you know. It tastes mostly
like it tastes like the plastic in a way. It
takes very toxic and disgusting. But I would I definitely
do not recommend it. I can't imagine now. In terms
(16:59):
of cereals, are there any that you wish you could
have tasted if you could go back in time? Yeah? Absolutely.
There's one from before my time in the seventies called
a Great Fellow. It was actually, um they released a
Great Fellow and Baron von red Berry. There were General
Mills cereals and uh, this is a Great Fellow. One
tasted like you know, grape the grape cereal or great
kool Aid. I imagine I never actually got to try it,
(17:20):
but I'm a I'm a sucker for great flavored things.
And uh and even though I got a Nerds cereal
which came out in the eighties, which I which I
got to try back and back then, I it just
wasn't the same, you know, it wasn't it wasn't that
great great flavor. It was kind of it wasn't a
great cereal, And Sir, great fellow, just just like I
look at the ad campaigns I see on YouTube and
(17:41):
I'm just like this, this was like, this is great.
I really wish I was alive for this one. I
could I could try that one. Yeah, yeah, Now, how
about any boxes you'd love to add to your collection
but haven't been able to get ahold of For me?
I I kind of at this point, I feel like
I'm at peace and that's kind of completed my collection
and kind of everything I want. There is one really
random cereal from General Mills in the nineties. It was
(18:03):
called Buen You Litos, and I remember it. It was
on shelves for a limited time, and I just can't
find a box of that anywhere. And that's probably like
the last you know, my great you know, white whale
that I'm trying to obtain. Still, I don't know, Gabe.
I'm hearing in your voice that maybe you're not quite
at piece yet until you find that so off, if
if if any of our listeners out there know how
(18:24):
to get ahold of some did you say boren Alito's yes,
all right, we'll see what we can do for you.
So there'll be a free part time genius t shirt
on the line for these people. But but before we
let you go, Mango did leave me a quiz titled
the most Important Meal Quiz of the Day. So I'm
gonna ask you a few questions if you obscure serial
(18:44):
questions and all you gotta do is answer them. How's
that sounds? All right? I'll give it my best, alright.
Question number one. According to a nineteen fifty six confidential
magazine report, what breakfast cereal was supposedly responsible for Frank
Sinatra's success with women. It's got to be wheat It
is Wheaties. Yeah. The article claimed that Sinatra could thank
Wheatie's for his reputation as the quote Tarzan of the Boudoir.
(19:08):
So yes, congratulations there, all right? One for one? Question
number two. Before a certain tiger became spokes animal for
this breakfast cereal. He had to beat out three other contenders,
Elmo the Elephant, Newt the new and Katie the Kangaroo.
What cereal are we talking about? Frosted flakes? That's right,
it's frosted flakes. Now. Katie actually appeared on boxes in
(19:29):
the nineteen fifties before Tony the Tiger started out selling her.
All right, here we go question number three. What popular
breakfast cereal created by John Harvey Kellogg was eating aboard
the Apollo eleven cereal? Christ, It's a pretty good guess.
It was actually Kellogg's corn flakes, And so the cereal
(19:49):
was mixed up with fruit and formed into cube since
eating it with milk was impossible without gravity. Alright, two
for three. The last question here the big prize is
on the line. While Saddam Hussein loved Raisin brand and
requested it for breakfast in prison, he detested this cereal. Oh,
I actually read the article about that. Yes, it is
(20:12):
fruit looks and according to US soldiers, one of the
few times he actually looked defeated in prison was when
a bowl of the fruity cereal was brought to him.
But so, congratulations, you've got three out of four, which
qualifies you for our top prize, which is a note
to your mom or your boss singing your praises. So, Gabe,
congratulations and thanks so much for joining us on Part
(20:34):
Time Genius. Well thanks for having me. Well it's been
it's great. Thank you very much. You're listening to Part
Time Genius and we're talking about the heyday of breakfast cereal.
(20:54):
You know, when kids became the target market, and nutrition
kind of took a backseat to things like marshmallows and prizes,
and you know, speaking of cereal box prizes, you know,
those were another way that Kelloggs tried to attract kids
to cereal in the pre sugar days and three the
company started putting pen back buttons inside boxes of their
pep cereal. So they started with a series of thirty
(21:16):
six pens that featured World War two squadron insignia from
the US military. And this was before switching over to
fictional heroes like comic book characters. Yeah, so those are
some of the earliest inbox prizes we know about. But
if we're talking buttons, my favorites are the Urkel for
President campaign buttons they were giving out during the Clinton
Bush Senior campaign. Do you remember those? We're talking Steve
(21:38):
Urkel from Family. I can't say I remember him running
for president? But what what cereal was that? Kels? Of course,
it was one of those short lived novelty cereals that
crops up for a few months and then disappears, Like
basically it was a sweeter version of cheerios, but wackier
with banana and strawberry flavors. But uh, obviously we're getting
ahead of ourselves with all these in the box because
(22:00):
Kellogg's actually got into the prize game long before that.
In the earlier days, the prizes, or premiums as they're
called in the industry, weren't in the box at all.
And as far as we know, the first prize used
to market cereal was this nine nine children's book. It
was called the Funny Jungle Land Moving Pictures Book, and
it was given to customers who bought two boxes of
Kellogg's corn flakes that they're participating grocery stores. After a
(22:24):
couple of years, of course, Kelloggs decided to stop handing
out the books on location. Instead offered them as mail
and offer, and within four years the company had distributed
two point five million copies of the book, isn't that insane? Like,
it was obviously a hit with customers, so Kelloggs kept
releasing new editions, and they kept going on with jungle
Land books all the way up until ninety seven. I mean,
(22:46):
I guess that's pretty cool. But I have to say
I was never a fan of those mail in prizes.
I mean, I was all about the instant gratification. You
don't want to dig in there, like get elbow deep
and some cocoa puffs or something and then just be
able to like fish around and find that all aphane bag. Yeah,
and then you gotta eat the cereal dust off your arm.
But those were definitely the days. But I never really
(23:06):
minded the mail ins like I think it was partly
the joy of receiving any kind of mail as a kid,
The fact that anyone was sending me anything was exciting enough,
even if I had to save up like a bunch
of box tops and wait six to eight weeks to
make it happen. Though that was mostly dying out by
the time we were kids. I only remember doing it
a few times. But you know that the real reason
the cereal industry stepped up its game and and the
(23:28):
prize game, specifically in the nineteen fifties is pretty interesting
and it's it's thanks to this invention of what was
called the screw injection molding machine, and and that's what
made plastic prizes faster and cheaper to produce. And this
wasn't the only time the inventor of injection molding his
name was James Watson Henry would lend a hand to
cereal prizes. So in the nineteen seventies, Henry's developed the
(23:50):
first gas assisted injection molding process, and this is what
made it possible to produce these finally detailed hollow plastic objects,
you know, the ones that environmental group love so much.
This cut costs even more and paved the way to
a golden age of these in box serial prizes. That
explains why so many of the cool prizes I found
were from the sixties and seventies. And of course I'd
(24:12):
be remiss if we didn't mention the Boson's whistle that
came inside the box of Captain Crunch in the early seventies.
We're talking about things we'd remiss not mentioning about Captain Crunch.
What about Gen Lafoote which was Captain Crunch's stinky, barefooted rival.
