302: Monstoberfest, FrankenDIE - Monster Cereal Lore (w/ Id Lee)

In this spooky episode, Professor Mouse, the Cosmologist, and Teddy are joined by cereal mascot expert Id Lee to dive into the lore of the monster cereal universe. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We come out to unfold the story of Franker Sign,

(00:03):
a man of science to create a man after his
own image. Me shock you well, you.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hey, everybody, Welcome to another edition of Is This Just Bad?
Is This just about the best podcast You've never heard of?
I'm your host, Professor Mouse, joined as always by the
CB Cosmologist and Teddy and joined for the first time
Bye a monster mascot cereal mascot aficionado id Lee. Welcome

(00:48):
to the show, everybody, and welcome to Monstoverfest.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Ah So this this Monstoverfest is a little different than
other Monstoverfests. We usually have a kind of cohesive theme
running throughout the month where we'll do eight vampire movies
over the course of four weeks or something like that.

(01:17):
We did the second year we did Monstoverfest, we did
several monsterfucker movies over the course.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Of the month.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Last year we did a one shot D and D campaign,
which actually just became the vast majority of our current
D and D campaign. And this month we are cobbling
together in a way that fits the metaphor to the subject.
Four weeks of disparate examinations of Frankenstein as a concept.

(01:56):
And this is really kind of a love letter to Cause,
who's also a co host of the show, So a
love letter that Cause wrote to himself the center your favorite?
Is this your favorite monster? I know that you're the
monster that you consider the scariest is a mummy?

Speaker 4 (02:20):
No, I think absolutely. Having we started with vampires because
Dracula is my favorite, Okay, and you know we've talked
a lot about various Draculas. But I thought this was
interesting as we've done some of the other big ones,
and we have come to Frankenstein because it's as much

(02:41):
birth of sci fi as it is a monster. I
feel like Krakenstein comes up a lot, Blade Runner, Rocky
Horror Picture Show, various thoughts about artificial intelligence. I feel
like there's any argument to be made for things like
alien even so it pops up so often as the

(03:01):
war against your creator that it's good to talk about.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
Yeah, I agree, I love Frankenstein's.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
The one of the things I distinctly remember is watching
that one Frankenstein movie where he throws a little girl
into the lake. You remember that one that came out
like in the nineteen thirties or something like that. And
we watched that in it was like one of those

(03:30):
the teacher doesn't have a lesson planned type of thing,
wheeling in a TV with a VCR into the classroom.
And this was like in middle school, and it was
in the last week of October, so it was like
a Halloween thing, and so wanted to show us something
relatively inoffensive and then showed us like an old Frankenstein movie.

(03:54):
I think the idea was to like kind of put
us all to sleep sin way, because whenever you saw,
at least for me, whenever I saw something black and
white when I was like, you know whatever, ten years old,
I would just like.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
Eyes in the back of my head.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
But I remember watching that movie and it being so
baffling to see this is like grown man running around
clear prosthetics and you know, trying to escape his maker
and stuff like that. So that is going to centralize
this month. Today, we are going to pick up something
that we kind of teased and sort of emerged as

(04:35):
a tangent on a previous episode, which is the Monster
serial verse, the General Mills Monster Cereal mascot sort of
extended universe, which has Frankenberry as a seemingly key element
of it. These are the kinds of questions and sort
of gaps in our knowledge that Italy is here to

(05:00):
sort of fill in for us, because we were truly
just kind of in the weeds googling these monsters, realizing
that there's a monster verse, realizing that they don't sell
these all year, that they became kind of like the
McRib at some point where that's just like purely seasonal,
like shamrock shake style stuff pops up in your grocery

(05:21):
store around September, leaves around November or something like that,
And so it got us sort of interested and fascinated. Also,
you know, introduced me to my new favorite character, Carmela
Creeper herself. So I mean not to put like it's

(05:41):
such a general, open ended question, but I would love
Italy if you could sort of outline because you said
there's six mascots, and I'm familiar with four, okay, So
who are the six and what are their sort of providences?

Speaker 1 (05:57):
So the first two that owed up General Mills h
wonderful creators of many of the mascots of the early
Cereal days. The original two, of course, were the odds
of Count Chocula Chocolate flavored cereal mascot turn your milk

(06:23):
brown sort of situation, and Frankenberry pink Frankenstein strawberry flavored cereal,
turn your milk Pink, which is okay, first a little
bit of lore. They actually had to remove the dye
from the original Frankenberry cereal because it was turning everybody's

(06:43):
poop pink and it was giving people alarm. So they
had to reformulate the cereal so that stop pinking poop
pooping pink.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
It's so funny that you're foregrounding this in this way
because pop is such as central part of my experience
trying these cereals.

Speaker 5 (07:03):
Well, there you go, what continue?

Speaker 1 (07:07):
So so, so it was those two they were the ogs. Uh.
Then came Bouberry, which was in fact the first blueberry
flavored cereal in general. And you know Blueberry's little ghosts

(07:28):
with like little top hat to the side. They're all
like monster like interpretations from like old like like universal
monster movies.

Speaker 4 (07:40):
So this is we're gonna get the Yeah, that's so,
that's so interesting. The first question I wonder if you
know about why what struck me of a Dracula? Get
it of Frankenstein absolutely get it. The fact that the
third of that trinity is a ghost rather than one

(08:02):
of the other universal monsters, say a mummy, which we'll
get to. I imagine, do you have a sense for
when these were coming out? Was this like a Casper thing?

Speaker 3 (08:13):
No more popular.

Speaker 5 (08:16):
Technically?

Speaker 1 (08:17):
So the if I remember correctly, the first two came
out in the seventies, like seventy one, seventy two. I
think Frankenberry came out in seventy two. I think the
other two came out in seventy one. Oh no, Frank,

(08:39):
I think count Track came out in seventy one. Frankenberry
came out in seventy two. Booberry might have come out
like later in seventy two. So these are all seventies.
These are like bell Bottoms, Counter, you know, culture sort
of situation like cereals, which you know, Uh. I can't

(09:08):
really speak on to why Blueberry is a ghost. I
don't believe he's really a ghost. I think he's more
like a phantom. But he does come off very Casper
the friendly ghost. So yeah, he's almost entirely Caspery, but
I think he's more They're all based off of like

(09:29):
like Boris Karloff and and and.

