Giveaway Winner and Today's Post: Childhood Cereal Commercial Characters

First things first--I am pleased to announce the winner of the first ever Children of the 90s Giveaway: Lauren Kelly from Walk With Me on this Journey Called Life!

*Winner was selected using a randomized shuffled spreadsheet and an online random number generator*

Congratulations, Lauren Kelly!! I will contact you later today for your mailing information (or you can shoot me an email at childrenofthe90s@gmail.com when you see this), and your 90s care package should be on the way sometime next week!

To everyone else, thank you all so much for entering, and don't worry--this isn't the end of giveaways at Children of the 90s. I heard a rumor someone (okay, me) has a blogaversary coming up, so keep checking back for more fun giveaway opportunities. I can't tell you how fun it was assembling these items, and I can't wait to do it again soon!

Please excuse the interruption. Now, for today's post:

Childhood Cereal Commercial Characters

Forget what anyone says. Cereal mascots are the hardest working guys in show biz. They're arguably among the most dedicated, single-minded characters in modern media. They never can just pick up a box of their favorite sugar cereal at the local supermarket like the rest of us. These guys are constantly battling the forces of cereal-related tyranny and oppression in an eternal struggle to get their hands on the much-coveted cereal. For those of us whose parents refused to buy us sugary breakfast cereal, we could relate to their plight.

The aim of these characters was to convince a demographic of hungry, sugar-crazed children that these cereals were so desirable that fictional characters would go to extreme lengths to get their hands on them. At the time, it seemed like a fairly viable quandary; what's one expected to do if denied their sugary fuel? Looking at them now, though, I wouldn't be surprised if one of these cartoons showed up on A&E's Intervention. They're not only incredibly desperate for their fix but also seem to be going through some sort of physical withdrawal symptoms. You'd almost expect for them to airlift Honeycomb Crazy Craving to the nearest treatment facility and run a glucose IV through his furry little arm. I'm not a professional, but even I can see that guy needs some seriuos help.

These cartoon characters were by no means the only cereal advertising stars. There were plenty of live-action commercials directed at older children, but few of them managed to equal the intensity and desperation encapsulated by these sugar-starved animated critters. Many of these characters have been around since before our time, though they often been through more reinventions than Cher. You'd better hurry up and get your reminiscing in before the remaining mascots go the way of Cookie Crook and Officer Crumb. Blink and they'll be replaced by cooler, hipper characters.


Fruity/Cocoa/Dino Pebbles: Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble



When the Flinstones debuted as Post Cereal's Pebbles-brand spokescartoons in the 70s, no one could have known they'd still be out hawking cereal decades later. Throughout the years, the story lines have been fairly one-dimensional: Fred Flintstone eats Fruity or cocoa Pebbles. Barney sees said Pebbles. Barney attempts elaborate and ill-thought-out scheme to obtain Pebbles. Fred screams, "BAAAAARNEEEY!" End scene. The only thing I'm not so clear on is what Dino Pebbles are made of. That name still sounds pretty suspicious.


Cocoa Puffs: Sonny the Cuckoo Bird



Sometimes time really does bring progress. In the original 50s and 60s ads, Sonny was chilling with his grandpa. He still went cuckoo, sure, but with his grandpa. Not exactly the stuff cool kids are made of.

Ad writers wised up in the 80s and 90s, making Sonny go cuckoo with kids and eventually pressure other kids into going cuckoo themselves. Yes, you heard right. Sonny worked his way up from user to dealer. At least he wasn't trying to pull his Gramps into it anymore. He did, however, get Joseph Gordon Levitt on the cuckoo train. See evidence above.


Frosted Flakes: Tony the Tiger



Tony the Tiger may have been born decades earlier, but he probably started his amateur frisbee career in the above 90s ad. The "They're Grrrreat!" slogan has been around for ages, but in the 80s and 90s they tried incorporating some hipper phrases. They promised to bring out the tiger in us or to put the tiger on our team, but perhaps none were as resigned and half-hearted as "The Taste Adults Have Grown to Love." You know, you used to hate it, but over the years the virulence of your hatred has lessened. Buy Frosted Flakes!



Trix: Trix Rabbit



Talk about prolonged disappointment. The Trix rabbit has been up to his, well, tricks for over 50 years. It's always the same old schtick: he'd try to trick the kids into sharing their cereal, but they'd continually admonish him with the ultimate brush-off: "Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids!" Jokes on the Trix rabbit, though. In elementary school, a friend and I fed some Trix to her pet rabbit, Munchers. He totally went for it. He had no idea they were just for kids. Not a clue.



