Free mystery prize inside!

Cheap toys from food premiums

We all know breakfast cereals are marketed to kids, and that fact directly contributed to the amount of sugar in them, the competing colorful characters on the front of the box, side panel games, and best of all PRIZES INSIDE to lure kids into begging mom to buy it. Oh the siren call of "FREE INSIDE!"

Other foods regularly had prizes in them too. we all remember crackerjack prizes:

but how about...

Screaming Yellow Zonkers?!!

It was similar popcorn stuff that I ate by the handful looking for the alien before my brother found it. We were severely scolded if we dumped out the box so we had to eat our way to the plastic space creature.

At the grocery store my brother and I carefully scanned the boxes of cereal because one could be easily fooled by the mail away offers thinking that those toys were in the box. "One toy in the box is better than a much better toy through the mail"...isn't that how that cliche goes?

When we discovered a box of sugar laden rot-your-teeth goodness that actually had a prize in it, we immediately switched from being quiet observant shoppers to noisy obnoxious whiney brats.

My favorite tactic was fall to the floor. Not only is it more effective than clinging to mom's dress and begging, it causes a scene that any mother quickly wants resolved as you are impeding other carts in the isle.

You must last through the whispered threats of the beating you are going to get or the "I'll tell your dad" and refuse to move until the box containing your prize is safely inside the shopping cart.

You must maintain your vigilance all the way to the checkout line to be sure mom didn't put it back.

My favorite kid's cereals were the General Mills Monster Cereals: Chount Chocula, Frankenberry, Booberry, Fruit Brute, and Yummy Mummy. They often had toys in the box instead of just a mail in offer or cut out cardboard prize.

I am not sure why cheap plastic junk toys so enthralled me as a kid but I had to have them. Here are some figures and toy secret compartment rings.

My favorite was the spooky speedsters that came out in 1981. Although being light weight plastic they didn't roll that fast at all.Once any body weight was applied the axles would bend and render them immobile.

Similar was monster bike spinners that you put on your handlebars. Mine seldom stayed on long though and because of the road rash they suffered I quickly retired them to save them.

Check these out reflective holograms!

I loved those reflector thingys, almost exactly like the shields from the Marvel Secret Wars dudes I had

A lot of my early drawing as a child experimented with carbon paper,stencils, stamps, and rub shapes. Here is some cool stamps and shapes to rub with your crayons

Here are some monster crayons

rubber pencil tops made good missiles to throw at your brother

toothbrush Holders??? Weird.

A lot of cereal boxes had stickers or trading cards in them. Probably a lot cheaper to include than a toy.

Sometimes actual records came with the Cereal. Awesome!

much more recent CD I found years later

Other good cereals to score toys in were Fruity Pebbles, Cookie Crisp, Freakies and Capt'n Crunch. These cereals were marketed solely at kids so often included a plastic toy of some sort unlike boring unsweetened brands like Life, Corn flakes and Cheerios that were marketed more towards adults that seldom had more than a mail away offer.

Some classic toy prizes were the sticky grabber hands (seldom survived more than a few vigorous swings,) and the sticky octopus that walked down mirrors. Quick! grab it before it hits the floor and gets covered in grit and lint.

Baking soda tub toys came in many shapes from cereal characters to scuba divers and submarines.

Nothing will light up someone's face like pouring the cereal box into your bowl in the morning and seeing the prize package land in it. ahhhh, pure magic!!!

Occasionally something truly amazing would come packaged with the cereal like the Addams family flashlights in 1991 Cousin It, Uncle Fester, Thing, and Lurch!

Or the famous Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cereal bowls in 1990!

But the most ambitious bribe to buy cereal ever has to be the holy grail of all cereal premiums the Batman bank during the short lived 1989 movie tie in when I was in 7th grade.

The curious cereal premium phenomena may have been clever product placement to get consumers to buy cereals loaded with sugar, but I didn't care it definitely influenced me and my parents' purchases. Dentists everywhere rejoice!

Now where is the best toy?

Drat! My brother already found it!

Comments

way back in the very early 80s, some cereals (at least cookie crisp, back when it still had the wizard mascot) gave bookends. They were plastic panels that slid along plastic rails. Some of them even had stuff like perpetual calendars built in to the bookends.

THATS THE ONLY REASON I ATE CEREAL... FOR THE PRIZES!!!!!

does anyone remember a cereal called FREAKIES?

NLogan-just like you found retrojunk first and already used a lot of good article ideas? Ha! just remember I am 13 minutes older and wiser.

That's right! Never forget, "My brother already found it!" and it's mine all mine.