Speaker 5 (09:33):
Uh Bubba Legosie.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
And I forget what the actor's name is, but Bloberry
always kind of struck me as like the weird guy
who used to talk like this all the time and
all the movies. He kind of gives me like that vibe. Yeah,
something like that. Yeah, okay, And uh, I can't really

(09:59):
speak to why he was a ghost, am I just
been easier to like market that raw.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
Yeah, And just for the wordplay even of.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
The fan and like when you think blue, you don't
really think of like monster colors, you think of like
even you know, when you think of like berry, you
don't really think about like you know, amalgama that is
a Frankenstein.

Speaker 5 (10:26):
But uh.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, I guess blue, ghosts, clear blue, white, those sort
of come to mind. So it probably was just easiest.
They were like, oh, yeah, ghosts is blue?

Speaker 5 (10:39):
Moving on?

Speaker 4 (10:40):
Cool?

Speaker 3 (10:41):
Well it is.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
It is kind of fascinating too, because like we when
we did both are sort of uh enos rock to
and then our uh monsterfucker.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
Monster overfests.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
We want a bunch of monster movies from the seventies
and what was interesting about that and it mentioned sort
of like you know, you know Bell Bottoms counterculture stuff
is that they were trying to figure out a way
to make monsters relevant and that was typically through like

(11:20):
overt sexualization and then to also simultaneously have the emergence
of the most like cartoonish like appeal to children version
of the monster in these characters is is so kind
of just like dissonant, but it's it's super interesting. And

(11:42):
the other thing I was gonna say is like interests
of the blue coated monsters. And the only reason that
sticks out to me is because this monster was ranked
very highly on a list of the best monsters that
we went over on this podcast that cause almost an
aneurysm over is uh a yetty.

Speaker 5 (12:02):
Oh yeah, they could have they could have gone.

Speaker 4 (12:05):
With the Yeti abominable Snowberry.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
I don't know, yeah, but I remember that that the
Yetti was ranked very high on the monster list, like
above Cuthulhu.

Speaker 6 (12:16):
Just like.

Speaker 4 (12:20):
So it uh you uh you get the first three.
I take it these are popular at the time and
popular enough to these are these.

Speaker 5 (12:29):
Are the core.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
They're very popular, and to be honest, like you touched
on the whole thing. It's like, oh, monstrous things from
like the old you know, Hammer, not Hammer. But that's
a different era of like the Monster Verse, but the
old classic monsters, of the universal monsters. And you got

(12:50):
to think about it like it's the eighties, the seventies,
the eighties, and the nineties.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
In the seventies, eighties, and nineties, advertisement was all about
if it can be pushed children, push.

Speaker 5 (13:01):
It to children.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
It doesn't matter if Rambow was for adults. We can
make a rainbow cartoon. Push it to children. And all
the R rated movies eventually got some weird kiddy down
cartoon show or RoboCop became a cartoon show. Like you
can't show a child robo cop.

Speaker 4 (13:25):
My dad did?

Speaker 7 (13:27):
Yeah, I mean you can.

Speaker 4 (13:30):
There's a lot of issues there, right.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Yeah, yeah, I watched it as a kid, but I
lick where I am now.

Speaker 4 (13:36):
Podcast, Yeah this is what happens.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
But yeah, they they were pushing these, these, these these
and I feel like they came back around the same
way you guys are you guys are talking like, oh
a ghost, but.

Speaker 5 (13:54):
That's not really.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
I mean it was popular because okay, context, here's how
the trolls for the first two community the franken Berry
count Chocola used to go. They would argue about which movie,
which which cereal is better. Basically they're seeing which who's better,
Frankenstein or Dracula, but in cereal format. And then some

(14:18):
little kid or somebody would show up out of nowhere
and go, I think they're both great, and they wouldn't
realize they were there and scare them both.

Speaker 5 (14:28):
So it's like that, that's the joke.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
They're two monsters who are big, big babies.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
Okay a bit.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah, that's how the commercials went for a very long time.
They introduced Blueberry Blueberry, and then blue Bear was kind.

Speaker 5 (14:44):
Of the foil.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
He would show up and he would scare them because
he was like a ghost boom.

Speaker 5 (14:49):
So it's like they.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Would be big, scary monsters and then all of a sudden,
this little blue ghost would be like, I like Blueberry,
and they'd be like ah, and they run off because
they're like, oh, that's a ghost, you know.

Speaker 4 (15:02):
So I think that answers the question of why is
their one that goes yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
So basically they they they were trying to find some
way to intro, you know, introduce this third party into
this definitely duo comedic duo of Vampire Frankenstein. And that's
where Booberry popped in for a for a while, and

(15:27):
then of course, with everything, things get stale, so they're,
you know, back to the advertisement board. And I can't
remember when.

Speaker 5 (15:37):
I think it was in like.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
The eighties, like maybe eighty three or eighty four, they
released one of the personally one of the more controversially
named Monster verse eeries, and I figured, I feel like
they figured that out and they discontinued it pretty quickly.
The the fourth member was a werewolf named fruit Brute,

(16:07):
and I was I remember being a kid, and we
were like, what is How did that get past somebody's desks?

Speaker 5 (16:15):
So it went on, somebody says, and somebody was like fine, whatever,
moving on.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
Nobody thought about it, and I was saying, okay, well,
fruit Boote it is. And eventually he got discontinued and
they changed it up. They were like, okay, well we
don't have the were wolf anymore.

Speaker 5 (16:36):
What can we do? And I think in like nineteen
ninety something.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
Or maybe soon after, like in the late eighties, they
got rid of fruit brut and they introduced Yummy Mummy,
which is like a Pastelli rainbow colored mummy. I forget
what Yummy Mummy and fruit Bruit were flavored. I know

(17:01):
they brought back fruit bruit after a while.

Speaker 5 (17:03):
He was cherry.

Speaker 4 (17:04):
Flavored, but orange, I believe.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yeah, Yummy Mummy was orange, but post fruit boots flavor profile,
I cannot remember the original fruit bruit.

Speaker 5 (17:17):
It was a lime.

