Give ’em a bunch of Cap’ n Crunch so it will scratch off the roofs of their mouths…
“Ahh! Cap’ n Crunch! Who still eats that and why does it hurt to eat it?”
We never got Cap’ n Crunch. We had to settle for government issued King Vitamin. Those did the same thing though, but they’re not nearly as sweet as Cap’ n Crunch.
On we go discussing childhood memories of favorite breakfast cereals. Froot Loops. Toucan was my favorite cereal mascot. It’s the closest to the jungle I could get, reading the back of the box finding the hidden images in the puzzle without checking them off as I found them, milk turning gray. I’m not giving away the answers to my two younger sisters and bratty lactose-intolerant brother, although I’d take a peek at the solution turning the box upside down.
On second thought, maybe Tony Tiger is my favorite. Frosted Flakes were a special treat. Otherwise, we relied on generic corn flakes, add your own sugar. Add it we did, but it didn’t work well as it wound up in a thick layer in the bottom of the bowl after the milk was slurped. Sometimes I added sliced bananas, but overall, it qualified as grown-up cereal. There was a recipe we used to make sweet, gooey peanut-butter bars with too many boxes. In that case, they were grrrreat!
Lucky Charms were fun, without the milk. Anyone else pick out the “lucky charms?” I din’t like hard, shriveled marshmallows, but they were cute. The cereal, re-shaped Alpha-Bits, were tasty. Speaking of Alpha-Bits, I could never scoop up a full word on my spoon. Why were the letters always broken? The magic of television.
Fruity Pebbles were okay, but the best ones were chocolate. Who wouldn’t want chocolate milk after all the crunch was gone?
Honey Nut Cheerios were always so much better than regular, until I started buying them for my kids. Three plain Cheerios on the high chair tray kept them occupied while I cooked dinner, until they perfected the pinscher grasp and began grabbing them by the fistfuls. Three little oat circles were never enough.
I rarely eat cereal now. Occasionally, I’ll crave a bowl of Frosted Flakes, but never enough to warrant buying a box of it. If we have granola, I’ll crunch on a small amount with coconut milk. We have a box of Honey Nut Cheerios on top of the fridge. I don’t remember the last time it was opened. It’s probably stale by now.
Saturday morning cartoons and a bowl of cereal has been replaced with a cup of coffee and a list of too many things to do.
Nerds Beget Nerds 
I shudder to think of all the sugary cereal I ingested as a child. Your post brought some of that back to my mind. I remember the layer of sugary stuff left at the bottoms of the bowls when I was done. I will say I ate all the Lucky Charms “boring” cereal first, and then ate the now-less-hard marshmallows last. : )
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We ate so much junk! Fun times.
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Omg, Alice, you really had me going down memory lane. So many of my friends did not get to eat fun cereal. I loved Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Apple Jacks. But alas, here I am at my laptop, not watching Hanna Barbera cartoons and drinking coffee.
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I forgot about Apple Jacks and Cinnamon Toast Crunch! How could I?
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Bringing me waaaaaayyy back! You got me thinking about the prizes in the box or the Jackson 5 records on the Alphabits!
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We’d fight over those prizes. In the box cereal prizes are lame now. QR codes just don’t give the full effect of stuffing your hand to the bottom of the box to dig out the coveted prize.
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Thanks for sharing. That ending was a perfect conclusion to this piece too.
If you want to get a group of teenagers engaged in persuasive speech, ask them to determine the best cereal. You could probably fill a full class period (at least). They have OPINIONS!
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Great idea!
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Yes! There is something about Cap’n Crunch. I craved it as a kid, but then felt my mouth had been assaulted when I was done. Highly sugared cereals were a right of passage in my childhood. My siblings and I especially liked the variety packs but no one liked to be stuck with the healthy choice.
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The mini-boxes were such a treat! I remember tossing the healthy choices aside. Why did they even bother to include them?
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Apple Jacks were my favorites–and Trix! I’d completely forgotten about Alpha-Bits. I really enjoyed this trip down cereal memory lane.
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I had forgotten about Apple Jacks. That’s one of the sugared cereals my mom bought often.
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As another kid raised on generic food, I feel you on this! Whenever a “cool” cereal was introduced into our house, everyone ate as many bowls as possible as soon as they could. There was also a special technique to manipulating the cereal box in order to unearth the prize, since we weren’t allowed to dig through the box to find it.
Loved the nostalgia of this post, and the memories you helped bring up for me!
Post-script: Cocoa Pebbles may be better in milk, but have you ever tried Fruity Pebbles over soft-serve ice cream? It got me through freshman year of college…
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Thank you, Lainie. We were definitely cereal diggers, fingers full of cereal dust, yuck! I will have to try Fruity Pebbles over soft-serve. Thanks for the tip!
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Oh, how the last line got to me! The weightlessness of childhood, worried only about waking up in time to catch favorite cartoons–when we lived stateside, at least. I missed several formative years of TV watching due to my father’s duty stations. Luckily, we got most of the cereals you mentioned through the base commissary. I remember eating from the little boxes of mixed packs, especially!
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I left some off, but for the most part, those were my faves. They’re all too sweet for adult me.
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