HoneyComb: Crazy Craving



This is probably one of the more frightening 90s cereal characters, if for nothing other than the sheer voracity of his need. The weird hopped-up rodent thing's name was Crazy Craving, and I believe he has since been retired. He premiered as Honeycomb's official mascot in the mid-90s, preceded by the HoneyComb Hideout gang. According to these 90s ads, you could actually become Crazy Craving if you went long enough without your fix. Scary indeed.


Cookie Crisp: Cookie Crook and Officer Crumb



This commercial lied to me. I wanted so badly to enjoy what was promised to me as the sweet taste of cookies for breakfast but when my parents finally caved and threw it in the grocery cart to quell my tantrum, it just wasn't what I'd expected. Cookie Crook and Officer Crumb had hyped it to a level they just couldn't achieve. It turns out the most inspired thing about the cereal was Chip the Dog's howling of "Cooooookie Crisp!"


Lucky Charms: Lucky Leprochaun



Children first met Lucky in the 60s, but he's steadily tempted our sugar impulses with his endless pushing of marshmallow-laden cereals. He promised them to be magically delicious, and for the most part they were. If only they could have made them magically nutritious, too.



Froot Loops: Toucan Sam



Toucan Sam was born in the 60s, though he did undergo some beak work a decade or so later. I think I saw it on E!'s Celebrity Plastic Surgery Nightmares but I can't be sure. Whatever the situation surrounding his nose, he followed it to some delicious fruity sugar cereal. How 90s is that Rapping Rhino ad, too?



Cinnamon Toast Cruch: Wendell, Bob, and Quello



Who exactly were Wendell, Bob, and Quello, you ask? According to General Mills, Bob and Quello don't technically exist. They name main baker Wendell, but it sounds like the other two were using the role to pad out their resumes with bit parts like "Baker #2: illustrates taste he can see." They make fun of adults in a Bubble Tape/Apple Jacks sort of way, mocking their inability to see what makes the cereal so compelling. For the record, it's the swirls of cinnamon sugar in every bite.



Honey Smacks: Dig 'Em



Sugar Smacks have been through a lot over the years. Well, a lot of names at least. In our day, they were Honey Smacks, but now they're just Smacks. That sounds pretty suspiciously close to Smack, even when you take into consideration the child-friendly Dig-Em frog mascot.. I guess as long as no kids are injecting the cereal intravenously, we're alright.



Rice Krispies: Snap, Crackle, and Pop



These guys have been around since the 1940s, but they underwent a serious 90s makeover for the Razzle Dazzle edition of the cereal. In case you're unfamiliar with cereal speak, "Razzle Dazzle" is code for "heaps of additional sugar". I couldn't find any video of those ads, though, so you'll just have to settle for watching a kid in a safari outfit get really pissed off at a dinosaur for kidnapping Snap, Crackle, and Pop.



I don't know about the rest of you, but this post has left me with a serious hankering from some good old-fashioned nutrition void sugar cereal. It may not have been substantive, it may not have been nutritious, heck, it may not even have been totally honest when it claimed to be part of a balanced breakfast. But it was endorsed by our animated spokescartoons, and darn it that was more than enough to convince us. So excuse me as I go cuckoo following my nose as I make a serious effort to elude the sanctimonious Officer Crumb: I'm off to get my fix.

Infectious 90s TV Theme Songs

Today is the last day--a winner will be announced tomorrow morning! Don't forget to enter the Children of the 90s Ultimate Nostalgia-Fest 2010 Giveaway! It's open until Wednesday, February 17. Click here to see rules and enter for your chance to win some fun Goosebumps, BSC, Magic Eye, Lisa Frank, Pete and Pete, and more!

I'm not saying our generation watched too much TV, but it's pretty telling that I've yet to witness someone break into, "Innnnn West Philadelphia, born and raised..." without an entire room of 20-somethings clambering to joining in. If I even overhear someone humming what sounds to be the opening bars of Rockapella's iconic Where in the World of Carmen San Diego theme, I'm wont to fill in the mid-range harmony bits from distances of up to 100 feet. True story. It may or may not have happened at the gym.*

It's almost a physiological reaction; we just can't help ourselves. Somewhere along the way, we've collected an arsenal of television theme song lyrics that are laying dormant in the darkest nether regions of our brains. We have an excellent command of the instrumental themes as well, but they fail to command the same involuntary knee-jerk reaction. Singing along to your old favorite TV intros has a way of transporting you right back onto your childhood couch, covered in Pringle crumbs, sipping on a Kool-Aid Burst. It's the magic of memory. Or maybe just a testament to the innumerable hours we all logged in front of the tube during our formative years.