Speaker 3 (17:19):
It's lime.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
That sounds a nasty Wait, what is what's the gimmick
now as they're introducing these new characters, do they slot
into that, like the antagonism between Count Chocula and Frankenberry,
or like how are they being sort of like represented.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
So they're all just kind of they've kind of ditched that.
They they've all kind of just become like a monster
mashy house. They they did get rid of. They eventually
discontained Yummy Mummy, so they just went back to the
three the trio for a very long time, and it
wasn't until like the late two thousands that they were

(18:03):
like like, bring back for like a like a FOURD
amount of time, bring back Fruit Bruit and Yummy Mummy.
But they made like fruit bruit like.

Speaker 5 (18:12):
A cherry cereal.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
And then they were like we're gonna we're gonna make
a box it's called Monster Mash where you can get
all the cereals kind of mixed together.

Speaker 5 (18:32):
In one bag.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
And have you have you tasted it?

Speaker 5 (18:38):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (18:40):
Is it good?

Speaker 5 (18:41):
I definitely had, So it's not what you think. They didn't.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
They just added all the marshmallows. All the crunchy pieces
are all standard, they're all standard flavored, but you get
all the weird marshmallows and they're vaguely flavored like their cereals.

Speaker 5 (19:01):
So it doesn't taste bad. Actually it's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
Like it would taste disgusting if you added count Chocola, Frankenberry,
Bloberry together in general, that would be disgusting. But they
found a way to make it seem make it work.

Speaker 4 (19:19):
Okay, that was interesting. Having seen the mascots but never
actually tried the cereal until literally today. I was so
surprised that the standard corn pieces are all the same shape.
I didn't realize that the marshmallows are going to be
like the character gimmick. And then you've got this is
this a an m A pac Man ghost? What is
the standard ship meant to be?

Speaker 2 (19:40):
Do you think, oh, yeah, that's a good question. You're
talking about you're talking about these.

Speaker 4 (19:47):
Fellows, Yes, like a spooky face yeah, that.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
Looks like a ghost. To me, that looks like a
pac Man ghost.

Speaker 4 (19:58):
Yeah, so seeing them all be and of course for standardization.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
That's supposed to be a ghost, like a generic ghost.

Speaker 5 (20:06):
Okay, not like Blueberry. Blueberry is a special ghost.

Speaker 4 (20:12):
This is the kind of this is very important and
we're so glad you're here to give us this. These
intricacies fascinating. Okay, So Monster Mash comes along. They're able
to standardize the peace, but just add the additional marshmallows.
As reading and last episode, as we started talking about this.

(20:34):
On that episode, Mouse discovered, fell in love with, and
purchased the Carmelo reeper. Sure he's wearing. Now what's her introduction?
I read something about she's like a relative of one
of these guys.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yes, so I think I think Frankin Berry's her her uncle.
I do believe.

Speaker 4 (20:58):
It just makes sense. They're both reanimated corpses.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
Yes, yeah, okay, so they're related. I just know she's
a DJ. They play that into a lot of the
box art on her boxes through she's like a goth,
grunge punk DJ, which makes sense because she's a zombie.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
It it doesn't, it doesn't. And this was.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
This was a question I was gonna ask you because
I love the fact that she's a DJ. It is
very uh, like, the whole character is so interesting. But
none of the other monsters have vocations. Why why did
they introduce that for her? Or at this point, are
they like like having commercials where like the monsters are

(21:47):
doing stuff besides being monsters, because she like has a job,
she's like a millennial.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yeah, they don't really. They don't really like promote like
like they used to do with like the the cereals,
like they used to do with a lot of like
like animated commercials and stuff, especially for the Horror Ones.

Speaker 5 (22:08):
Most of the lore you.

Speaker 1 (22:09):
Give from them is through box art when you get
the boxes per year. So there was like a Monster
Mash party right when they first introduced They had introduced
Monster Mash like a little while ago, and they were
having a party at the Monster House, and of course

(22:29):
you know who the question is, where is the music
coming from? And when you look up, there's Carmela Kreamer,
you know, I mean Carmela Creeper on the Ones and
tunes up spinning for the house and we're just like, oh,

(22:52):
she's just introduced to spin for the House.

Speaker 5 (22:58):
And that was really just kind of her injured.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
She was just like, I'm a DJ for the Monster
Mash party and they were like, maybe this will stick
or it won't, because you know, they introduced her really
late in the game. She was interested, like not a
couple of years ago, and they were just like, Eh,
let's see what this works and if it does, we'll

(23:20):
we'll keep it going if it doesn't.

Speaker 5 (23:23):
Because she's a.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
Really weird cereal too. It's like caramel apple or something
like that.

Speaker 4 (23:31):
Have you tasted this and is it?

Speaker 5 (23:33):
It was different.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
It's very it's both and it's weird to get it
in a cereal format.

Speaker 5 (23:41):
I was like not a fan at first. I was like,
oh this is this is different. Okay.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
It grows on you though the more you eat it.
I feel like child me would have consumed it a
lot easier than adult me.

Speaker 4 (24:00):
Cool with caramel apple, Maybe Carmela creamer is the way
to go and just do like a drink tie in.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
Yeah, this is so fascinating. I mean, that's that just
like the description that you gave of like all the
monsters are massing at the Monster House and there's like
that just like it sounds like our version of heaven,
just like you get to go to the monster House
and chill with draculas, and Frankenstein's just all dancing around.

Speaker 4 (24:34):
And I will say, of course he is a Count Chalcola,
so you know he's got a whole, he's got land. Yeah,
he's got generational wealth propping him up. And just like
the original metaphor for you know, the dangers of creepy
old men with too much money. That guy doesn't need
a job.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
It can I ask you about the because not all
of these cereals have blines, but I'm looking on on
Wikipedia and it is also represented on this box.

Speaker 3 (25:05):
I'm just realizing.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
So Count Chakila is eating the cereal and his tagline
is I want to eat your cereal.

Speaker 3 (25:14):
So is that like.

Speaker 4 (25:18):
To eat your cereal?

Speaker 5 (25:20):
Yes, yes, you are absolutely correct.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
His powers from cereal, well, they.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
Never really talk about his power.

Speaker 5 (25:30):
He can turn to a bat.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
Of course they show that all the time. Frankin Berry
is always really strong. Blueberry can face through walls. Fruit
Broot was just like always howling at the moon. There
was no real real power set for that one. I
remember Yummy Mummy just like scaring people and always coming

(25:52):
out as of a sarcopha guy or Sarcophacus whatever.

Speaker 5 (25:57):
And I don't remember. Yeah, those two weren't really thought out.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Well, they didn't last very long, and they're just like
they're just introduced a Mommy and Frank and Werewolf.