But anyway, gone with your whistle story. Well, obviously the
whistles just like really high fished little whistle, and the
(24:33):
Boson's whistle was one that was historically used on naval
ships when commanders needed to pass orders to the crew
but couldn't be heard because of the waves or weather
or whatever. And these days it's mostly used in naval ceremonies.
But in Captain Crunch's case, it turned out that when
you covered one of the whistles holes in blue, it
produced this frequency of twenty hurts, which was the exact
(24:54):
tone a T and T used to control its long
distance lines. And basically, this legendary hacker, John Thomas Drape,
who was also known as Captain Crunch or Crunch or
crunch Man, he learned that he could use one of
the whistles to hack the phone system and get free
long distance calls. I love that they figured that. It's
why that old hacking magazine was actually called hundred, and
(25:14):
then why Steve Jobs and Steve Wosna even tracked down
the whistle and built a box that replicated the frequency
to try and prank call the Pope. I love that
as I love that they pretended to be Henry Kissinger.
And it almost got there until this like suspicious bishop
caught on like and and then the Pope didn't get
on those pesky bishops. And you know, while injection molding
(25:35):
allowed for all kinds of awesome plastic toys, you know,
some of the funniest ones that came across were actually
even like metal, or some of them even paper. Like
in nineteen four, Wheaties gave away these miniature state license
plates and they were made of solid steel, and you
got one in each box, but you could also buy
them in four sets of twelve by mailing in a
(25:55):
box top and a quarter a whopping quarter, and that
would be The only hitch to the was that Alaska
and Hawaii had not yet become states, so there were
actually only forty eight plates and all. Oh man, So
do you think people were like pissed when those two
states got statehood a few years later and suddenly their
collections were incomplete? Well, actually, Post Serials did release a
set of the full fifty later on, but apparently we
(26:18):
still gets letters about the original campaign to this day,
so maybe there's still a few determined fans out there
just pestering them about their missing plates or something. I
hope so. But one of the most unique prizes I
read about was this paper prize. It was a deed
to one inch of land in the Yukon. So a
serial company was giving away land by the inch. Yeah,
(26:40):
it's a great idea, right, So Quaker Oaths sponsored a
show in the fifties called Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.
You remember Sergeant President of the Yukon, And this was
their way of linking the show to the product and
full disclosure, this was a mail in prize, but this
one was totally worth the weight. So for just a
single box top kids would receive a deed for one
square inch at the nineteen acres of Yukon territory that
(27:01):
Quaker purchased, and they actually purchased this from the Canadian
government for a thousand dollars. The promotion was this massive success,
and Quaker actually sent out more than twenty one million
deeds in just a few weeks away. Yeah, and then
lots of people would write the company or even the
Canadian government from time to time to check in on
their property. But sadly the reply was not good news.
(27:22):
Apparently none of the deed holders were actually landowners because
the individual deeds were never formally registered after the recipients
signed them, I know. And in the end, Canada repossessed
all the land in nineteen five due to non payment
of get this, thirty seven dollars and twenty cents in
property taxes. You know. I mean. It also reminds me
(27:43):
of the time during the eighties when General Mills started
giving out actual one dollar bills as prizes and boxes
of cherios. It just sounds kind of like lazy, like
let's let's just put a dollar in there, and except
in this case the prize was actually worth something. Yeah,
and it's way better than the promotion Cherios offered in
the fifties when they gave away color rep productions of
Confederate Money and an album to keep them in. Oh
that's so strange. I actually I think I'd rather have
(28:05):
the phony d than But we sort of transition into
these more lackluster I don't know, dare I say, like
crappy prizes, but honestly, at least they're still prizes and
and much like serial sales, Serial Premium seemed to be
on the decline these days. Yes, so I noticed last
time I was in Cereal aisles there seemed to be
fewer boxes advertising physical prizes, but there were a bunch
(28:26):
of boxes offering some kind of digital prize, like access
to an online video game. And I guess serial premiums
changed to reflect the times and and most kids these
days would prefer some type of like instant online entertainment
over a plastic figure. But I also read a report
from the Center for Science and the Public Interest, and
it determined that it was far cheaper to make an
(28:47):
online game than to produce a traditional plastic premium, and
that definitely figures into the decision to scale back the
physical prizes. Yeah, I think you're right. And not to
mention that there have been a few safety scares that
lead to recalls on mill millions and millions of these
plastic prizes that were deemed choking hazards, and that's actually
the reason prizes were moved from the inside of the
Cereal bag itself to between the bag and the box lining.
(29:09):
This happened in the early nineties. Is you know, Sereal
companies saw that this was kind of a risk, or
a great risk if kids accidentally started gobbling up these prizes.
It's it's funny because Crackerjack went through like a similar
adjustment with the prizes inside their boxes and concerns about
safety and rising cost of production next anything but paper prizes,
whereas they used to have really cool stuff in there,
(29:30):
like Dakota rings and tin soldiers mixed in. And and
since Crackerjack was the first food to actually offer box
prizes way back in, it kind of seems fitting that
cereal premiums would follow suit. Yeah, I mean that's true.
But but but all is not lost for these in
the box cereal prizes. I mean there's still some physical
knickknacks sprinkled in there, but most of these are just
(29:50):
tie in with usually like big media events or maybe
movie releases. You know, the new Star Wars movie had
some of these accompany that. And besides, there's another serial
philosophy that suggests it's what's on the outside of the
box that matters, not the inside. Okay, Mango, So we've
covered the actual cereal as well as the cool prizes
that you find inside the bag or just outside it.
(30:11):
So how about we conclude our anatomical tour of the
cereal box by focusing on the box itself. Yeah, that
sounds good. So I'll start us off with a little
cereal box psychology. Back in two thousand fourteen, researchers from
the Cornell Food and Brand Lab study eighty six different
cereal box mascots and ten grocery stores throughout New York
in Connecticut, and from this whirlwind tour, they found that
(30:33):
boxes are strategically positioned to make eye contact with children.
On average, the kid targeted cereal boxes are placed on
the lower shelves, usually at a height of twenty three inches,
while adult am cereals tend to sit higher at forty
eight inch shelves. And UH to capitalize on this ideal,
like the mascots on the kids cereal boxes tend to
feature mascots with eyes pointing downward an average angle of
(30:54):
nine point six degrees, but the spokes characters on boxes
of adult cereal generally looks straight at head. Wow, that's
almost kind of creepy. So both the manufacturer and the
retailer in on this scheme, and and they wanted to
make eye contact with their target markets. But so why
is that? I mean, I understand wanting your product as
visible as possible, so it attracts more attention. But why
(31:17):
is making eye contact with the character or the spokesperson
matter that much? Yeah, well, that was the question behind
a second study where researchers looked into how much eye
contact with Cereal box characters influences people's feelings towards the brand,
and they asked sixty three participants from a private Northeastern
university to examine a box of Tricks Cereal and rate
their feelings of trust and connection to the brand. And
(31:39):
the catch was that some participants were given a box
where the tricks rabbit was looking straight ahead and others
had this box where the rabbit was looking away or
down from the view. And I'm guessing people preferred, you know,
whichever rabbit was looking their way or Yeah, but by
a wide margin. It's really incredible. So the finding showed
that participants who had eye contact with the rabbit felt
six percent more brand trust probas silly rabbit, and their
(32:04):
feeling of connection to the brand was twenty eight percent
higher than participants who looked at a box of tricks
with the rabbit looking away. And not only that, for
participants who made eye contact with rabbit actually said they
enjoyed the serial more compared with another cereal that lacked
eye contact component. Oh way, I mean, that's so creepy,
like it's it's also notes that looking at a picture
(32:24):
of a cartoon rabbit in the eyes can generate so
much good will and actually cause us to buy the party,
And and the fact that they chose this crazy rabbit
that it works is just baffling. Yeah, but there's an
upside to the research because now healthy cereals that are
well intentioned can actually make mascots that do the same thing. Yeah.
