The Count Chocula Chronicles

Back in the early nineteen seventies, cereal was a very important part of every seven year old's life. For some reason, possibly because life was so mind-numbingly boring back then, (only three tv channels, no video games, no internet, no Netflex, no mandatory cello lessons, cheernastic competitions or musical theatre camp etc...) I remember giving a lot of thought as to what cereal I should ask my parents to purchase on our next trip to the grocery store.

8 essential vitamins!

Taste was not really all that big of a factor, as all cereal was ninety percent sugar anyway. (Unless, of course, your parents brought home some "healthy" non-sugary stuff like Special K or Grape Nuts. This dilemma was quickly solved, however, with a gravy ladle and a trip to the sugar bowl.) The main selling point for me was simply: who had the coolest cartoon character on their cereal box.

Back in the fifties, enterprising companies realized that cartoons helped sell breakfast cereal to kids. By the seventies, full blown ad campaigns were targeted at six year olds. Not only were their cartoon  characters on the front of every box, but Saturday morning tv (aka "Cartoon Day") bombarded us with cereal commercials starring animated "spokescartoons" who, get this, actually had personalities! 

There was a happy (possibly drunk) leprechaun (Lucky Charms), a crooning Bing Crosbyesque turtle neck wearing bear (Sugar Bear), a giant sociopathic rabbitt (Tricks) and that...uhhhh..., I don't know what it was, but it kinda scared me thing (Coco Puffs). Of course, each cereal contained eight essential vitamins when eaten with a " full breakfast". (I am assuming the other foods in a "full breakfast" had eight vitamins, because this stuff had none.)

What is this thing called?

Although I enjoyed and indulged in all of these sugar coated delights, my favorite by far were what are now referred to as, The Monster Cereals; Count Chocula, Frankenberry and Boo Berry. (Okay, later there was Fruit Brute and Yummy Mummy but, let's be honest, it's kind of like the guys in Kiss who replaced Ace Frehley and Peter Criss. Yes, they technically are a member of Kiss but, they ain't Kiss, you know?)

Each product contained sugar coated cereal (Yay!) and flavored marshmallows (like Lucky Charms). The characters were featured in highly entertaining (well, entertaining to a second grader, anyway) thirty second commercials, in which, they live in an old spooky castle and basically spent their time fighting over who had the tastiest cereal. Although, it was probably over my head at the time, each character's voice was an imitation of a famous horror movie star. (Count Chocula; Bela Lugosi, Franken Berry; Boris Karloff, Boo Berry; Peter Lorre)

Hero

I never cared for the taste of Boo Berry and Frankenberry often caused great alarm in the bathroom an hour after ingesting it, so I liked Count Chocula the best. (Apparently, Frankenberry sometimes turned your feces pink, while Count Chocula was....well...already the color of feces.) I even sent away for a Count Chocula toy that I carried around probably a little longer than my parents were completely comfortable with.

I owned this toy

General Mills phased out The Monster Cereals, for the most part, in the nineties but brought them back last fall for a short Halloween run. I had my first bowl of Count Chocula cereal in thirty odd years and must say it was pretty bad--at first. But after several days, I actually began to enjoy it and, to my wife's chagrin, bought a second box. Sad to say, I have scoured several grocery stores the last couple of weeks and can't find a monster cereal anywhere. If you know where I can score any, please let me know. I am a very desperate man.

--Casey Redmond
Shangri-La, Ohio

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