Speaker 4 (26:06):
The jump scare out of Sarcophagus. That's all you need. Yeah, yeah,
personal child personal childhood, terror of mine, which was talking
about the show many times, so like that works for me.
And then Carmela Yeah good, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
And Carmela is a zombie, but they don't. They never
like she's having like like sayings or she's just like
a punk rider. I think they were like, we don't
know what to do. We we we don't have any
zombie lower like a zombie. We can kind of like
base her off of like of course, you know, zombies

(26:43):
aren't really part of the.

Speaker 5 (26:45):
Original, like.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
Hammer, like the original Universal. Like I would see it
more like if they introduced her as like a Phantom
of the Opera sort of character or something something like.

Speaker 5 (27:01):
That, I could see them.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
But you know, Phantom of the Club, I don't know, Paradise.

Speaker 8 (27:10):
Yeah, these sick beats.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
I mean, she does have the power to make you
like dance yourself to death.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
It's just like.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
It's totally uh, unflappable musical, just virtuosity that she's pumping
out of.

Speaker 8 (27:34):
The Fourth of the Dead is Rave to the Grave.

Speaker 6 (27:37):
So you know, well.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
That leads to the other side of like, there are
a lot of people that have coded the Monster Verse
cereals in a very specific way, and they kind of
become icons in their own right.

Speaker 6 (27:59):
So these icons, huh, in what way and how who
is coding them?

Speaker 1 (28:08):
And they're they're okay, So the mascots if you watch
these cereals like in m Sure it was not originally
intended this way, but as time went on, the bickering
between like Frankenstein.

Speaker 5 (28:26):
And and and.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
Dracula and the way they interact and the way they
live together, and and how how Frankenstein is a you know,
and and way harder to say this a limp wristed
pink Frankenstein.

Speaker 5 (28:47):
It was very gentle but very big.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
And then Count Tracula is just kind of like his
like like very stern roommate question mark.

Speaker 4 (29:00):
They're especially given that the boxes we're looking at this
year are Jim Henson collaboration. He's got Strawberry. Now those fantastics.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yeah, okay, and then and then you got this dapper
little blue ghost with a little hat that tips to
the side, and you're like, what am I looking at?

Speaker 4 (29:25):
Getting real like bird cage vibes from Yes.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
They all give that, Like the fruit Root is like
wearing this.

Speaker 4 (29:32):
Lake fruit, very.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
Fruit by himself, Fruit Bruce wearing like a rainbow pair
of overalls. And then you're like getting very over at
this point. And then yummy mummy is a pastel rainbow
mummy and you're like, hmmm, I think we're getting less
uh less subtle about this the longer we go on.

(29:57):
And then Carmela Creeper has gotten a very has a
very sapphic fan base. Okay, So yeah.

Speaker 9 (30:11):
The the the LGBT community, it's a very good hold
with relation with the serial mascots of the Halloween Times.

Speaker 4 (30:23):
This makes a lot of sense to me thinking about
we often talk about the queer coding of monsters and
you know, as outsiders and as metaphors, and how that
plays into the stories you tell about monsters and how
monsters interact. We're big fans of Hannibal on the show
and Brian Fuller's work and thinking about how those lines

(30:48):
go back and forth, So that doesn't surprise me at all,
and I'm thrilled and delighted to hear it.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, that rules the Okay, so we've talked about and
the lore, and thank you so much for breaking that
down for us, because I mean there was some true
confusion that we had as we were trying to like
piece together all this stuff. It seems like all of
these cereals were discontinued and now are all seasonal.

Speaker 3 (31:19):
Is that correct?

Speaker 1 (31:23):
Count Chocolate was originally like all year round, Frankenberry was
originally frank Berry and Count Chocolate were introduced. They were
all year around. Then Booberry was introduced. He was all
year round, but eventually they just didn't sell, like and
then it was more like you saw Count Chocula and
you saw Frankenberry, but you didn't really see Booberry. He

(31:47):
kind of like disappeared. And I mean like this is
after Fruit Brute and Yummy Mummy kind.

Speaker 5 (31:53):
Of bit the bullet.

Speaker 4 (31:56):
Silver or otherwise.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
Yeah, but then like you started seeing less Frankenberry and
you only find Count Schocula. Count Chracula was the only
cereal that was out there all the time and every
once in a while they bring Frinkinberry and blueberry out
for Halloween. Uh, so you can get count Chocula all

(32:20):
the time, but you know, any of the fruity cereals
you need to wait until Halloween. And then they, I
guess they're just like, why are we making it? Why
are we making count Chocula. There are other General Mills
chocolated cereals that go a lot better, and Count Chracla

(32:44):
wasn't selling as well, like all year round, like what's
the point? Why who's buying the chocolate vampire, which is
also a coating you of itself. It's like a very
very blackula coated with its chocolate vampire. And it just
wasn't selling. So they were like, how do we bring

(33:05):
the nostalgia factor back? So instead they just discontinued them
all and then it was just like, we're just gonna
appeal to the halloweenes.

Speaker 5 (33:16):
This works.

Speaker 4 (33:18):
Yeah, well, I was gonna say it because it's it's
the exact same strategy as many the under exposure, false
scarcity or engineered scarcity. And then even with monster movies themselves,
the more you see of the monster often the less
scary it gets. So that's interesting that it follows a
similar pattern. Okay, so knowing that it works. You were

(33:40):
talking a little bit maybe before the show about collecting,
So what's the sort of collectors uh community, Yeah, wait
wait what do you mean? You're like, are you just yeah,

(34:01):
are you like grabbing these and keeping on open boxes
and like or framing the art?

Speaker 5 (34:07):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yes, So okay, so they've decided to each year release
something new, like like new artists are doing the covers.
There's new, like right now, you're saying, it's a very puppet,
very muppet going on right now. And then at one point.

Speaker 5 (34:24):
They had when they were doing the.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
Fiftieth anniversary and they had the moster mash cereal. There
was like the box art was like all of them.

