I noticed this story about a Kelloggs' plan to improve its cereals (following pressure from parents, who clearly have not been made aware that purchasing Kellogg's products is not compulsory).
When I was growing up, we were a porridge family; but a box of cereal would occasionally appear in the cupboard (my favourites - Sugar Frosties and Coco Pops).
The exciting thing about these boxes was that, nestling deep down amongst all that sugary, chocolately goodness, lurked ... a trinket. The relative rarity of cereal boxes in our cupboard meant these trinkets were even more special. So for me, the best thing Kellogg's could do to improve its cereals would be to bring back the trinkets! Of course, they would need to have genuine period design, detail and packaging.
Below are my top six cereal trinkets. Am I forgetting any?
6. Dogs. Plastic black cocker spaniels, brown pointers, white collies, red boxers and others. Very cute.
5. Critters. I forget what they were called, but they had eyes on the ends of stem arms, giant mouths and alien bodies in lurid colours.
4. Fish. Fascinating in a weird way. Similar to the plastic dogs, but with plastic plinths so you could display them. The lime green shark was my favourite.
3. Not strictly a trinket: face masks cut from the whole reverse side of the cereal box, to which you could cut out the eyes, attach elastic to the sides and walk around pretending you were Tiger Tim, etc.
2. Trains: plastic engines, carriages and trucks in a range of non-railway approved colours. Like all trinkets, they were manufactured cheaply. If you played with them the wheels wore down. All mine ended up with no wheels.
1. Little walking horses with movable legs that you assembled from a flat-packed plastic press-out kit packaged in cellophane. Once assembled, you attached a cotton string to a hole in its nose and a counterweight to the other end of the string, and the horse ambled across the table rocking from side to side. The high-point of trinket manufacture, never bettered.
Come on Kellogg's. How about it? Get busy with the trinkets.
When I was growing up, we were a porridge family; but a box of cereal would occasionally appear in the cupboard (my favourites - Sugar Frosties and Coco Pops).
The exciting thing about these boxes was that, nestling deep down amongst all that sugary, chocolately goodness, lurked ... a trinket. The relative rarity of cereal boxes in our cupboard meant these trinkets were even more special. So for me, the best thing Kellogg's could do to improve its cereals would be to bring back the trinkets! Of course, they would need to have genuine period design, detail and packaging.
Below are my top six cereal trinkets. Am I forgetting any?
6. Dogs. Plastic black cocker spaniels, brown pointers, white collies, red boxers and others. Very cute.
5. Critters. I forget what they were called, but they had eyes on the ends of stem arms, giant mouths and alien bodies in lurid colours.
4. Fish. Fascinating in a weird way. Similar to the plastic dogs, but with plastic plinths so you could display them. The lime green shark was my favourite.
3. Not strictly a trinket: face masks cut from the whole reverse side of the cereal box, to which you could cut out the eyes, attach elastic to the sides and walk around pretending you were Tiger Tim, etc.
2. Trains: plastic engines, carriages and trucks in a range of non-railway approved colours. Like all trinkets, they were manufactured cheaply. If you played with them the wheels wore down. All mine ended up with no wheels.
1. Little walking horses with movable legs that you assembled from a flat-packed plastic press-out kit packaged in cellophane. Once assembled, you attached a cotton string to a hole in its nose and a counterweight to the other end of the string, and the horse ambled across the table rocking from side to side. The high-point of trinket manufacture, never bettered.
Come on Kellogg's. How about it? Get busy with the trinkets.
#1 was the absolute BEST! Back in the Long Ago, we also had a local dry dog food producer who put little wobbling hound dogs in their bags of feed. Same thinking, I'm sure--adults will buy what they're kids are asking for, even if it's dog food and all they want is the toy.
ReplyDeleteAnother good one was from Kellogg's corn flakes. They had a little blue plastic Mercury or Gemini capsule with a red Cornelius T. Rooster inside, and it fit onto a cardboard tube with another tube that fit inside, and you gave it a quick shove to make the capsule pop off into the sky. Also had a red and white striped parachute, and was a lot of fun.
from Steevil:
ReplyDeleteWe were mean (in both senses) parents and bought generic cereal, with no prizes.
Also, I take it that "Tiger Tim" is the Australian persona of "Tony the Tiger?"
Duh--"their." I'm not used to writing upside down, you know.
ReplyDeleteI also remember the time we sent in some cereal box tops and a few dollars and got a little motorized Beatles yellow submarine that you could play with in the tub. And people think merchandising tie-ins are something new!
Terry, Wiggles stickers just don't cut it next to a flying Cornelius T. Rooster with parachute. And Beatles? We had plastic moptops. (BTW: you can counteract the upside down effect by turning your keyboard through 180 degrees so that QWERTY is at the lower right hand side ...)
ReplyDeleteSteevil, I think I'm confusing Tony the Tiger with Tiger Tim, an early cartoon strip character.
I would love it if they brought back the trinkets!
ReplyDeleteBut I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't allowed to put them in the boxes any more cos some bright spark might choke on one. And putting the trinkets OUTSIDE the pack, in the cardboard box, would probably prompt other idiots to surreptitiously rip open all the boxes at their local looking for one.
I hate people. Customer service work always put me in this mood -- sorry!
Anna, I would add a category to the old showbiz saying: never work with animals, children or customers.
ReplyDeleteR&L Cereal Toys! I'm going to do a post about these sometime soon, particularly about the artist who designed most of them.
ReplyDeleteI've got some of those walking horses, but among my favourites were the Nep-Tunes (sea creatures with musical instruments, Tooly Birds. Man, we were nuts over those things when we were kids!
Why aren't there plastic things in cereal anymore? Did someone choke on one?
Probably Ian, although you're more likely to choke on the actual contents! Yes, I remember NepTunes. I look forward to your post - I often wondered how many graphic artists/designers cereal companies used or whether they used to outsource it to advertising agencies.
ReplyDelete