Whether or not you liked the shows was almost irrelevant. Some of them were worth watching on the merit of introductory song alone. For the most part, though, they lived up to the immense promise of their catchy theme tunes. For whatever reason, they were irrepressibly memorable:



Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?



Love it or hate it, you've got to admit Rockapella did their homework. PBS commissioned the Carmen San Diego children's game show in direct response to the abysmal perfomance of American students on geography standards. Rockapella managed to squeeze almost every location on earth into their three-minute theme song, not to mention the wealth of groan-inducing puns they sprinkled throughout.

Some of these puns I'm willing to accept as legitimate jokes. You know, "We never Arkansas her steal" and that kind of thing. But at a certain point, they're really pushing it; I don't care how alluring their multi-part harmonious arrangement is, it's never okay to say, "She stole the beans from Lima." I get it, I get it, but it's not even the correct pronounciation. Rockapella did make up for their grevious pun infractions, though, by breaking it down in a major way at the end of the song. Well done, Rockapella.



The Fresh Prince of Bel Air



Expository theme songs are great the first time you tune in to a show. If you have no clue of the premise or back story, it'll fill you in pretty much right up until the events of the current episode with aits incredibly informative and detailed lyrics. In some cases, it all gets pretty tiresome after the first few viewings. In a time before DVR, there was no fast-forwarding through the credits.

Luckily, this was not the case with The Fresh Prince's theme song. We just couldn't get enough. Sometimes I'd watch the show just to see the opening credits. This one was a keeper, destined to go down forever in 90s TV theme history. So many of us worked tirelessly on memorizing this one. The furthest I ever got was to, "You're moving with your auntie and uncle in Bel Air", so I'm achingly jealous of all of you who know all of the verses by heart.



Saved By the Bell



The sheer exposure to this one was more than enough to commit it to memory. Saved By The Bell played in seemingly continuous loop in syndication throughout our youth. For awhile it seemed that we couldn't turn on the TV without flipping by an episode of SbtB. The theme song lyrics rivaled the show's subject matter in cheesiness, but both had a certain alluring quality.

This song takes a lot of liberties in fitting in syllables, working in well-pruned lines like "And the 'larm gives out a warning". Yes, you heard right. The 'larm. Alarm just wouldn't fit. It didn't really matter to us, though. So long as they kept parading attractive teen stars across our screen, we'd listen to whatever they wanted.



Salute Your Shorts



Salute Your Shorts' theme played out like a camp anthem parceled out amongst the main characters. As in any good teen sitcom, we all just assume that there are indeed other campers somewhere on the premises, though none quite as interesting and plotline-worthy as our major players. Sure, there might have been some other kids stationed at Camp Anawanna over the summer, but none quite as enthralling as Budnik or Donkey Lips.

Toilet humor is like comedic gold to children, so it's no wonder we delighted in the line, "Camp Anawanna, we hold you in our hearts/and when we think about you/it makes me wanna fart!" We all knew Ug was just a huge spoilsport for reprimanding the gang. I guess we've got to cut him a break, though. He was the almost only adult we ever saw, save for the mysterious disembodied voice of camp director Dr. Kahn. You'd probably be pretty tightly wound, too, if you were the only grown-up in a sea of teenagers for an entire summer.


Full House



Even a few bars of the jazzy "ba-ba-ba-de-ba-bop-bop" at the end is enough to jar us all back into full Full House mode, yearning once again to be raised by a zany, madcap team of ill-equipped and uncompatible male role models. The opening sequence became incredibly well known throughout the show's multi-season run. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who can't complete the line, "What ever happened to predictability? The milkman, the paper boy..." See, you're just itching to fill in the blank, aren't you?



Hey Dude



Who would have thought that a western song about working summers on a dude ranch could be so compelling? Hey Dude represented the classic era of Nickelodeon, and its signature theme song did not disappoint. Well, at least not in melody; lyrically it could have used some rethinking. It doesn't really make sense, per se (It's a little wild and a little strange? Really?) but it all adds up to a part of the show's charm. Yippee ki yi ay, lil dogie.


We may not have known it at the time, but even after all these years these themes are as recognizable and catchy as they ever were. The downside, of course, is that they'll be tumbling around in your head on spin cycle for the rest of the day, but it's a fair trade off to get to relive all of those gloriously cheesy 90s TV anthems. Or at least that's how you can justify it when the guy at the next cubicle tells you for the twelfth time to please keep it down.

*Okay, okay, it did happen at the gym. Someone's iPod was blaring it from the bank of treadmills. I couldn't resist.

