The forbidden 1970s cereal: Mr. Wonderfull's Surprize

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Originally published at: The forbidden 1970s cereal: Mr. Wonderfull's Surprize | Boing Boing

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We’ve learned a lot since then. No one would even THINK about doing that nowdays. /s

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ETA: 4.5 g fat in that.

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Cheerios are currently made at the General Mills plant in Buffalo, NY.

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Welp, There is a lost memory unlocked.

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Mr. Wonderfull, hiding around corners, watching kids, jumping out at them.

That’s not right.

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like Froot Loops, which deliberately misspells “fruit” to avoid any implication that the cereal might contain fruit, General Mills was tacitly admitting that its cereal was really neither wonderful nor surprising.

I’m afraid the answer is more mundane. You can’t trademark a generic word like “fruit” or “wonderful.” Anyone can use such words in their product name. If you give a word a crazy spelling you can register it as a unique trademark and you can sue people if they use it.

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“NEW IDEA” :joy:

The MBA advertising 101 is strong with this one

I struggle to believe this stuff is nutritionally any worse than Lucky Charms, my benchmark for “candy in a bowl that people pour milk on”.

I’ve always been a little surprised that the whole “part of a complete breakfast” line is legal to say. It’s such an obvious attempt at deception.

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This product of mid-century corporate America is so gleefully depraved that I can only laugh. If it hadn’t been shut down I’m sure General Mills follow-up would have been Uncle Smokey’s Tobacco Toasties cereal.

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Hey! I LIKED Uncle Smoky’s Tobacco Toasted cereal. One time? The prize inside was a cigarette with an actual working lighter! Of course, it was just a cheap lighter that only lit nine or ten times.

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I was a conna-sewer of breakfast cereals in the 70s, and tried literally everything on the market, from Grape Nuts and Shredded Wheat to Quisp and Fruity Pebbles, and I do not remember this one.

I would have loved it.

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There’s nothing at all deceptive, let alone illegal, about the complete breakfast line. I for one am not going to sit and watch the Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Hour, eating a bowl of milk.

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