Speaker 5 (34:32):
Everybody was there.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
It was like collectorable because you're like they discontinued a
lot of these guys, like we haven't seen these guys
in like twenty one, twenty two years or seventeen, like
twenty one, and one of them was twenty one years ago.
I think it was fruit rout or Yummy, Yummy Mummy.
I think it was like seventeen or something. But like,

(34:55):
you hadn't seen some of these guys for so long,
and they were just like yeah, this is this is
this is. They were like limited. They always say like
limited time only on the box to try and get
you to get it, and yeah, you collect the art.
They have like comics on the back, like sometimes that
that gives you lore. That's how I knew about the

(35:15):
whole Carmela creamer spinning at the Monster House. That's that's
a comic on the back of the box. You don't
get that lore if they didn't put it in commercials.
You get it if you buy the box and then
you get to keep it and you can frame them.
Jim Lee did the Booberry redesign. Yep, they they they

(35:40):
they they they they What was it?

Speaker 5 (35:43):
DC?

Speaker 1 (35:45):
Yeah, they they they teamed up with d C with
DC did do redesigns for Frankinberry, count Chacula and Booberry.

Speaker 4 (35:53):
I do believe cool.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
Okay, So this year I just want to sort of
read the back of the box here. This is also
a commemorative.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
Like uh.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Crossover brand deal between the Henson Company and the in
General Mills and the back of the box says Jim
Henson reimagined the way we look at monsters by making
them a joyful and friendly part of our world. To
celebrate the seventieth anniversary of the Jim Henson Company, our

(36:33):
beloved crew of Mary Monsters are joining the family thanks
to the talented artists at Jim Henson's Creature Shop, which
is like true, Like I hadn't really realized it until
I stared at all of like the muppets, They're just monsters.
They're monsters that have like big eyes and that I
mean I was. I was telling everybody, Uh, I was

(36:55):
texting Teddy and cause yesterday my daughter reaction to this box.
She was like huge fan of Booberry, loved Booberry, grabbed
the box off of the display it safeway and was
just staring at the back of the box, pointing at
all the different monsters and all the different muppets and

(37:16):
just absolutely going crazy.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
And I mean it works.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
It activated whatever part of her you know brain, you know,
reacts to this kind of stimuli. What didn't work, and
what I want to turn our attention to is the taste,
because she did eat one, try it look suspicious, and
then ate half of one another one and spit it out, shocking.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
Booberry is an acquired taste I love Booberry cereal, but
I have to give it up to like, if you
like chocolate things, great, but Frankin Berry's cereal is the
best one. Freakin Berry cereal is hands down the best

(38:07):
one they make.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
Well, let's let's let's talk about it. Wait, so, Cause
and Teddy, have you all have you tasted all of
the cereals for this year?

Speaker 4 (38:24):
So I went back to I remember fond childhood memories
of doing, like after Halloween, take a bunch of the
chocolate bars out of their wrappers, cut them into like
square sections, then do like a blind taste test. And
so so I took the three cereals and put them

(38:44):
in like little sample containers. And I always try to
start dry, and because.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
We all do.

Speaker 4 (38:52):
Need a little bit of time to get warmed up. Yeah, okay,
it So because I'm curious about the cereal on its own,
and Italy, I'm curious about your experience with like checks
and other General Mills flavors and similar ones, because for me,
I ate a lot of Checks, and so I'm familiar
with their like blueberry checks, strawberry checks, love blueberry checks,

(39:15):
and so I'm really excited about blueberry and those are
ones i'll eat with like yogurt, oreo mix or just
as a snack even, And I was really surprised about
how like artificial fruit forward. Yes, if they all were
without milk.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
If you're yes, you, I would not suggest eating any
of them without milk.

Speaker 5 (39:41):
Just don't. It's not pleasant.

Speaker 4 (39:45):
Agree, not a good idea. Don't go in dry folks.

Speaker 1 (39:50):
No, don't go dry for those they are they're made
to be in milk. Do not do not give it
is a mistake. I I love them, and I will
not eat them dry.

Speaker 5 (40:03):
It's not right.

Speaker 8 (40:06):
Well, I mean tasted them yet, but I am still.
I have a couple of I have marshmallows, and I'm
getting ready to turn them into rice crispy treats. So
we'll see how that goes.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
Nice.

Speaker 4 (40:20):
Yeah, I'm curious about it. That's gonna make a difference
because so to your point, these are clearly engineered for
milk too. Yeah, and that makes such a difference in
terms of uh, you can I frankly still don't like
the cereals, but I liked the milk.

Speaker 5 (40:39):
Oh, the milk is delicious.

Speaker 4 (40:40):
Yeah, the milk works really well. My ranking is count
chocola first, then Bowberry, then Franknberry strawberry. I've got like
a tough relationship with when it's uh, when it's artificial,
and even like the strawberry checks are sometimes food. So yeah,
that's kind of h I came with it. Are you

(41:03):
knowing that they're coming from the same factory. The fact
that they're so differently formulated was interesting.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
Yeah, they're all the base cereal. They're all the same bass,
but like flavored differently. So yeah, but they come off
way different. Sorry, I didn't need to cut you off.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
Sacon No, I was just gonna say.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
I also think, I mean, and this may be why
they kind of got discontinued over time, that there was
something where I was eating them. I mean, because General
Mills is like a a mammoth when it comes to
like all your favorite cereals are probably produced by General Mills.
I mean they have cinnamon Toa's crunch, they have cocoa puffs,

(41:43):
they have Lucky Charms, like they have these all like
the big cereals, And so I'm eating Count chocolate and
I'm like, I would prefer cocoa puffs, and I'm eating
these other fruit cereals and I'm like I would prefer
Tricks or I would prefer.

Speaker 3 (41:58):
Lucky Charms to this.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
They don't seem as distinctive in their flavors, especially between
Frank and Berry and Booberry. To me, those were kind
of like lateral in a lot of ways. Count Chocula
had like a very distinctive taste where that ended up
being my favorite too, because I just felt like and

(42:21):
that's probably why it survived the longest as a solo cereal,
because it did have a distinctive taste where I was like, Okay,
this is there's something unique here.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
Yeah. Count Chocola tastes different than a lot of other chocolate,
Like can you have cocoa puffs or like Coco Crispies
does not taste.

Speaker 5 (42:41):
Like Count Chocula.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
Yeah, And You're like, so it's it's very unique and
it's not bad either. I'm not super super duper in
a chocolate, but if I had to choose Coco Crispies,
Count Chocula or Cocoa Puffs, I'm choosing Count Chocula.

