monster mash for breakfast

sure there was a health food kick in the 1970s when eating holistically [sp?] was the mantra for many post-hippies who wished to dive deep in their shag carpeting and stare at the wood paneled walls all the while pining for their own private walden. but the '70s was also a time when smoking was allowed everywhere, including high school campuses, and tv advertisements had the temerity to call a sugar filled breakfast cereal for children SUPER SUGAR SMACKS but you could get '8 essential vitamins and minerals' with each spoonful.

ah dem were da days. my own favorite cereal back then was BOO BERRY. the adverts and packaging was what sold me since most cereal for children is pretty much a variation on a theme, crunchy bits full of sugar. being a child who loved the weekly horror show, creature features, hosted locally by bob wilkins, who looked so much like woody allen to me that i thought wilkins was woody allen, that a cereal based on a cartoon monster would appeal to me is no surprise.

BOO BERRY was one of three monster-based cereals that i think are still on the market, but i don't know, since i've long given up sugar in milk for breakfast in favor of a more adult and therefore bland offering of GRAPENUTS. the other two cereals were FRANKENBERRY and COUNT CHOCULA. i would eat all three or either one but BOO BERRY was my favorite because the color it would make the milk would be light blue. changing the milk's color was most of the fun when eating cereal. drinking the slurry of sugar and milk after the cereal was all eaten was quite an experience too.

furthermore, what is halloween without a few monsters in our midst [insert, if you want, political pun at your leisure]? especially three as tasty as BOO BERRY, FRANKENBERRY and COUNT CHOCULA. the voices used for each of the characters in the commercials are exactly what you'd think they sound like. so for the frankenstein character we have a voice like boris karloff, the dracula character is the voice of bela legosi, and the ghost sounds like peter lorre. dig, if you will, a classic commercial.

boo