But you know, I don't want to leave this subject
of tricks because actually I found some interesting stuff during
(32:46):
our research here. So for instance, did you know that
before he was an animated character, the Tricks Rabbit was
this really like Jankee looking hand puppet, and I guess
General Mills it was. You know, they were unsure early
on of how to sell the concept of a serial
of cessed rabbit, because you know, the original slogan for
the serial was I'm a rabbit and rabbits are supposed
to like carrots, but I hate carrots. I like tricks.
(33:08):
That really rolls off the tongue. Yeah, and it also
makes the whole silly Rabbit Tricks are for Kids campaign
sound like poetry, Yeah, but that campaign had problems of
its own. I mean, for one thing, it made General
Mills worry that they were sending a bad message, you know,
by having this rabbit continually failed to achieve his goal.
You know, but where Charles Schultz concluded that Charlie Brown
(33:28):
missing the football was what made the whole thing work.
General Mills took the more democratic round in nineteen seventy six.
They put this question to a vote, should the tricks
rabbit finally get to eat the cereal? He craves and
kids also turned out to be more merciful than Schultza,
so almost a hundred percent of the votes were in
favor of giving the rabbit his long awaited bowl. And
(33:49):
that same verdict came again during a campaign I think
it was in nineteen eighty, which was the last time
the rabbit got his own bowl of tricks. That's been
a long time. I mean, you can tell why he's
jonesing for a bowl, No kidding, I mean, so these
cereal mascots tend to break down into two camps. So
there's the more laid back, confident, relaxed characters like Tony
the Tiger or like Golden Crisp Bear, and they mostly
(34:13):
sell cereal on the basis of their friendly demeanor and
cool look. I mean, how cool is tony bandana jacket? Awesome?
You know? And then that these unhinged cereal junkies who
looked like they just don't know, like busted out of
the looney bin. So these are your tricks Rabbits and
Sonny the Cuckoo Bird and like all of these crazy characters. Yeah,
(34:34):
those guys are pretty terrifying and and most of their
designs have only gotten more over the top as time's
gone by. What do you mean by that? So too
can Sam used to have the proportions of an actual bird,
but you know his body, shave, wings, and feet have
slowly become more human like, and and the colors too,
like they're all super exaggerated and brighter and bolder, and
it's crazy. And actually, have you seen Captain Crunch's latest look?
(34:57):
Like he used to be this old, weary he captain,
but now he has these huge popping eyes and wide
grim and even his eyebrows have gotten more excited, like
their way up over his hat. Now his hat has eyebrows.
It's very impressive. Well, I mean, there's always been something
suspect about that guy anyway, if we're being honest that
did you hear the controversy a few years back somebody
(35:18):
had noticed that the sleeves of his uniform only had
three yellow stripes instead of four. I love that people
were paying this close attention to it, But apparently that
pegs him as a commander in the Navy, not a captain.
So to his credit, when fans called him out, Crunch
took to Twitter to plead his case. And so here's
what he said, all hearsay and misunderstandings. I captain the
ss Guppy with my crew, which makes an official captain
(35:41):
in my book. Besides, it's the crunch, not the clothes,
that make a man. It almost gives me goose. It's
always been my belief that the facts make the man.
So I think it's time for a little fact off.
(36:04):
All right, let's do it. I'll go first here. So um, alright, So,
speaking of Captain Crunch, did did you know that in
two thousand nine, a woman in California filed a class
action suit against the maker of Captain Crunch's crunch Berries
and she did this because she said, for four long
years she'd been eating these crunch berries and thinking they
were real fruit. I mean, you know, you've got strawberries
(36:25):
and blueberries, raspberries and of course crunch berries. But of
course the judge and Sacramento did not see it her
way and quickly dismissed the suit. So, according to one
study commissioned by Kellogg, more than ten percent of Americans
had tried eating cereal with orange juice or coffee instead
of milk. I mean, is that true, Like, have you
ever done that? I have never done. I don't or
that would ruin a ball? No? Absolutely not? All right, Well,
(36:48):
according to a different study, women who regularly ate cereal
before conception are slightly more likely to have boys. There's
something about having a high energy intake before conceiving that
leads to these greater odds, and the food that seemed
to increase the odds the most was cereal. That's crazy.
So you're an oatmeal leader, right, well, I mean sometimes yeah, yeah,
Well did you know that the quote strawberries and peaches
(37:10):
and quicker instant oatmeal are actually dehydrated apples and the
blueberries are dehydrated figs and for a quicker sake. I
hope that the crunch Ferry Lady doesn't find out. But
at least the real fruits, that's true, They're real fruits, yeah,
unlike the crunchberries. So well. As kids, we always heard
that we should eat a good breakfast anytime we need
to do anything important that day, and studies do back
(37:32):
that up, often showing that breakfast eaters will perform about
ten percent better on memory tests than those who skipped.
But it also appears that eating not just breakfast, but
specifically cereal leads to a better mood. So according to
research from Bristol University, there are long term effects of
eating cereal for breakfast, and their findings quote people feel
better cereals boosted their mood. So I mean that's just
(37:56):
the kind of support we needed as cereal leaders. And
what a happy way to end this episode. I'm gonna
let you take over the trophy this week, and listeners,
if there are any great serial facts we forgot, please
let us know. You can always write us at part
time genius at how stuff works dot com or call
us on our seven fact hotline one eight for a
four pt genius. You know we love hearing from you well,
and don't forget to join us again next week when
(38:17):
we published episodes asking the questions how big is the U. S? Military?
And what are the worst jobs in the world, including
a peek into the important world of Wales not collecting.
That's gonna be pretty interesting. Are you sure that's right? Yeah,
that's right. All right. Well that's it for today's episode.
Thanks for listening, Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius
(38:50):
is a production of how stuff works and wouldn't be
possible without several brilliant people who do the important things
we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan McNeil does the
editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song and does
the MIXI MIXI sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the exact
producer thing. Gay Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support
from the Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and
Lucas Adams and Eve Jeff Cook gets the show to
(39:11):
your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like what you heard,
we hope you'll subscribe, And if you really really like
what you've heard, maybe you could leave a good review
for us. Do we do? We forget Jason. Jason who
Guess what will what's that mango? So at our first
week in college, I remember being in line for breakfast
and and there was just this wall of amazing breakfast
cereals and we were, of course away from our parents
for the first time and being independent and responsible, and
so I piled my bowl high with Lucky Charms. I mean,
I think it was Lucky Charles, but whatever was the
(00:21):
most nutritious cereal out there. I love that when you
were finally like free from the overside of your parents,
like that was the first thing you did to express
your freedom, was like, get a big bowl of cereal.
But yes, I do remember that big, awesome wall of cereal. Yeah,
and the people we were with started making fun of
me for eating a kid cereal instead of musically or whatever.
