Words can’t express how surprised and happy I was when, after a long day at the office, I opened my car door to find a bunch of General Mills Monster cereals strapped in the passenger seat, waiting for me!
My lovely wife just happened to be in the right place at the right time (aka: the right Target at the right time) and managed to score all 5 cereals. To the uninitiated, beginning in the 1970s, General Mills introduced a total of 5 Monster cereals; Franken Berry, Count Chocula, Boo Berry, Frute Brute, and Yummy Mummy. Over the years, the cereals began to all but disappear from grocery store shelves. Eventually, Frute Brute and Yummy Mummy would be discontinued altogether, while your only chance of getting Franken Berry, Count Chocula, and/or Boo Berry would be to wait for Halloween and hope one of your local stores stocked them with the rest of the seasonal stuff. As someone who spent the vast majority of his misspent youth chowing down on Boo Berry cereal and slurping up the blue milk it left behind, it became my Halloween tradition to buy as many boxes as I could find in hopes of getting me through October. It usually worked. Chances are, if you’ve seen one of my more “animated” presentations in October, it was fueled by Boo Berry cereal.
2013 marks a special year for the Monster cereals as for the first time in several decades, all five original monsters are back together again! I wasn’t aware of this until a box of Yummy Mummy showed up in my kitchen (again courtesy of my lovely wife). She found that box, sitting all alone and sad, at a local grocery store. If you compare the picture of it (below) with the one in the group shot (above), you’ll see that they’re obviously different. Apparently, Target stores are carrying the Monster cereals in their original “retro” boxes while other stores are using the newer boxes.
Either way, it was truly a magical experience for me to spend a Saturday morning with my 3-year-old daughter, lying in bed together, munching on Yummy Mummy and watching cartoons. That was until the moment when Courtney began to feel the full effect of those “spooky-fun marshmallows” (aka: “sugar blobs”) and began laughing hysterically for no apparent reason, chasing the cats around the house, and bouncing on the bed while screaming out “no more monkeys jumping on the bed”. Good times. Needless to say, Courtney has now officially dubbed it the “crazy cereal.”
So if you’re a fan of the Monster cereals, if the barren shelves my wife described to me are any indication, you need to go grab your boxes NOW. And if you’ve never had a bowl before, why not give them a try? But if you do, here’s a bit of advice from a self-confessed Monster cereal addict: no matter which cereal you get, let it sit a couple of minutes in the bowl of milk before digging in. Trust me, you (and the roof of your mouth) will thank me later!
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Read more about the return of Yummy Mummy & Frute Brute here.
Ahhh good times!
I’m trying to save some for when you guys come visit. No promises, though!