Welcome to X-Entertainment's Cereal Prize Project! After you're done here, check the links at right to see the other currently reviewed groups. Section is updated 2-3 times a week!
THE CEREAL PRIZE PROJECT: GROUP 001
(Cookie Crisp figure, WWF Superstars poster, X-Ray Viewer, Tony the Tiger Secret Message Pens & Jackson 5 Victory Tour Stickers)
#001 - Cookie Crisp "Cop" Figure: (Ralston, Cookie Crisp, '80s)
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Figure sealed in baggie.The Ralston company had some pretty awful luck when it came to things relating to breakfast (documented throughout this very site), but the fact that they gave the world Cookie Crisp compensates for all their failures and atrocities. Though it couldn't have been further from the truth, we grew up believing 100% that the little, disc-shaped kibbles were indeed actual cookies. If kids think they can eat tiny chocolate chip cookies from breakfast, they're damn sure gonna.
Ralston later swapped marketing campaigns, but Cookie Crisp was originally spoken for by a mustache-covered police officer and his arch-nemesis, a poorly dressed crook who aspired to steal not gold, not money, not cars, but
cookies. Both were immortalized as small, PVC-like figures, and that's the cop up there. He doesn't stand up under his own power very well, which is a pretty provoking notion considering that his feet take up a combined sixty feet of floor space. Why all the trouble?
#002 - WWF Superstars Poster: (Post, Honeycomb, 1989)
Somebody with long tenure at the Honeycomb Division of Post Cereal sure liked wrestling. First we had Andre the Giant
garbling out love for it, then we had these: WWF Superstars posters, free inside each giant box of beautiful breakfast beehive. I got the "Bushwhackers" version, which can only mean one thing: They offered several different WWF posters. If there was only to be one, it sure as heck wouldn't have been Luke and Butch.
The little gnome in my pocket who handles all of my rough estimates claims the poster is 12x20", and that sounds about right. For what it is, this is actually one of the better cereal premiums I can think of, which is just my way of getting twenty bonus points for adding a sentence that really doesn't say anything. For those unfamiliar with the Bushwhackers, they were the World Wrestling Federation's equivalent of your neighbor's pair of awesomely friendly golden retrievers who never skimp on the hot tongue action whenever you're spotted. No, I'm serious -- they
licked fans on their way to the ring.
#003 - X-Ray Viewer: (Kellogg's, 1989)
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Sealed in baggie. Arrived with Frosted Mini-Wheats coupon!Stupid, yes, but admit it -- you would've been all over this thing. Even less technologically brill than the admittedly-in-jest "X-Ray Glasses," the small piece of cardboard houses a tiny peephole that, supposedly, gives anyone who looks through it the power of x-ray vision. In reality, the thin film trapped beneath the cardboard lends more of a kaleidoscope effect. When I looked through it under direct sun, I didn't see the bones in my hands, but I most certainly saw nine hands.
#004 - Tony's Secret Message Pen: (Kellogg's, Frosted Flakes, 1988)
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Pens sealed in package. Arrived with Nuts & Honey Crunch coupon!There wasn't a kid in the `80s that didn't experience the wonders of a secret decoder pen at some point. So fashionable, so fun. There were zillions of different kinds in just as many colors, but this particular set had the added coup of belonging to none other than Tony the Tiger. Yes, it's Tony's Secret Message Pen, where the orange marker doodles an invisible message revealed only after you scribble over it with the
black marker. I'd show you how it works, but both markers have completely dried out and died. Nobody turns down a cereal prize, but these Secret Message Pens were enough to make kids who traditionally
hated Frosted Flakes to gulp down a box quicker than those idiots Tony was always kayaking with.
#005 - Jackson 5 Victory Tour Stickers: (Kellogg's, 1984)
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Stickers in package.I'm only familiar with the Jackson 5 through the many
E! True Hollywood Story-ish specials that mentioned how all of that adult touring and constant hustling must've turned young Michael into
LUCIFER!!! If I remember correctly, and I'm sure I don't, the "Victory Tour" was the last hurrah for the Jackson 5, with Michael bidding his brudders farewell after the tour proved unsuccessful, while his solo-driving engagements were selling out quicker than those idiots Tony was always kayaking with.
Anyway, I suppose fans of the Jacksons had to be thrilled with these stickers, each converted from a high quality Victory Tour concert photo. You got a pack of four in specially marked boxes of Kellogg's cereals, but there were 24 in all -- meaning kids who wanted lived and breathed Michael Jackson ate at least 6,000 pounds of cereal that year.
--
Matt (6/11/05)