And and right then the star basketball recruit Eldon Brand
(00:43):
walked up and got a bowl of the same thing,
and it was just pure silent and I felt like
such a trend setter. And I remember that that's when
you became the most popular kid on campus. And not
really but part of the reason I love breakfast cereals
so much. And you know, we used to have big
cereal parties that metal flaws where everyone would bring a
box in their favorite cereal. But uh, there's just such
(01:04):
a wonderful association with childhood and Saturday Morning cartoons, and
that's actually why we're talking about cereal today. Let's dig
in Ada. Their podcast listeners, Welcome to parts I'm genius,
(01:34):
I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my
good friend man Gesh Ticketer and the man on the
other side of the soundproof glass eating a big bowl
of frosted many weeks good choice today as our producer
Tristan McNeil. But today we're heading back to the grocery
all for a closer look at all things cereal, you know,
the most whimsical or nutritionally questionable at all of this,
(01:55):
at every part of a complete breakfast. And so we'll
dig into the weird stories and so rising facts behind
our favorite brands, as well as a few of the
lesser known breakfast cereals that time forgot. And then a
little bit later we'll be joined by Gave Fonseca. He's
a TV writer and he spent more than a decade
collecting childhood nostalgia in the form of vintage cereal boxes.
(02:15):
It's a fascinating collection. Yeah, and he's also the host
of this really fun YouTube series called cereal Time, which
is the series on the subject of breakfast cereal. I mean,
he's been doing it for a couple of years now,
so I'm super excited to just hear how he got started. Yeah. Well, well,
Gabs among the most devout of serial enthusiasts, but he's
definitely not alone in this. I mean, lots of people
love cereals, and in the hundred and fifty plus years
(02:38):
since it came onto the market, cold breakfast cereal has
become a staple for millions of people around the world.
And you know, strangely, this love affair got its start
in the late nineteenth century kind of as an accident.
You know. It was this invention of fundamentalist Christians who
were seeking to promote a healthy, sin free lifestyle. And
much of this is you know, stories that people have heard,
(02:58):
but it's still pretty interesting that the bland foods, as
you know, like toasted corn and oats, where they were
thought to help suppress sexual urges and prevent arousal. And
so this thinking led to the creation of a few
notable foods, including Graham crackers of course, but the one
that really caught on what the public was sereal. So
Dr John Harvey Kellogg, the superintendent of a sanitarium in
(03:20):
Battle Creek, Michigan, and his younger brother, Well, they stumbled
upon the recipe for what would ultimately become corn flakes.
After allowing some of the cooked wheat to sit out
for too long, the Kellogg's returned to find the wheat
had gone stale, but rather than toss it out as
you might think they would, they decided to roll it
out into thin flakes and then toast them. And the
corn flakes were a big hit with their patients, so
(03:42):
the Kelloggs decided to start marketing them to a broader public. Yeah,
and as interesting as that early history is, it's pretty
familiar by this point. So instead of going deep on
sanitariums and grape nuts, we're gonna focus mostly on the
second act of the serial story. That's the period from
about ninety to the early nine is when marketing to
children really took off and sugary cereals really began flooding
(04:04):
grocery store aisles. Well, before we dive into that colorful history,
I thought we could take a quick look at the
state of cereal today, you know, just by the numbers,
and it's amazing how far cereal has come from its
early years as this niche product to the mammoth industry
that it is now. So just looking at the US
market alone, the breakfast cereal industry now generates nearly ten
(04:26):
billion dollars in annual revenue. And that that's according to
mord Or Intelligence. Did you say word or intelligent like
a hobbit? It's kind of a jarring name if you're
a Lord of the rings fan. But it's just the coincidence, unfortunately.
But like I was saying, Americans lead the world and
serial consumption. It ranks fourth on the list of the
top ten package goods sold in the US, and of
(04:49):
American households by a box of cereal at least once
a year. And we're not the only ones who love it. Canada,
the UK, Australia, they all have sereal markets that rival
the size of our own, and in recent years cereal
has also gained in places like China and India and Brazil.
In fact, the breakfast cereal marketing industry brakes and about
thirty five billion dollars in revenue each year from the
(05:11):
foreign markets. So when I took my kids to India
last year, I remember waking up jet lag the first
day and they were already up watching cartoons and we're
wired on a bowl of chocos. We didn't have chacos
in all my years agoing to India though. We never
ate breakfast cereals and we never ate in from the TV.
So it was almost jarring to see this American experience
(05:31):
transplanted to India. But you know, sugar and grain is
obviously this winning combination, but I have seen a few
reports about sagging sales as more and more people opt for,
you know, either easier or healthier breakfast options, so pop
tarts or avocado toast, or you know, maybe a quick
trip to the drive through on the way to work.
And and of course there's this growing segment of the
(05:53):
population that just doesn't eat breakfast period. So when you
were listing those easier and healthier options and you said
pop tarts, which one of them, I guess that's the
easier option there, but they are delicious. Well. As big
as the cereal industry is today, there's no question that
it used to be bigger. According to NPR, serial consumption
peaked right around ninete I guess it was, and has
(06:13):
steadily gone downhill ever since, generally by a full percentage
point each year. And while the stuff you mentioned has
definitely played a part in that decline, it's really due
to a combination of factors. You know. For example, back
in lawmakers passed the Nutrition and Labeling Education Act, and
that made it mandatory for all products to include the
now commonplace list of nutrition facts on the packaging. And
(06:37):
this made it easier than ever for consumers to see
the nutritional value or lack thereof, I guess, and they
could look at this and all of their cereals now
at this point, and as more people became educated about
just how much sugar and carbs they were eating or
feeding to their kids, you know, they started to think
twice before tossing a box in the car whenever they're
with grocery store. So I looked into just how sugary
(06:59):
cereal can be. And it's insane, Like the whole cereal
industry uses around eight hundred sixty million pounds of sugar
in its products every year, and apparently most of that's
going into honey smacks, you know, for some reason, you
don't know out there, that's the one with the cool
frog wearing the backwards baseball cap on the box. I
thought you were talking to me for a second, was like,
I know, Honey Smacks, man, come on, well, honey Smacks
(07:22):
is consistently ranked the worst cereal for your health because
it has less than two grams of fiber per serving
and its ingredients breakdown to almost sixty percent sugar. It's tasty,
but according to the Environmental and Working Group, there's more
sugar in one cup serving of honey Smacks than there
isn't a Hostess twinkie, no way. And I know that
(07:44):
it is sweet, obviously, and I knew it wasn't good
for you. But honestly, like the taste of honey Smacks,
I wouldn't have guessed it was the most sugary cereal.
But it kind of makes my teeth are just thinking
about that. But you know that that sugar to fiber
ratio might make us cringe. But there's one particular serial
eleating demographic that you're not going to hear complaining about this,
and that's kids, or at least my kids. Yeah, my
(08:05):
kids do. Actually, do you remember there was this great
Calvin and Hobbs where Calvin's eating his favorite cereal I
think it's something like chocolate frostage sugar bombs, and he
gives Hobbs to try, and Hobbs just starts shaking, gagging
from the sweetness, and Calvin says, actually they're kind of
bland until he scoops some sugar off. But what I
(08:25):
find really interesting is how deeply ingrained the fondness for
breakfast cereal is and so many people, and how so
much of that seems rooted in their childhood. Yeah. I mean,
i'd say for most adults seal leaders, it's a big
part of the allure. I mean, it's what you were
saying about your kids. There's these memories of watching Saturday
morning cartoons with a big bowl of Captain Crunch in
your hand, or maybe indulging in a late night fix
(08:46):
of Lucky Charms sitting in your college dorm. I don't
know who you're talking about, right, Well, it's sort of
a comfort food in a way. I mean, it takes
us back to simpler days when most of us were
a little more carefree about what we ate and why. Yeah,
so in nostalgia is definitely a strong factor. Actually, well,
what are some of the weirdest discontinued cereals you can
think of? I was trying to think about this earlier,
and I remember seeing a Cuber Cereal when I was
(09:09):
a kid. Do you remember Cuber? Yeah, that video game character,
and and also eating one with smurfberries. Like my parents
only really bought a sugar cereals for maybe a year
or two, but I remember sampling some weird ones. Yeah,
I mean, I always thought it was completely bonkers that
some cereals didn't even mask the fact that they were candy,
Like you know, Kellogg's did a candy corn Pops. But
(09:30):
even more blatant than that, there was a Nerds Cereal
and I'm ticked off that I never tried it. Nerd Cereal.
