I just realized that my kids have never received a prize in the bottom of their cereal box. Do you remember those? Rushing to be the first one to open the box. Pouring very slowly and carefully while peering up into the box and rotating it just-so in order to view as much of the contents as possible, or, if all else fails, (and mom isn’t looking) reaching elbow deep into flakes searching for the stickers or bike license plate?
My favorite were the cartoon character figurines. The challenge of “collect all 3” was never one I met, but I always dreamed the morning away wishing for a chance to do just that.
Those prizes drove my choice of breakfast food. My sisters and I would spend forever in the cereal aisle searching out the best prize, but the box was never opened immediately. We HAD to eat Cheerios, because Mom wouldn’t let us open the Frosted Flakes until the box was done.
And on the same thought, what happened to the back of cereal boxes? Maybe I just buy cereal that is too healthy and adult-ish, but I rarely see fun games printed on boxes anymore. It was always an honor to have the box directly in front of you during breakfast. We found all kinds of great stuff there: holograms, mazes, facts about rare animals. I learned a lot from cereal boxes.
We hardly ever eat cereal, and I have to admit, that I don’t have a need for any more little toys in our house. That doesn’t stop me from feeling a bit sad. Cereal prize anticipation was fun.
I know what you mean. Occasionally we get a box with a small paperback book stuck to the inside of the box but no toys like I used to get.
That being said – on rare occasions we might still pick up a happy meal from McDonald’s and the toys are ALWAYS complete rubbish. Cheaply made plastic things that break really easily.
I completely agree. It isn’t the toys that I miss, it is the anticipation of the toys – I’m kinda’ weird like that.
Most of the cereal I buy is healthy, and the back of the box is geared toward telling me all the wonderful things the cereal will do for me . . although until the cereal does my laundry, I’m not interested enough to read all that! I recently bought a box of Honey Nut Cheerios for my brother, and that came with a Despicable Me toy that I think is meant to be used as a Christmas ornament because it had a loop of string sticking out of its hat. Odd. But I do remember the joy of cereal toys!
“until the cereal does my laundry, I’m not interested enough to read all that!” Best sentence EVER!!! :) Thanks for the giggle.
This brought back memories of the excitement of finding a toy buried in the cereal! No matter what it was, the intrigue of the item being intermingled with the cereal made it more interesting.
I dont have kids, but i have wondered about the toys in the boxes… It is so sad that they stopped including them. I remember being so excited when the toy would fall out…
I used to love those cereal box prizes and the games were fun too! You post a very good question. What happened to all the cereal box fun?!