TOTALLy KOOL yEAH i SERiOUSLy REMEMBER BEEN LiKE DAt..:]] At THE STORE AND At HOME..:]]

I hate the toys that you had to mail in for.Took way too long and I'm not gonna
3-5 or 5-7 weeks for a crappy toy.

i still have my batman bank from that cereal box. those were the days.

I remember how pointless it was to try to keep those sticky hand toys clean and sticky. They never lasted more than two days, three if you were lucky.

thanks for the comments everybody

My favorite thing was the TMNT Ceareal bowls + thier flavored pies... I was born in 84 so i missed alot of this stuff & even if i didn't, i don't remember them most of them.

Awesome article dude...

I remember records that came in some cereals, I think they were square.

I had all four ninja turtle cereal bowls and all throughout highschool, if any of my friends wanted to dye their hair a funky color like blue or pink (we were big grunge fans), I would mix the bleaching solution in my Donatello bowl.

Those Ninja Turtle bowls are a blast from the past! Same with the Addams Family flashlight, though most of them were stolen off the back of the boxes in the store. GREAT ARTICLE!

I loved the Addams family flashlights and the Batman Bank.
I sadly had to retire my ninja turtles bowl about a year or two ago....
I loved that thing, the head made a perfect handle while I watched t.v.
The prizes now adays are mostly paper, which sucks. Cracker Jacks even use paper now.

I like the fact that the Doc Ock toy from the Marvel Secret Wars has no tentacles, LOL!

It's about time someone wrote an article on this. I remember digging through that box just to get the prize.

man i dont knowwhy but i have such fond memories of the stampers . they weren that much fun but i still love them! and the sticky hands!

You and your brother may have been scolded for taking the prize out too soon, but in your later years as children, you and him were known to stick your arm in for sure, or sometimes scooped the cereal out onto the table if it was a brand new box, leaving your mother to put the cereal back in the bowl after breakfast. Then while playing with the toy, with maybe 3 bites actually eaten, two soggy bowls would be wasted, leaving your mother to dump it, while complaining and squealing about how wasteful it was. You guys would just laugh as she put the now rounded cereal box back where it went. (it took years to realize that the box could be shaken to proper size).

I would also say that the turtle bowls were better then the batman bank. And the worst prize was a sticker. You'd see one once in awhile, wondering where the new promotion for the new toy was. But a sticker was better then getting the stinkin bag of bootleg cereal without even a game to play on the back.

Nice Article, thats all I can really say about it but I liked how you mentioned alot of old cereal prizes and not just why you liked them

I [bold]LOVE[/bold] cereal prizes. Like you said, I had no idea what intrigued me so much as a kid but you can't deny the satisfaction of digging down there and grabbing some plastic goodness. Thumbs up!

those adams family toys ruled!

HUzzah!!!!! THe submarines were always the best cereal toy!! I used to have one that I got in a box of Capn' Crunch but over time I lost it...

Prizes in cereal boxes was like finding the Holy Grail, everytime you hunted for it, it was an adventure. My brother and I would fight over the one box we got each week for it. Then my mother got smart and gave us a choice which cereal we wanted. One for me and one for him. Thinking back the best was the bicycle license plate in Honey Combs. The last prize was a matchbox car in Cheerios. That surprised me because I thought parents groups didn't want prizes in cereal because that would cause their child to have to much fun playing with it. And you know they don't want kids to have fun anymore.

I always liked when Raisen Brain would have the California rasien figrues.

Very cool, seriously who didn't specifically pick certain cereals just for the prize inside, it was always great when a cereal you actually wanted had just the right prize. And yeah I too never heard of Fruit Brute till I saw it in Pulp Fiction, never once recalled seeing it on the shelves. Thumbs up!

I didn't have any scrolling problems. Well-done article...I never was much for the prizes in the cereal box, but the ones you listed do look pretty cool. I think that the "Batman" bank could probably fetch a decent amount on eBay.

Well-written and informative...If this was your first article, it doesn't seem like it. Good job!

yeah, i dont recall fruit brute either. interesting. i do remember smores. anyone else?

I remember that episode, Futurama, I think it was like matching decoder rings, or something like that. My sister bought my kids Cracker Jacks recently, and now the prizes are all paper. Like stupid face puzzles or paper pencil toppers. Disappointing, to say the least.

Whoah, what the heck is Fruit Brute?

i had a sticky octopus!

interesting the format and spacing are much wider than when I wrote the article. Well rookie attempt folks, hope you enjoy.

On the plus side there's lots of pretty pictures and its on the funny side. On the down side the layout is INSANE. I can't handle having to scroll left to right! AAAAHHHHHHHH!

this reminds me of scrubs when jd and turk are trying to remember their greatest moment and its when they get two prizes in their lucky charms