By the way, listeners, I just wanted to break for
a second because Will and I have been debating what
the official candy of Part Time Genius should be, and
Will was saying it should be atomic fireballs, and I
was thinking Nerds. So if you have any thoughts on this,
(09:51):
please let us know on Facebook or Twitter. But well,
you're right, Nerds Cereal isn't sane. But looking back, like
the box was so cool. It came in these two flavors,
just like the candies, and you could pour orange out
of one side and cherry out of the other. Can
you imagine, Like, who would let their kids buy this? Probably?
It also makes me wonder like if so much a
(10:12):
serials appeal is rooted in the past, Like, what does
this say about our future? Well, you know, there's a
new generation of kids getting hooked on cereal now, and
many of them will stick with it into adulthood. And
that's part of the reason there's so many brands duking
it out, you know, trying to get kids to eat
these cereal is because people's breakfast routines tend to be
the same, you know, pretty much every day. But there's
(10:34):
another point to consider, and those declining sales numbers we
mentioned earlier also coincide with declining birth rate, So you know,
it's not like the birthrate will ever drop to zero
or anything like that, but fewer kids does result than
fewer cereal fans, obviously. Yeah, It's it's funny that something
that started out as health food became so dependent on
selling sugar to kids, but I guess that's usually how
(10:56):
it goes with food. Trends, like someone with these very
altruistic intentions gets the ball rolling, hoping to better society,
and and then you know, at a certain point, the
marketing team steps in, right, exactly. Yeah. Dr Kellogg used
to give lectures about his methods for leading a healthy lifestyle,
and he would sometimes give out the recipes for his
corn Flix so that people could make them at home.
And at one talk he told the crowd, you may
(11:18):
say I'm destroying the health food business here by giving
these recipes, but I'm not after the business. I'm after reform.
I mean. Yeah. He really did seem to believe and
what he was selling, sure, but the problem was that
the same couldn't be said of his brother, Will Kellogg.
And and Will try for years to convince his brother
to add sugar to their cereal, believing it would add
some flavor to what he called horse food. But the
(11:39):
tipping point came into late forties when their competitor Post
Cereals released Sugar Crisp, so Posted branched out beyond the
health food market with its first sugarcoated cereal, and like
it or not, Kellogg kind of had to follow suit. Yeah,
but it's really post world War two that the industry
started to focus on marketing directly to kids. I mean,
companies had dabbled with these ads before, including Kellogg's use
(12:01):
of Snap Cracklin Pop as the characters for Rice Crispies,
and that marketing began in the nineteen thirties. But even
with cartoon gnomes pleading their case, you know, these highly
processed oats and grains were a tough sell without adding
something you know, sweet to it. That's crazy though, I like,
I had no idea that the Rice Christie's trio had
been around that long. I thought they were post fifties
(12:22):
like most other Cereal mascots. Yeah, Snap Cracklin Pop are
actually one of the longest running ad campaigns in history,
and as I was looking up at that, they're actually
the longest for Cereal brands. Actually, by the way, did
you know that their names are on amount of pia
sounds for what you hear when milk is added to
the cereal. But apparently Rice Crispies were always marketed as
the cereal you can hear, and this was even before
(12:43):
the mascots came along. In fact, the guy who created
the characters did so after being inspired by one of
the brand's previous radio jingles, because I know you're dying
to know what it was. Here the lyrics, I jotted
them down, So all right, listen to the fairy song
of help the Mary Corus sung by Kelloggs Rice Crispi
as they merrily snap, crackle and pop in a bowl
of milk. If you've never heard food talking, now is
(13:06):
your chance. I'm so hungry for a bowl of cereal? Now,
why didn't I do this before? And also that was
a jingle like it doesn't even rive? Was I was
gonna put it to song that I just made up
against it? So, I mean, obviously mascots were a smart move,
since it's hard to market like a fairy song of
health without them. But wasn't there also a fourth gnome
for a while, Yeah, you bet there was Pal He
(13:27):
stood for the cereals nutritional punch, I think, And of
course he didn't last very long. But let's get this
back on track. So gradually the Sweden Cereals come to
dominate the market, thanks, you know, because of product placement
and children's programming, and they've never looked back since. And
in fact, the breakfast cereal industry is still one of
the top spenders for a commercial air time. More than
(13:47):
a million Cereal ads air on TV each year, which
cost companies like Post and Kelloggs more than I want
to say, like half a billion dollars. Yeah, well so,
so all those old TV ads are a big part
of why Cold Cereal took such a hold in the
hearts and minds of baby boomers, and then they of
course passed on that fondness to their now adult children.
But you know, there's another element that helped the dear
(14:08):
entire generations to breakfast Cereal that I want to talk
about it, and that's the prizes that came packed inside
those boxes. I mean, the prizes played such a big role.
Like I might have wanted a box of Cookie Crisp,
but if the Apple Jacks had one of those wacky
wall walkers in it. I mean you remember those sticky
octopuses that were walked down the wall of course, Yeah,
and then of course that's the box I'd end up with. Yeah,
(14:28):
I mean, I'm with you on that. Actually I would
buy a box of Cereal for one of those. Now
it's been years since I played one. They were awesome.
But you know, let's talk a little bit about how
toys and games ended up inside the boxes, as well
as some of the coolest and strangest ones to come
along over the years. But before we do that, let's
break for a quiz. They we've got Gabe fon Sica
(14:52):
on the program now. Gabs an accomplished TV writer, but
he's also got the best unboxing series on YouTube. It's
called Serial Time TV and this is where he unboxes
and reviews incredible breakfast cereals. Welcome to part time Genius, Gabe.
Thanks for having me. I'm I'm a fan of the podcast,
so I'm on it to be on the show. Thank
you so much. Now, I know you're out in Los Angeles.
(15:12):
Man Guesh is actually on vacation today. He's out on
your coast in Portland's so he sends his best but
but I hope you're still willing to chat with me today,
of course, of course. All right now, so, Gay, we've
read that you have over three hundred cereal boxes in
your collection, and I have to ask, like, how did
you get into this in the first place, and what
are some of your more prized cereal boxes. You know,
(15:36):
I've always been a collector and I think at one
point I saw Old Spider Man Surreal. I think that
was my first box. Um it was from zero and
I saw it on eBay when I was just browsing,
and I was like, that'd be cool to have on
my bookshelf, and I bought it and then uh, and
then I was like, well, you know what, there are
some other ones that I remember from back in the day,
and and then it kind of just turned into this
black hole on eBay where I just was was scouring
(15:58):
and finding old cereals that that brought back these nostalgic
memories to me. Wow. Wow, now I think I've read
that you've tried some even some like thirty year old cereals.
