(Image via General Mills)
(UPDATE 8/1/16: If you’re looking for news on 2016’s monster cereals, I wrote about them here. Otherwise, my review of Count Chocula for 2015 is live! Click here to read it! I also took a look at the Target castle boxes here! A review of Franken Berry is here! And Boo Berry’s review is here!)
Imagine a crack of thunder on a rainy night.
Imagine a single, dimly lit jack-o-lantern.
Imagine the little girl from Poltergeist saying “they’re heeeere.”
That’s right, Halloween is coming early this year, because General Mills has just announced the official return of their marshmallowy, seasonal cereals: the cocoa rich Count Chocula, the blazing red strawberry Franken Berry, and the fluorescent blue ‘n’ fruity Boo Berry.
Move over, Santa Claus: these heroes that “only come one time a year” are beloved by kids and adults, too.
While the 2015 box designs are nearly identical to the 2013 ones (is it just me, or does Boo Berry look like he has a few extra bags under his eyes? I guess being an ageless, wandering spirit takes a toll on your sleep schedule), the clever addition this season is the boxes’ compatibility with the Blippar mobile app, a virtual reality augmenter that brings the monsters vividly to life on your phone screen. General Mills provided this video to demonstrate:
But the fun doesn’t stop there, either. The backs of the boxes will contain retro homages to the monsters’ long heritage (they’ve all been around since the early ’70s), with box art, trivia, and more (this is all Blippar compatible, too). We here at Cerealously can only hope for a mention of “Monsters Go Disco,” a 1979 cereal premium that was an actual, playable record.
(Image via General Mills)
As usual, certain stores will also get exclusive alternate boxes, with Target stores featuring these minimalistic, cel-shaded designs (which apparently feature cut-out castles), and Wal-Mart receiving boxes with glow-in-the-dark masks.
The monster cereals are set for a nationwide release in September. Boo Berry and Count Chocula will grace Canadian shelves this year, as well. You can read General Mills’ full release here.
As a long-time monster cereal fan and Halloween junkie in general, I can say that this news has me revved up for the upcoming season already. It only takes one well-timed, thematically appropriate snack to make me bust out the cheap plastic fangs and spider rings, and this certainly does it.
Unfortunately, cherry-flavored (it originally had lime marshmallows in the ’70s & ’80s) Frute Brute and orange creme (originally with vanilla marshmallows in the ’80s and ’90s) Fruity Yummy Mummy, which returned in 2013 from their decades-long hiatuses, are staying in the cereal sarcophagus again. But this is okay, as that just makes the anticipation of their inevitable return sweeter than, well, their sugar content.
They look like the generic grocery store version, just in a family size. I have yet to find the ones with the cut out mask and I’m not sure I will.
Be sure to let us know if you do! We love receiving pictures!
Found the Target boxes but my local Walmarts only have the family size (boo)…
I haven’t been able to see the Walmart boxes quite yet. Do they have the cutouts masks on the back?
When will the special boxes come out for Target and Walmart? I was just at Walmart and they had all the regular boxes with the blippar add on the back.
No word on that quite yet, but as soon as we spot ’em, we’ll let you know!
Thanks
I found the boxes with the castle cut outs. Target had them. Only Boo Berry and Frankenberry were there. They still had the old Count Chocula’s boxes from weeks ago
Despite the fact that Count Chocula and Franken Berry were inspired by classic horror film vampires and the Frankenstein monster, in early commercials the cereal monsters were nervous nellies – often quickly becoming afraid of just about everything.
Since i’m a huge fan of Lucky Charms (and no you can’t get it in germany) and it’s my favorite cereal i alsways wanted to try those “marshmallow cereal”-versions. unfortunately i wasn’t able to, yet. But probably I will never be ^^ 😀
I also dislike strawberry a lot, love cherry and find the idea of orange and vanilla very interesting, i’m kinda dissapointed frute brute and yummy mummy aren’t available this time. (would have considered them to be imported then, alongside with cap’n crunch caramel popcorn ^^)
Will there be a review on cerealously.net for those legendary cereals? ^^
Everything in due time, my friend! 🙂 Once the monsters hit shelves, I’ll be sure to do a mega review, and rumor has it I still have a sealed box of Frute Brute from 2013, too. And as for Lucky Charms, you better believe that classic will get a worthy post soon enough!
SOunds great! Can’t wait to read the review. I’m really looking forward to it 🙂
Why not introduce Banana von Helsing the mad scientist a banana flavored test tubed shaped marshmallow in a banana flavored oat grain cereal. Introducing a new Monster cereal for 2015 The mad scientist Banana von helsing.
No Yummy Mummy???!!!! Boo. Pun intended.