Did you ever beg your parents to buy a cereal because you wanted the prize that was inside, only to find out that the prize was not in the box!! The dreaded mail in proof of purchase was the bane of my existence lol.

My family only did the mail in proof of purchase thing twice that I can think of off the top of my head. One was for Toy Story cups and the other was for a Knights of Tir Na Nog action figures. We still have the cups, but the action figure never came because we mailed in the UPCs a few weeks after the deadline. It said until supplies last so it was worth a shot.

I usually caught on to whether it was a mail-in thing or not before buying the cereal. It was still annoying that you had to send in for the good prizes though.

What we did when I was a kid was simply save all boxtops/UPCs/etc, even when there was no current promo. Then, when one did pop up, I'd already have 6 of the 8 required PoPs. (I think companies caught on to this tactic though, since they later started requiring PoPs with dates on them & the dates had to fall within a certain span.)

I don't recall any specific cereal mail-ins that I redeemed, but I did kool-aid stuff a few times (one specific one was the plastic pitcher & cups), a couple canned pasta ones (I remember a chef-boyardee matchbox semi, and IO thin a franco-american one too), and a legions of power mini-set through quik (back when it was still "nestle's quik").

Great idea about saving UPCs during non promo events. Those items you got in the mail usually turn collectable due to such limited quantities and production span.

Back when I was a kid all the cool cereal toys needed box tops, usually more than one, to get what you wanted.

I remember trying to save 8 box tops from Post cereals to get a scale model of the NASA moon lander. By the time I got the last 4, I forgot where I saved the first 4.

All part of being a kid.

Get yourself a Happy Meal. Ronie will give you the proof of purchase.

I remember for cereal, they'd call it "box tops" but it was never actually the box top that you had to send in... It was the UPC bar code. Maybe box top was something they used to send in yrs before... not really sure?? I actually don't remember ever getting a prize from saving them. Not that we didn't have an endless supply of sugar coated cereal. I think my mom lost the bar codes or never sent them in!

Yep, before UPC symbols, cereal makers wanted actual box tops, or bottoms, as proof of purchase. There was always a picture to indicate which part of the box to cut and send in as well as the order form asking for basic information.

The only thing I remember doing that for was for those Disney Afternoon figures. The later series Darkwing Duck and Goof Troop were proof or purchase mail order only.

I notice that it seems like most cereals these days have gone back to the sending in things to get stuff rather than having it in the cereal. HOWEVER..the few cereals we've gotten that have had a toy IN the box, I noticed have had them right at the top of the cereal so you don't have to go digging for it lol.

The only time we ever sent in for things when I was younger was when we had to have a proof of purchase and send in money to get the lucky charms keychain that had a real shamrock or four leaf clover and your name etched on the keychain.

Wow, I remember that keychain commercial and how much I wanted one lol. That's cool that you acually got it. Thinking back, I beleive the best toy I have ever got out of a box of cereal was a Garfield pencil topper. I brought it to school and a lot of my classmates wanted to use it, it was the Ottie tooper and you could make Ottie's tongue move.

Now, I don't eat "brand name" cereal anymore... except the occasional Pebbles or so... but most of the crap I buy is from Aldi because it really tastes EXACTLY like the brand name stuff (why bother if it's cheaper?)

The question I have is... do cereals now-a-days even have toys inside anymore? Most I see or hear about just have some stupid games on the back of the box, but does anything come inside anymore? I remember collecting so much junk... but precious junk... from crappy cereal. Only the really good stuff didn't have anything inside.

Not really. Sometimes Kellogs gives way things like small plush toys or those weeble things they gave a while ago. I think that kind of prize in the box stuff was stopped due to the war on obesity.

I don't remember doing this for cereal, and maybe I'm wrong with this one, but I remember when Littlest Pet Shop first came out and they had a mail-in offer for a few pets that they didn't have in any of the sets (they were really just some of the pet models repainted with different designs). We clipped the UPCs, filled out a postcard from inside the box, sent some money, and a few weeks alter got all three: a monkey, a gray rabbit, and a Samoyed pup.

I sent away for a Dawn doll and 2 or 3 outfits from a cereal. I think it was 50 cents and 2 or 3 boxtops. Remember the records that came on cereal boxes? We had Bobby Sherman's Hey Mister Sun.

I had that happen a couple of times (the thinking it was in the box, but actually having to send for it). I quickly learned to look closer though, and to assume that anything that looked like a good prize was going to be a send-away one.
On the other hand, I've never bought a cereal just for the prize. The prize might have made me choose one brand over another, but I might well have bought that same box anyway, even without a prize.

I never had a record on/with a cereal box. I did have a footed bowl that came on one though, and I had a postcard that was a mini-record. (Damned thing was nearly impossible to play though. It's diameter was about the same as the sticker in the center of a normal record, which is the point that automatic players return the arm. Unfortunately, all we had were automatic players that didn't have any option to turn that feature off. The only way I was able to listen to it was by sticking a pin through a paper rolled into a cone.)