Is this right? Yeah? Yeah. When I first started this
unboxing channel on YouTube, and I started it because I
started to run out a room of just having these
unopened Cereal boxes on my shelf and it was like,
you know, this is just taking up space and this
(16:19):
is kind of silly. I could just flatten them out,
So I I decided like, well, let's for posterity, let's
just record myself opening these boxes and and you know,
recording with the Cereal looks like and documenting it so
I'll have it, you know, for posterity, and uh, and
I never thought I was like going to try him,
and then I'd opened some boxes and uh, I'd be like, well,
let me just see if it holds up. I think
(16:39):
the oldest one I might have tried was a grim
smiles giggles and last cereal, which was from the seventies,
I believe, and it was pretty grass. I'm guessing, Oh man,
they're terrible. They just don't you know. It tastes mostly
like it tastes like the plastic in a way. It
takes very toxic and disgusting. But I would I definitely
do not recommend it. I can't imagine now. In terms
(16:59):
of cereals, are there any that you wish you could
have tasted if you could go back in time? Yeah? Absolutely.
There's one from before my time in the seventies called
a Great Fellow. It was actually, um they released a
Great Fellow and Baron von red Berry. There were General
Mills cereals and uh, this is a Great Fellow. One
tasted like you know, grape the grape cereal or great
kool Aid. I imagine I never actually got to try it,
(17:20):
but I'm a I'm a sucker for great flavored things.
And uh and even though I got a Nerds cereal
which came out in the eighties, which I which I
got to try back and back then, I it just
wasn't the same, you know, it wasn't it wasn't that
great great flavor. It was kind of it wasn't a
great cereal, And Sir, great fellow, just just like I
look at the ad campaigns I see on YouTube and
(17:41):
I'm just like this, this was like, this is great.
I really wish I was alive for this one. I
could I could try that one. Yeah, yeah, Now, how
about any boxes you'd love to add to your collection
but haven't been able to get ahold of For me?
I I kind of at this point, I feel like
I'm at peace and that's kind of completed my collection
and kind of everything I want. There is one really
random cereal from General Mills in the nineties. It was
(18:03):
called Buen You Litos, and I remember it. It was
on shelves for a limited time, and I just can't
find a box of that anywhere. And that's probably like
the last you know, my great you know, white whale
that I'm trying to obtain. Still, I don't know, Gabe.
I'm hearing in your voice that maybe you're not quite
at piece yet until you find that so off, if
if if any of our listeners out there know how
(18:24):
to get ahold of some did you say boren Alito's yes,
all right, we'll see what we can do for you.
So there'll be a free part time genius t shirt
on the line for these people. But but before we
let you go, Mango did leave me a quiz titled
the most Important Meal Quiz of the Day. So I'm
gonna ask you a few questions if you obscure serial
(18:44):
questions and all you gotta do is answer them. How's
that sounds? All right? I'll give it my best, alright.
Question number one. According to a nineteen fifty six confidential
magazine report, what breakfast cereal was supposedly responsible for Frank
Sinatra's success with women. It's got to be wheat It
is Wheaties. Yeah. The article claimed that Sinatra could thank
Wheatie's for his reputation as the quote Tarzan of the Boudoir.
(19:08):
So yes, congratulations there, all right? One for one? Question
number two. Before a certain tiger became spokes animal for
this breakfast cereal. He had to beat out three other contenders,
Elmo the Elephant, Newt the new and Katie the Kangaroo.
What cereal are we talking about? Frosted flakes? That's right,
it's frosted flakes. Now. Katie actually appeared on boxes in
(19:29):
the nineteen fifties before Tony the Tiger started out selling her.
All right, here we go question number three. What popular
breakfast cereal created by John Harvey Kellogg was eating aboard
the Apollo eleven cereal? Christ, It's a pretty good guess.
It was actually Kellogg's corn flakes, And so the cereal
(19:49):
was mixed up with fruit and formed into cube since
eating it with milk was impossible without gravity. Alright, two
for three. The last question here the big prize is
on the line. While Saddam Hussein loved Raisin brand and
requested it for breakfast in prison, he detested this cereal. Oh,
I actually read the article about that. Yes, it is
(20:12):
fruit looks and according to US soldiers, one of the
few times he actually looked defeated in prison was when
a bowl of the fruity cereal was brought to him.
But so, congratulations, you've got three out of four, which
qualifies you for our top prize, which is a note
to your mom or your boss singing your praises. So, Gabe,
congratulations and thanks so much for joining us on Part
(20:34):
Time Genius. Well thanks for having me. Well it's been
it's great. Thank you very much. You're listening to Part
Time Genius and we're talking about the heyday of breakfast cereal.
(20:54):
You know, when kids became the target market, and nutrition
kind of took a backseat to things like marshmallows and prizes,
and you know, speaking of cereal box prizes, you know,
those were another way that Kelloggs tried to attract kids
to cereal in the pre sugar days and three the
company started putting pen back buttons inside boxes of their
pep cereal. So they started with a series of thirty
(21:16):
six pens that featured World War two squadron insignia from
the US military. And this was before switching over to
fictional heroes like comic book characters. Yeah, so those are
some of the earliest inbox prizes we know about. But
if we're talking buttons, my favorites are the Urkel for
President campaign buttons they were giving out during the Clinton
Bush Senior campaign. Do you remember those? We're talking Steve
(21:38):
Urkel from Family. I can't say I remember him running
for president? But what what cereal was that? Kels? Of course,
it was one of those short lived novelty cereals that
crops up for a few months and then disappears, Like
basically it was a sweeter version of cheerios, but wackier
with banana and strawberry flavors. But uh, obviously we're getting
ahead of ourselves with all these in the box because
(22:00):
Kellogg's actually got into the prize game long before that.
In the earlier days, the prizes, or premiums as they're
called in the industry, weren't in the box at all.
And as far as we know, the first prize used
to market cereal was this nine nine children's book. It
was called the Funny Jungle Land Moving Pictures Book, and
it was given to customers who bought two boxes of
Kellogg's corn flakes that they're participating grocery stores. After a
(22:24):
couple of years, of course, Kelloggs decided to stop handing
out the books on location. Instead offered them as mail
and offer, and within four years the company had distributed
two point five million copies of the book, isn't that insane? Like,
it was obviously a hit with customers, so Kelloggs kept
releasing new editions, and they kept going on with jungle
Land books all the way up until ninety seven. I mean,
(22:46):
I guess that's pretty cool. But I have to say
I was never a fan of those mail in prizes.
I mean, I was all about the instant gratification. You
don't want to dig in there, like get elbow deep
and some cocoa puffs or something and then just be
able to like fish around and find that all aphane bag. Yeah,
and then you gotta eat the cereal dust off your arm.
But those were definitely the days. But I never really
(23:06):
minded the mail ins like I think it was partly
the joy of receiving any kind of mail as a kid,
The fact that anyone was sending me anything was exciting enough,
even if I had to save up like a bunch
of box tops and wait six to eight weeks to
make it happen. Though that was mostly dying out by
the time we were kids. I only remember doing it
a few times. But you know that the real reason
the cereal industry stepped up its game and and the
(23:28):
prize game, specifically in the nineteen fifties is pretty interesting
and it's it's thanks to this invention of what was
called the screw injection molding machine, and and that's what
made plastic prizes faster and cheaper to produce. And this
wasn't the only time the inventor of injection molding his
name was James Watson Henry would lend a hand to
cereal prizes. So in the nineteen seventies, Henry's developed the
(23:50):
first gas assisted injection molding process, and this is what
made it possible to produce these finally detailed hollow plastic objects,
you know, the ones that environmental group love so much.