Raves

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Even before they were harping about online predators, Dateline NBC had me terrified to leave the comfort of my own home. With their multi-part series on the dangers of 90s raves, I was almost certain that someone was going to randomly usher me into an abandoned warehouse against my will, stick an ecstasy-laced candy pacifier in my mouth, and subject me to endless hours of pulsating techno music and seizure-inducing light shows. You know you're growing up in pretty cushy conditions when your most major fears revolve around involuntary attendance at a wild underground party.




Other generations have all the luck. Their subcultural miscreants were usually tied to some sort of ideological principles. You know, peace, free love, that sort of thing. It's almost as if the preceding counter-cultural movements took all the good visionary underpinnings and we were stuck sorting through the remnants bin. Our take on rebellious youth culture amounted to Seattle Grunge culture and Euro-techno ravers. We may not have been as idealistic as the hippies who came before us, but it could have been worse. After all, we could have been pseudo-intellectual fake glasses-sporting ironic t-shirt clad hipsters.

There were some vague alliances between rave culture and principles, but the connection was fuzzy at best. At its heart, rave culture represented the happy-go-lucky invincibility that characterized the 90s. You know you're getting older when you start drawing broad metaphors between youth culture and the state of the economy, but it's an aging leap I'm willing to make. Raving was youth culture in its purest, least dilute form: wild, irresponsible, and generally under contempt of adults everywhere.

Many of us may have been too young at the time to be a driving force in the rave scene, but that wasn't about to stop us from defiantly sucking our pacifiers in homeroom. Rave trends quickly disseminated from underground phenomenon into mainstream fashion statements. While the raw ingredients undoubtedly varied from rave to rave, here's a rough recipe for a legitimate 90s raver.


Abandoned Warehouse


What's a party without a proper venue? By proper venue, of course, I mean a sketchy abandoned space that may or may not have once been some sort of industrial storage facility. As many of the early raves were a sort of impromptu underground effort, any old enclosed area would have to do. Raves were by no means limited to these settings, but there was a certain charm to illegal party squatting. Or at least that's what I gathered from my avid viewing of numerous multi-part Dateline NBC undercover exposes. They made it seem like every abandoned warehouse in the country was packed fire-code defiantly full of sweaty, effervescent teenagers.



Light Show


If you're going to party straight through to the wee hours of the morning, you've got to have some sort of visual stimulation. Laser light shows were a signature rave feature, with brightly colored strobe-like flashing creating a uniquely headache-inducing effect. I had to settle for my cheaply imitative Nickelodeon brand laser light how generator. I had the power to turn my basement into a wild party light-flashing party scene, but unfortunately I was only 10 at the time. The closest I was coming to raving was chugging a bottle of Surge and nursing a ring pop.



Pacifier

This was one of those inexplicable trends that caught on in a big way despite a total lack of purpose and functionality. Our parents spent months coaxing us off these damned things only to have us pick up the habit again 15 years down the road. I'm still not completely clear on if the pacifier had any sort of representational meaning or if someone just thought it might be fun to start selling them as necklaces to teenagers. Either way, these things were everywhere.



Candy Rings/Necklaces


The more I look at it, the more it seems like ravers all had some sort of serious oral fixation. The ecstasy could only make everything all the more delicious, so it was probably a good idea to keep some highly portable snacks on your person at all times.



Glowsticks


They're sort of like your own personal laser light show. If you get bored with whatever lights the party coordinators are flashing, you can always wave your glowstick super quickly in front of your face. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the drugs probably enhanced this experience somewhat as well.



Ecstasy and/or Cocaine


Speaking of mood-altering substances, 90s partiers weren't really the depressant type. Leave the mellowed-out drugs to the peace and free love hippies. Ravers needed uppers to maintain a decent level of prolonged hyperactivity. If you've got to flail wildly in a warehouse with only the aid of glowsticks and laser light shows to keep you awake, you probably needed a little something to keep the edge on.



UV Facepaint


Again with the glowing. It's a pretty safe bet to say if it glowed, ravers wanted to slather their bodies in it. I suppose it's a bit hard to see in a darkened warehouse, so any light source is much appreciated.


It's odd to think of raves as retro, but countercultural phenomenons tend to age quickly. While in the 90s raving seemed edgy and dangerous and unspeakably modern, in retrospect it loses a bit of its luster. Not literally, of course. I imagine that UV facepaint bonds to pores for life.It was a pretty wild ride while it lasted, but for now we'll just have to relive the experience (or vicarious experience) through the magic of memory. So grab your glowsticks, pop in a pacifier, and beware the judgmental Dateline undercover reporters; it's rave reminiscing time.