Speaker 3 (43:08):
Interesting.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
Yeah, the I was thinking also of what cereals would
be good to eat dry, and the only one that
I could wrap my head around maybe cinnamon toast, crunch.

Speaker 4 (43:22):
Frostage flakes especially. You can also do that as like
a topping on things, so you know, because it's then
it's just basically a crumble.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
It's funny you said say that, because the cereal that
is like somehow just like killing it right now. It's
like a topping is fruit loup, not fruity pebbles everything.

Speaker 4 (43:47):
Yeah, definitely, they're terrible.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Milk fruity pebbles are like go like limp and milk
faster than anything I've ever seen. So it's much better
dry than it is.

Speaker 5 (44:01):
That's a great point.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
I've seen that in a lot of like like you're
trying to you're trying to cut down on calories, but
you want your food to taste good, like do Greek
yogurt and then put some some fruity pebbles or some
cocoa pebbles on it to add a little bit of
texture or some crunch and some like flavor.

Speaker 3 (44:22):
To an otherwise sort of like bland meal.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (44:26):
That's that. That's interesting. So the okay, so the.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
It's what's really kind of sad to me is how
how quickly these things get discontinued, and like how I
was looking at some of the the fan communities on
Reddit and the It was interesting because there's no like,
there is a Monster Cereal subreddit, but like no one

(44:55):
has ever posted in it. It just kind of exists. But
like if you sort of like google like Monster Ceral reddit,
you will find like really long posts in some very
interesting subreddits. I found a really long one on the
subreddit for Nostalgia. I found a fairly long one on

(45:17):
the subreddit for gen X, which makes sense. I mean
I think that those Nostalgia is the longest. Yeah. And
then obviously for the Halloween subreddit, of which I am
a follower and a member, it was a lot of
people posting like the grocery store displays where they like

(45:40):
sort of like pull out the stops and like you know,
it's like the same way where during this time they
have like the pumpkin spice like display at the grocery store.

Speaker 3 (45:50):
And it's like this big to do.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
It's the same thing with the Monster cereals where it's
just like lined up. And what I have found or
what I've been able to call from this that people
are excited that they're back, but kind of bummed that
it's only the sort of Core three because in the
past they've done like the Carmela Creeper, They've done like
the Monster Mash cereal. They've had, you know, resurgences of

(46:14):
fruit Bruit and Yummy Mummy. So, as a collector and
a follower, does this seem kind of like a down
year or what's your sense?

Speaker 1 (46:26):
They do this all the time, like they don't always
get and not every year do you get a new
thing they and they do. I feel like they're doing
this specifically so that when they finally do do something,
it matters. If you do something new every year, people
will look forward to it. The collectors will look forward

(46:47):
to it, but it's not it's it, you know, pop,
but it won't pop. Is hard. They don't expect to
make much money off of the Halloween cereals period. I
feel like that ship is saled. What they think these
things are are a good way to boost sales when
they need it, as opposed to boost sales every year.

(47:11):
So if they're having an off year on sales, they
might do something for October to boost sales on these
limited edition cereals for that time. Also to have Jim
Henson Company make a puppet of every one of them.

(47:34):
I feel like that's a collaboration that they would need
to pay more into, and I don't think they were willing.

Speaker 8 (47:41):
To do that.

Speaker 4 (47:42):
I also wonder about Jim Henson Company because when I
saw these three specifically and looking at their original art,
knowing when they when they debuted, like, oh this is
a layup. These make total sense. A lot of the
shapes feel similar to like kind of Rocky and Bowinkle
style of art, and that they just like slot in

(48:05):
as muppets to me, like they've always been there, Like yeah,
they do.

Speaker 5 (48:09):
They always gave off muppet vibes.

Speaker 4 (48:12):
Yeah, like Count Jacula and the Count are cousins, right,
Like I buy that?

Speaker 5 (48:18):
Oh yeah, I would.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
I would watch that episode of So if those puppets
showed up on Sesame Street, I'm I'm taping or like
whatever everybody does these days when it comes to stuff
that comes on TV, I am getting that on recording
somehow to watch it. I would be there, you hear,

(48:42):
if anybody in the serial world hears me get that
to happen, I will be.

Speaker 4 (48:49):
There, Yeah, for sure. And also I think Jim Henson
Company is coming from a perspective of there are some
concerns about that being a nostalgia brand also and so
leaning into Okay, the same people who are nostalgic for
uh this, these cereals are also nostalgic probably for those puppets.

(49:12):
And then how can we introduce all of these to
a younger audience and keep them relevant.

Speaker 8 (49:18):
So I think it's interesting that we also have the
idea that Jim Henson started a lot of selling Kermit
and some of the original puppets as selling coffee I believe, yeah,
and a cereal back in the day before he got

(49:42):
enlisted to SNL. So we're all like, you know, it's
a time is a flat circle when it comes to
puppets advertising things.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
Oh man, if you guys ever have the time, look
up Wilkins Coffee and watch the most unhinged proto kerm
the Frog puppet constantly attack this man who doesn't like
that coffee, and it is it is unhend to think

(50:11):
that that would eventually become Kermit the Frog.

Speaker 4 (50:14):
I have actually seen that, and it's delightful and bizarre,
and it has such muppet energy like that chaos makes
its way into other Jim Henson characters. That's so interesting
that it's not Kermit where that energy lives with later.

Speaker 5 (50:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
The other recurring thing that I see in these long
threads is people arguing about the taste.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
So there is a so have you.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
Italy been eating these since you were a kid?

Speaker 1 (50:54):
Yeah, I was super into. I remember having to get
Booberry every year, like that was the cereal I needed it.

Speaker 5 (51:06):
I was like fiending for it.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
I I don't remember. My parents weren't like buying sugar
cereal all the time, but they would because it was
the It was the eighties, let me go ahead, like
the later bit of the eighties, but eighties no less,
early nineties power rangers.

Speaker 5 (51:28):
I grew up with put it out there nice.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
Uh, But my family was like they wanted cereals that
everybody in the house would eat.

Speaker 5 (51:38):
So Booberry wasn't it.

Speaker 10 (51:40):
So I got blouberry on a on a in a
very very very like low basis, like I got it
every blue moon, no pun.