This cut costs even more and paved the way to
a golden age of these in box serial prizes. That
explains why so many of the cool prizes I found
were from the sixties and seventies. And of course I'd
(24:12):
be remiss if we didn't mention the Boson's whistle that
came inside the box of Captain Crunch in the early seventies.
We're talking about things we'd remiss not mentioning about Captain Crunch.
What about Gen Lafoote which was Captain Crunch's stinky, barefooted rival.
But anyway, gone with your whistle story. Well, obviously the
whistles just like really high fished little whistle, and the
(24:33):
Boson's whistle was one that was historically used on naval
ships when commanders needed to pass orders to the crew
but couldn't be heard because of the waves or weather
or whatever. And these days it's mostly used in naval ceremonies.
But in Captain Crunch's case, it turned out that when
you covered one of the whistles holes in blue, it
produced this frequency of twenty hurts, which was the exact
(24:54):
tone a T and T used to control its long
distance lines. And basically, this legendary hacker, John Thomas Drape,
who was also known as Captain Crunch or Crunch or
crunch Man, he learned that he could use one of
the whistles to hack the phone system and get free
long distance calls. I love that they figured that. It's
why that old hacking magazine was actually called hundred, and
(25:14):
then why Steve Jobs and Steve Wosna even tracked down
the whistle and built a box that replicated the frequency
to try and prank call the Pope. I love that
as I love that they pretended to be Henry Kissinger.
And it almost got there until this like suspicious bishop
caught on like and and then the Pope didn't get
on those pesky bishops. And you know, while injection molding
(25:35):
allowed for all kinds of awesome plastic toys, you know,
some of the funniest ones that came across were actually
even like metal, or some of them even paper. Like
in nineteen four, Wheaties gave away these miniature state license
plates and they were made of solid steel, and you
got one in each box, but you could also buy
them in four sets of twelve by mailing in a
(25:55):
box top and a quarter a whopping quarter, and that
would be The only hitch to the was that Alaska
and Hawaii had not yet become states, so there were
actually only forty eight plates and all. Oh man, So
do you think people were like pissed when those two
states got statehood a few years later and suddenly their
collections were incomplete? Well, actually, Post Serials did release a
set of the full fifty later on, but apparently we
(26:18):
still gets letters about the original campaign to this day,
so maybe there's still a few determined fans out there
just pestering them about their missing plates or something. I
hope so. But one of the most unique prizes I
read about was this paper prize. It was a deed
to one inch of land in the Yukon. So a
serial company was giving away land by the inch. Yeah,
(26:40):
it's a great idea, right, So Quaker Oaths sponsored a
show in the fifties called Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.
You remember Sergeant President of the Yukon, And this was
their way of linking the show to the product and
full disclosure, this was a mail in prize, but this
one was totally worth the weight. So for just a
single box top kids would receive a deed for one
square inch at the nineteen acres of Yukon territory that
(27:01):
Quaker purchased, and they actually purchased this from the Canadian
government for a thousand dollars. The promotion was this massive success,
and Quaker actually sent out more than twenty one million
deeds in just a few weeks away. Yeah, and then
lots of people would write the company or even the
Canadian government from time to time to check in on
their property. But sadly the reply was not good news.
(27:22):
Apparently none of the deed holders were actually landowners because
the individual deeds were never formally registered after the recipients
signed them, I know. And in the end, Canada repossessed
all the land in nineteen five due to non payment
of get this, thirty seven dollars and twenty cents in
property taxes. You know. I mean. It also reminds me
(27:43):
of the time during the eighties when General Mills started
giving out actual one dollar bills as prizes and boxes
of cherios. It just sounds kind of like lazy, like
let's let's just put a dollar in there, and except
in this case the prize was actually worth something. Yeah,
and it's way better than the promotion Cherios offered in
the fifties when they gave away color rep productions of
Confederate Money and an album to keep them in. Oh
that's so strange. I actually I think I'd rather have
(28:05):
the phony d than But we sort of transition into
these more lackluster I don't know, dare I say, like
crappy prizes, but honestly, at least they're still prizes and
and much like serial sales, Serial Premium seemed to be
on the decline these days. Yes, so I noticed last
time I was in Cereal aisles there seemed to be
fewer boxes advertising physical prizes, but there were a bunch
(28:26):
of boxes offering some kind of digital prize, like access
to an online video game. And I guess serial premiums
changed to reflect the times and and most kids these
days would prefer some type of like instant online entertainment
over a plastic figure. But I also read a report
from the Center for Science and the Public Interest, and
it determined that it was far cheaper to make an
(28:47):
online game than to produce a traditional plastic premium, and
that definitely figures into the decision to scale back the
physical prizes. Yeah, I think you're right. And not to
mention that there have been a few safety scares that
lead to recalls on mill millions and millions of these
plastic prizes that were deemed choking hazards, and that's actually
the reason prizes were moved from the inside of the
Cereal bag itself to between the bag and the box lining.
(29:09):
This happened in the early nineties. Is you know, Sereal
companies saw that this was kind of a risk, or
a great risk if kids accidentally started gobbling up these prizes.
It's it's funny because Crackerjack went through like a similar
adjustment with the prizes inside their boxes and concerns about
safety and rising cost of production next anything but paper prizes,
whereas they used to have really cool stuff in there,
(29:30):
like Dakota rings and tin soldiers mixed in. And and
since Crackerjack was the first food to actually offer box
prizes way back in, it kind of seems fitting that
cereal premiums would follow suit. Yeah, I mean that's true.
But but but all is not lost for these in
the box cereal prizes. I mean there's still some physical
knickknacks sprinkled in there, but most of these are just
(29:50):
tie in with usually like big media events or maybe
movie releases. You know, the new Star Wars movie had
some of these accompany that. And besides, there's another serial
philosophy that suggests it's what's on the outside of the
box that matters, not the inside. Okay, Mango, So we've
covered the actual cereal as well as the cool prizes
that you find inside the bag or just outside it.
(30:11):
So how about we conclude our anatomical tour of the
cereal box by focusing on the box itself. Yeah, that
sounds good. So I'll start us off with a little
cereal box psychology. Back in two thousand fourteen, researchers from
the Cornell Food and Brand Lab study eighty six different
cereal box mascots and ten grocery stores throughout New York
in Connecticut, and from this whirlwind tour, they found that
(30:33):
boxes are strategically positioned to make eye contact with children.
