(Update, 12/26: Now that Cereal Time has sadly concluded, I plan to write a tribute to the series soon. Stay tuned!)
Warm the hearth, light up the tree, and fill a bowl of Cap’n Crunch with eggnog (it’s the holidays, you’ve earned it!).
Why? Because we’re unwrapping the four latest video presents in cereal wise man Gabe Fonseca’s YouTube series: Cereal Time! Every Cereal Time episode is stuffed with more fun and nostalgia than a re-gifted fruit cake is stuffed with…who knows what, because I’m not eating it. And this latest series of episodes is sure to make you merrier than a nativity scene salesman who received a surplus shipment of Jesus’s mother figurines.
Thank you, I’ll be here all week.
But enough Biblical puns: let’s have some cereal fun!
Gabe’s first video is a mighty mishmash of many videos: a “classic cereal commercials” clip show! While Gabe claims this is him taking “the lazy way out,” I appreciate any video that takes me out of the present and into the wonderful, technicolor world of the past. I can’t be the only one who’s a little sick of 2016—maybe on December 31st, the calendar will roll over to 1987, instead.
Gabe has some great picks, from the Honeycomb Hideout to Lucky Charms’s swirled whale marshmallows. But even though Gabe’s video mentions the Trix Rabbit’s proudest victory, as kids everywhere voted to let him actually eat a silver bowlful of the stuff, I want to give an honorable mention to my favorite Trix promo: The Great Trix Train Robbery!
What seemed like an innocent “play at home game” turned into a gripping online scavenger hunt. I fondly remember straining my eyes at the computer screen in a dimly lit room in the midst of a thunder storm, slightly too sugar-addled and slightly too paranoid that the train-robbing culprit would sneak up behind me in the midst of my investigation.
It wasn’t my proudest moment, but my lost sanity did save the Trix.
Next up is Crispy Critters! This animal-shaped cereal had two successful mascots, Linus the Lionhearted and Crispy. And while Gabe seems to like both of ’em, both my 8-year old and modern day selves would never let the likes of Crispy grace my breakfast table. Terrified of dolls, ventriloquist dummies, and yes, puppets, I could barely stand to watch Crispy dance around in this video’s throwback commercial.
I don’t know what kind of malevolent intent hides behind his felt eyes, but I know it’s there. You’ll all see!
Despite this, I don’t know if I could resist Crispy Critters’s animal cracker-esque shapes and flavor. Any cereal that rationalizes my shameful habit of eating Barnum’s animal crackers with milk is welcome in my pantry. Even with the sinister puppet.
I will say, though, that the only thing better than an animal cracker cereal would be a frosted animal cracker cereal. And with the recent news about Keebler Cereal, that might not be impossible.
You’ve had fun, but have you had Circus Fun? Unlike crooning puppets and Slappy the Dummy from Goosebumps, clowns don’t scare me. That’s why I’m enamored with Circus Fun cereal’s dazzling colors and bestiary of animal-shaped marshmallows.
Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find a cereal marshmallow not shaped like an amorphous, vaguely astronomical blob. But back in 1986, Circus Fun had a full zoo of anatomically correct marbits.
Of course, because all good things must end, Gabe’s Circus Fun video closes on a traumatizing clip of a Lucky the Leprechaun puppet from General Mills’ “Big G Magic Secrets” video.
If you thought I was worried about Trix robbers sneaking up on me, you should see me watching my back for floppy Irish fairies.
And on the last day of Cereal Christmas, Gabe gives us 10 random boxes from his collection, each seemingly more obscure than the last.
It’s hard for me to pick a favorite from Gabe’s “blink and you’ll miss ’em” trips down memory lane, but I think my vote goes to S.W. Graham cereal. Boring? Maybe. But as a graham addict who’d rather eat chocolate and vanilla graham crackers sandwiched between two honey graham crackers than a s’more, I’m a sucker for any cereal that promises authentic graham flavor.
Honorable mentions go to Apple Raisin Crisp, for having a box design so cozy I want to wrap myself up in a cardboard quilt of it, and Pro Grain, for making me imagine C-3PO winning the Tour de France.
Feel free to share your favorite of the ten below.
And if you’re eager for more time-traveling cereal gifts, every episode of Cereal Time can be found here. Be sure to check out Gabe’s Twitter, too, for prompt cereal updates (and pictures of cool sneakers).