Speaker 5 (51:50):
Intended, but I had to have it.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
Yeah, has the has the taste in your lifetime? I'm
changed because, especially in the gen x reddit, there's a
bunch of gen x are sort of arguing whether or
not the the quote unquote new formula tastes better or
worse than the old formula, and I've had I've never
had the old formula.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
It actually completely changed. They changed it from an oat
cereal to a to a corn cereal.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
It tastes different, Oh I see, so like so they
change the actual like.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
The crunchy pieces. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
Okay, because I was, yeah, I was reading through some
of the ingredients before we started recording, uh with cause,
and like the first five ingredients, four of them are
corn based ingredients, which is why I have been on
the toilet all day. I mean, it just it just
is the truth. And we all have to be comfortable

(52:56):
in our own bodies. So you're not right, they're not.
I'm not right now.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
And there was it.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
So there was a distinctive like flavor shift into than
the sort of like corn syrup revolution where everything is
made with corn, And does it taste distinctly worse now?

Speaker 5 (53:18):
It definitely.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
I feel like the mouth feels different. I don't I
don't actually think it tastes worse, but it feels weirder
and it gets soggier faster.

Speaker 5 (53:33):
So yeah, it's like everything gets.

Speaker 1 (53:35):
Saugier faster than it used to. Like it, And it
was already getting soggy too fast.

Speaker 4 (53:42):
Do you find that the milk leftovers have changed, Like
is it more or less blueberry? More or less strawberry?
Are you liking it?

Speaker 1 (53:53):
I feel like yeah, I don't. I don't know if
I feel like the taste profile milk and cereal is different.
The color is definitely different because dyes have changed. Like before,
it used to turn your.

Speaker 11 (54:09):
Milk like hot pink and like hot blue, like they
like Pastell blue and your your your your milk with
some chocolatey like brown.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
Now it turns like it's kind of like a like
a mellow brown, very like still see like the milky
white in the the the brown and the the everything's
pastelli because it's very milky white mixed with the color schemes.
So it's not as visually striking as it used to be. Uh,

(54:46):
because you know, kids are like turnable milk, you know
green whoa.

Speaker 4 (54:52):
It's the nineties, I hear a commercial.

Speaker 5 (54:59):
B whoa.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
But yeah, nowadays they're like, yeah, it's not the gimmick.
It's like they're like it the gimmick used to be
like it turns your cereal like colors and it's monsters.

Speaker 5 (55:16):
That was it, and now it's just like, oh, it's
it's it's comes out.

Speaker 1 (55:23):
During fall, it's it's the pumpkin spice of cereals. It's here,
and then it goes away and then you get sad
and regardless of how it tastes, you want it because
you can't have it. Then you get it and you're like, oh, okay,

(55:44):
I did want this, but did I want this?

Speaker 4 (55:46):
This man, you get a whole year to forget that.
The yack brain again, I feel you.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
But that's absolutely every sort of like seasonal eye them.
Every every person who wishes the McRib was a year
rounds thing would never eat a McRib at McDonald's like randomly.
It is that like the shamrock shake is back, the
McRib is back, the pumpkin spice is back, the monster

(56:18):
cereals are back, and that is the gimmick is what
draws people to buying that, to buy the cereal.

Speaker 8 (56:25):
Well, those Taco Bell nacho fries, I'd probably buy them,
like year round fair enough?

Speaker 3 (56:31):
Will you like the Taco Bell fries?

Speaker 8 (56:33):
Dude, the Taco Bell fries with the with the dust
on it.

Speaker 3 (56:39):
That's that.

Speaker 8 (56:40):
I think that's real, key, real crucial.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
Look look they are good, but you would not eat
them yet round So what happened is you'd eat them
for a long time.

Speaker 7 (56:52):
You eat them too long, and then you get tired
of them, and then you would put the put down
the fries and you start order something else and you
forget the fries even exists, because see, let's be honest,
there's stuff on the menus places.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
You'd be like, oh man, they still sell that never
went away. You just stop caring about it. It's there, Gordidas,
Oh no, but they still make those.

Speaker 5 (57:16):
I don't know, but you're just like, I'm not eating that, So.

Speaker 1 (57:22):
You you'd forget it was there, and then every once
in a while you'd be like, oh yeah, they whatever
happened to them fries? And then you see it on
the menu order it. You're like, oh man, why haven't
they be eating this? And you overindulge yourself, get tired of.

Speaker 5 (57:35):
It, and the cycle continues. That's just how it works.
I've been there.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
I've been the one who has been on the cycle.

Speaker 5 (57:46):
I do it. It's it's it's it's it's they know
they get you and they and I'm no different.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
Because you're a fiend for like, uh, maybe not seasonal items,
but like limited edition items, limited adition oreos and things
like that. Are there any Halloween inspired ones? And if not,
this is my real question is have you tried the

(58:16):
Selena Gomez oreo and is it as good as everyone
says this?

Speaker 4 (58:21):
So I've I have gone away from the wheat oreos
at this point, which severely limits my ability to engage
in the limited edition once, which is tragic, but it's
not worth the HyperG does corn syrup to me? So
I will say I've got a very pumpkin spice frustrates

(58:44):
me because if it's got pumpkin in it for real,
I will buy enough of it that I can have
it all year. If it's just all spice and ginger
and nutmeg, I can do that myself.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
I see where you're saying, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (59:01):
So that's all. And it's interesting year to year how
much of like pumpkin spice is just the spices versus like,
oh no, let's actually get a pumpkin base in there
with a pumpkin pure or pumpkin flakes, and so that
it's not exactly Halloween. But there's General Mills pumpkin spice
cheerios out right now that have actual pumpkin in it,

(59:22):
And that might be entirely psychological. I feel like I
can tell the difference. There's like a like a the
earthy pumpkin nature to it that is an extra dimension
from just the spices. But I also might just be
nuts and like building that into my own I'm not

(59:43):
sure anyway. So yes, if it's every time this season
comes around, I will scour the shelves for all the
pumpkin spice things, immediately discount anything that doesn't have actual
pumpkin in the ingredients because the rest of it is
like this feels wintery. I will do those kinds of
spiced teas all year anyway, But it's the it's the

(01:00:05):
vegetable that matters.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
Yeah, I saw those pumpkin spice cheerios because the other
thing that I was like that that this experience sort
of uh introduced me to is I don't go to
grocery stores that have brand name cereals in them, like.