On average, the kid targeted cereal boxes are placed on
the lower shelves, usually at a height of twenty three inches,
while adult am cereals tend to sit higher at forty
eight inch shelves. And UH to capitalize on this ideal,
like the mascots on the kids cereal boxes tend to
feature mascots with eyes pointing downward an average angle of
(30:54):
nine point six degrees, but the spokes characters on boxes
of adult cereal generally looks straight at head. Wow, that's
almost kind of creepy. So both the manufacturer and the
retailer in on this scheme, and and they wanted to
make eye contact with their target markets. But so why
is that? I mean, I understand wanting your product as
visible as possible, so it attracts more attention. But why
(31:17):
is making eye contact with the character or the spokesperson
matter that much? Yeah, well, that was the question behind
a second study where researchers looked into how much eye
contact with Cereal box characters influences people's feelings towards the brand,
and they asked sixty three participants from a private Northeastern
university to examine a box of Tricks Cereal and rate
their feelings of trust and connection to the brand. And
(31:39):
the catch was that some participants were given a box
where the tricks rabbit was looking straight ahead and others
had this box where the rabbit was looking away or
down from the view. And I'm guessing people preferred, you know,
whichever rabbit was looking their way or Yeah, but by
a wide margin. It's really incredible. So the finding showed
that participants who had eye contact with the rabbit felt
six percent more brand trust probas silly rabbit, and their
(32:04):
feeling of connection to the brand was twenty eight percent
higher than participants who looked at a box of tricks
with the rabbit looking away. And not only that, for
participants who made eye contact with rabbit actually said they
enjoyed the serial more compared with another cereal that lacked
eye contact component. Oh way, I mean, that's so creepy,
like it's it's also notes that looking at a picture
(32:24):
of a cartoon rabbit in the eyes can generate so
much good will and actually cause us to buy the party,
And and the fact that they chose this crazy rabbit
that it works is just baffling. Yeah, but there's an
upside to the research because now healthy cereals that are
well intentioned can actually make mascots that do the same thing. Yeah.
But you know, I don't want to leave this subject
of tricks because actually I found some interesting stuff during
(32:46):
our research here. So for instance, did you know that
before he was an animated character, the Tricks Rabbit was
this really like Jankee looking hand puppet, and I guess
General Mills it was. You know, they were unsure early
on of how to sell the concept of a serial
of cessed rabbit, because you know, the original slogan for
the serial was I'm a rabbit and rabbits are supposed
to like carrots, but I hate carrots. I like tricks.
(33:08):
That really rolls off the tongue. Yeah, and it also
makes the whole silly Rabbit Tricks are for Kids campaign
sound like poetry, Yeah, but that campaign had problems of
its own. I mean, for one thing, it made General
Mills worry that they were sending a bad message, you know,
by having this rabbit continually failed to achieve his goal.
You know, but where Charles Schultz concluded that Charlie Brown
(33:28):
missing the football was what made the whole thing work.
General Mills took the more democratic round in nineteen seventy six.
They put this question to a vote, should the tricks
rabbit finally get to eat the cereal? He craves and
kids also turned out to be more merciful than Schultza,
so almost a hundred percent of the votes were in
favor of giving the rabbit his long awaited bowl. And
(33:49):
that same verdict came again during a campaign I think
it was in nineteen eighty, which was the last time
the rabbit got his own bowl of tricks. That's been
a long time. I mean, you can tell why he's
jonesing for a bowl, No kidding, I mean, so these
cereal mascots tend to break down into two camps. So
there's the more laid back, confident, relaxed characters like Tony
the Tiger or like Golden Crisp Bear, and they mostly
(34:13):
sell cereal on the basis of their friendly demeanor and
cool look. I mean, how cool is tony bandana jacket? Awesome?
You know? And then that these unhinged cereal junkies who
looked like they just don't know, like busted out of
the looney bin. So these are your tricks Rabbits and
Sonny the Cuckoo Bird and like all of these crazy characters. Yeah,
(34:34):
those guys are pretty terrifying and and most of their
designs have only gotten more over the top as time's
gone by. What do you mean by that? So too
can Sam used to have the proportions of an actual bird,
but you know his body, shave, wings, and feet have
slowly become more human like, and and the colors too,
like they're all super exaggerated and brighter and bolder, and
it's crazy. And actually, have you seen Captain Crunch's latest look?
(34:57):
Like he used to be this old, weary he captain,
but now he has these huge popping eyes and wide
grim and even his eyebrows have gotten more excited, like
their way up over his hat. Now his hat has eyebrows.
It's very impressive. Well, I mean, there's always been something
suspect about that guy anyway, if we're being honest that
did you hear the controversy a few years back somebody
(35:18):
had noticed that the sleeves of his uniform only had
three yellow stripes instead of four. I love that people
were paying this close attention to it, But apparently that
pegs him as a commander in the Navy, not a captain.
So to his credit, when fans called him out, Crunch
took to Twitter to plead his case. And so here's
what he said, all hearsay and misunderstandings. I captain the
ss Guppy with my crew, which makes an official captain
(35:41):
in my book. Besides, it's the crunch, not the clothes,
that make a man. It almost gives me goose. It's
always been my belief that the facts make the man.
So I think it's time for a little fact off.
(36:04):
All right, let's do it. I'll go first here. So um, alright, So,
speaking of Captain Crunch, did did you know that in
two thousand nine, a woman in California filed a class
action suit against the maker of Captain Crunch's crunch Berries
and she did this because she said, for four long
years she'd been eating these crunch berries and thinking they
were real fruit. I mean, you know, you've got strawberries
(36:25):
and blueberries, raspberries and of course crunch berries. But of
course the judge and Sacramento did not see it her
way and quickly dismissed the suit. So, according to one
study commissioned by Kellogg, more than ten percent of Americans
had tried eating cereal with orange juice or coffee instead
of milk. I mean, is that true, Like, have you
ever done that? I have never done. I don't or
that would ruin a ball? No? Absolutely not? All right, Well,
(36:48):
according to a different study, women who regularly ate cereal
before conception are slightly more likely to have boys. There's
something about having a high energy intake before conceiving that
leads to these greater odds, and the food that seemed
to increase the odds the most was cereal. That's crazy.
So you're an oatmeal leader, right, well, I mean sometimes yeah, yeah,
Well did you know that the quote strawberries and peaches
(37:10):
and quicker instant oatmeal are actually dehydrated apples and the
blueberries are dehydrated figs and for a quicker sake. I
hope that the crunch Ferry Lady doesn't find out. But
at least the real fruits, that's true, They're real fruits, yeah,
unlike the crunchberries. So well. As kids, we always heard
that we should eat a good breakfast anytime we need
to do anything important that day, and studies do back
(37:32):
that up, often showing that breakfast eaters will perform about
ten percent better on memory tests than those who skipped.
But it also appears that eating not just breakfast, but
specifically cereal leads to a better mood. So according to
research from Bristol University, there are long term effects of
eating cereal for breakfast, and their findings quote people feel
better cereals boosted their mood. So I mean that's just
(37:56):
the kind of support we needed as cereal leaders. And
what a happy way to end this episode. I'm gonna
let you take over the trophy this week, and listeners,
if there are any great serial facts we forgot, please
let us know. You can always write us at part
time genius at how stuff works dot com or call
us on our seven fact hotline one eight for a
four pt genius. You know we love hearing from you well,
and don't forget to join us again next week when
(38:17):
we published episodes asking the questions how big is the U. S? Military?
And what are the worst jobs in the world, including
a peek into the important world of Wales not collecting.
That's gonna be pretty interesting. Are you sure that's right? Yeah,
that's right. All right. Well that's it for today's episode.
Thanks for listening, Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius
(38:50):
is a production of how stuff works and wouldn't be
possible without several brilliant people who do the important things
we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan McNeil does the
editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song and does
the MIXI MIXI sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the exact
producer thing. Gay Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support
from the Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and
Lucas Adams and Eve Jeff Cook gets the show to
(39:11):
your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like what you heard,
we hope you'll subscribe, And if you really really like
what you've heard, maybe you could leave a good review
for us. Do we do? We forget Jason. Jason who
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!