Speaker 3 (01:00:20):
My primary grocery stores Aldi.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
Aldi is like one of those stores that has like
all al the brand type stuff and the cereals that
they have, they're all like knockoffs.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
And so going down the aisle and seeing.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
The sheer amount of cereal that that exists now, and
then also seeing them playing into like this broader nutrition
kind of moment where it was like I saw so
many high protein uh versions of cereal where I'm like,

(01:00:54):
I mean, they're probably just putting like some way isolate
in there, which is what they do with all all
these all these like uh, protein chips and protein brownies
and protein whatever. But yeah, I was seeing a lot
of that also being integrated into the cereals.

Speaker 5 (01:01:12):
Being like coated and yogurt.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Oh it's good for you because it's yogurt.

Speaker 4 (01:01:17):
Like you've got the magic spoon, Like we are clearly
designing this so you know the general Melzer Kellogg cereal
that it is imitating, but oh yeah, it's got x
amount of grams of protein from the soy protein isolate
and the way putin isolate, and we're going to charge
ten dollars a box or something.

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
And the other thing that was shocking to me was
the price.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
I bought three boxes of cereal for ten dollars and
fifty cents, and that like high protein whatever whatever magic
spoon is like fifteen dollars for a box of that,
which also is like I mean, this is you know,
the sort of like you know whatever health disparity in
pricing and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
But this has been very illustrative.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
I mean, we are going to you know, to preview
what the rest of this month is gonna look like.
We are going to do some t TRPG stuff. We
are going to embody these characters, so it was good
to have a little bit of lore surrounding them. When
I get into my you know, when I get into
character as Carmela Creeper, I'm gonna understand and know what

(01:02:26):
I have to be doing. And cause you're going to
be playing you know, Frankenberry, and yeah, you're gonna have
to know that you do have to be beefing with
Caul Chocula.

Speaker 4 (01:02:39):
Is there Italy a Victor Frankenberry.

Speaker 5 (01:02:44):
No, I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
It's a Frankenberry Monsters, Okay, Victor Frankenberry. Amazing that they're
like a white chocolate hell sing.

Speaker 9 (01:03:05):
I don't know.

Speaker 8 (01:03:06):
Is is the greatest thing I have ever heard?

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
You know it?

Speaker 5 (01:03:16):
Just trying to figure these things up.

Speaker 4 (01:03:20):
Good ideas for General Mels on this show.

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
I mean, I I suspect we're going to improvise a
lot of great ideas because there there doesn't also see
and this is also very uh illuminating too to know
that they're not really interested in like really building complicated
stories for any of these characters. Like I feel like
back in the day they would put some of these
like in cartoons or something, but now it's just kind

(01:03:45):
of like, uh, Carmelo Creeper, She's a DJ zombie, cool
looking on a box.

Speaker 3 (01:03:53):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
They would even like have them every once in a while.
They would have them like Fox Kids have like a
little like vignette on Halloween.

Speaker 5 (01:04:03):
It's Halloween Fox Scoots or whatever one Saturday morning Halloween,
and they.

Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
Would like somehow they would be like commercials for the
Halloween cereals that would like incorporate like they paid for them.
They're like, okay, we're gonna get the Count Chocula and
in this big bag Beetleborgs like Vignette.

Speaker 5 (01:04:27):
And you're like, what is this? Why are you here?
You don't I don't get well.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
Technically with the big bad Beetleborgs absolutely fit because there
was like a ghost and a mummy and a and
a and a Dracula and a Frankenstein. They were all
in that show. Wait a minute, never mind, I changed
my tube.

Speaker 5 (01:04:49):
That absolutely fit.

Speaker 3 (01:04:52):
So that's yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
But I also do remember there being like very strong
branding around, like the Tricks Rabbit, Like that was such
a huge marketing campaign that's stuck in people's mind. The
silly Rabbit tricks are for kids, thing that they would
hit on some some like very resonant cultural touchstones that
just kind of stayed with children. And you know, I

(01:05:18):
was around, I was watching you know, Saturday Morning cartoons
or whatever when these cereals were still being produced all
year round. And I really truly don't remember any of
the monsters, but god, I could tell you some stuff
about to Kant Sam and fucking the Tricks Rabbit and

(01:05:38):
Captain Crunches reckless ass. Like there's so many there were
so many core memories of Cereal mascots, but these there's a.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
Lot of Cereal mascot lore, like a lot of it,
like a lot. Yeah, I bet, I bet you don't
remember there are more than one Cinnamentos.

Speaker 5 (01:06:00):
Kind of chef.

Speaker 4 (01:06:02):
Oh Like it's like a title passed down Highlander h
or how the cookie the cookie Crisp.

Speaker 1 (01:06:14):
It's like a it's weirdly changed with the times. It
was like, the cookie cop is the good guy and
the cookie crook is the bad guy. And then the
cookie dog got popular, and the cookie dog became the
good guy and the cop was the bad guy, and
and then eventually they just got rid of the cop
altogether and the cookie dog became a wolf.

Speaker 5 (01:06:34):
And you're just like, wait, what's happening.

Speaker 3 (01:06:36):
Yeah, that's so funny.

Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
Yeah, well, we'll have to talk about it on a
on a different show. I would love to jump into
the lore of cap'n Crunch and where that salty dog
has been.

Speaker 3 (01:06:52):
Uh, but this is any.

Speaker 2 (01:06:55):
Final thoughts from anybody caused Teddy Italy on the months
cereals and the Frankenstein of.

Speaker 8 (01:07:01):
It all, Well, I think the most interesting Frankenstein bud
is how the mass cereal is the most Frankensteiny of them,
and I'm I'm curious to see how if there are
any ways to still get them like the Franken Mash
cereal and it not be a horrifying experience of trying

(01:07:22):
to eat it because it hasn't been like produced in
like three years.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
I you might be able to order it from them,
but I doubt it, like, and you you're yeah, don't, don't,
don't press your luck on that.

Speaker 5 (01:07:36):
Don't eat old cereals. Don't do that. There are a
whole there's a whole.

Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
Community of people who like get old cereals and they
do taste as something like, there's no way you're tasting it.
It tastes awful. Now, why are you eating it. There's
no way you're getting a good taste out of that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
No, that sounds absolutely rancid. But yeah, that'll do it
for this episode, our first installment in monstover Fest.

Speaker 3 (01:08:06):
Colon, Frank and Die. We'll see on the next one.

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
Thank you so much Italy for coming in and giving
us your wisdom. And that'll do it. We'll see you
on the next one.