Breakfast Thrills

[Amor de Cosmos]

All-time favourite cereal premiums — or at least the ones you remember from the Golden Age of Plastic.

Ours were restricted to Corn Flakes and Rice Krispies. Nothing sugared and nothing advertised by Danny Blanchflower (Weetabix and Shredded Wheat) as my Mum couldn't stand him, 'cause he was Irish, played for Spurs and was a mouthy bugger.

The "gift" was always at the bottom so I had the option of pissing off my Mum by sticking my hand through the corn flakes and groping about, which resulted in a box full of crumbs. Or pissing off my Dad by opening up the box at the bottom. This offended his basic worldview and sense of universal order. In addition I could turn him several shades of purple by carefully turning the box the right way up after I'd looted it. If I was really lucky he'd pick it up and empty Corn Flakes all over the table.

Anyway I remember trying (and failing) to collect a set of plastic rifles. I think they were appealing because some assembly was required — each came with its own gun-rack. Also modern British war-planes were popular. I always had too many Vulcan bombers and Hawker Hunters but so it seemed did everyone else, so I could never work out a trade for the incredibly rare Gloster Meteor. My all time favourites though were the submarines you put baking soda inside so they'd sink to the bottom of a tub of water then slowly rise to the surface. The competitive possibilities were endless...and if you calculated your bicarb quotient correctly, very lucrative.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Breakfast Thrills

Or pissing off my Dad by opening up the box at the bottom. This offended his basic worldview and sense of universal order.

Good man, quite right.

[West End Zuma]

Breakfast Thrills

Or piss off everybody by emptying the bloody lot on the kitchen table, sorting through the pile then sweeping it all back in the box with grubby hands.

My highlight of the day was opening the Brook Bond tea packet and finding a picture card that wasn't a red squirrel, which I already had a half dozen or so.

[WOM]

Breakfast Thrills

TonTon wrote:

Or pissing off my Dad by opening up the box at the bottom. This offended his basic worldview and sense of universal order.

Good man, quite right.

A friend of mine used to achieve this by turning the receiver on the front-hall phone the wrong way round, so that the cord lay across the dial. Drove his dad mental. He'd promptly 'right' it, and then run around asking who'd done it.

[Taylor]

Breakfast Thrills

I once knew someone who had various bottles of spirits designed for an optic, with the labels on upside down. I'm only very slightly OCD, but that drove me fucking crazy, so God knows how I'd feel about inverted Kellogg's cockerels. That phone thing... I sometimes do that on my own phone, and turn away thinking "it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter". It's like nicotine cravings, though. After a minute or so, I have to go over and right it.

In my day, the best cereal free gifts were Shrinky-Dinks. These were big pictures of Tom & Jerry or whoever, that you baked in the oven. This made them shrink down to the size of a key ring or badge (which was the idea). This was MUCH BETTER than getting a free Tom & Jerry key ring or badge.

They lost popularity once it became known that empty crisp packets did exactly the same thing when you baked them. A personalised bit of pop art like a miniature Walkers Prawn Cocktail packet made a much cooler key ring than some crap out of a box of Shreddies.

[WOM]

Breakfast Thrills

The most memorable thing I ever got out of a cereal box was a cardboard 45 of a Bobby Sherman song. My favourites, for some reason, were lenticulars - those '3D' pictures that move when you tilt them - of the cereal's mascot.

[Guest]

Breakfast Thrills

I collected the full Euro 96 set of those - Corn Flakes again I think - and found them when we cleared out the loft a couple of months back. I was more than a little irritated that the 2 goalkeepers have gone missing.

[Mumpo]

Breakfast Thrills

The best cereal promotions ever were of course these and these. I think I managed to collect all 18 cards from the latter of the two, after miraculously finding the much-coveted Omega set discarded in the corner of the playground.

I also remember one of the cereals giving away little plastic parts of a totem pole in each box, which you could stack up. I don't suppose anyone could manage to find a picture of them on the net?

[Andy C]

Breakfast Thrills

As soon as I saw the thread title my head was full of the pleasures of baking-soda-powered submarines. They were brilliant. Thanks, Amor.

[amp]

Breakfast Thrills

WornOldMotorbike wrote:

A friend of mine used to achieve this by turning the receiver on the front-hall phone the wrong way round, so that the cord lay across the dial. Drove his dad mental. He'd promptly 'right' it, and then run around asking who'd done it.

Like an episode of Ever Decreasing Circles.

Can't find the a clip of Richard Briars doing this sadly.

[hobbes]

Breakfast Thrills

That phone thing... I sometimes do that on my own phone, and turn away thinking "it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter". It's like nicotine cravings, though. After a minute or so, I have to go over and right it.

I've just got a cordless phone.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Breakfast Thrills

A personalised bit of pop art like a miniature Walkers Prawn Cocktail packet made a much cooler key ring than some crap out of a box of Shreddies.

That sounds so tragically cool it would freeze your nuts off. What type of paper were the crisp packets made of? I've really got to try this.

As soon as I saw the thread title my head was full of the pleasures of baking-soda-powered submarines.

There were divers too I seem to recall but they never caught the imagination like the subs did. The other thing on cereal boxes back then were cut out masks. I remember pirates and North American Indian chiefs — Geronimo, Cochise etc. No one I knew was imaginatively disabled enough to actually wear one but it occurred to me that if Kelloggs revived the idea they'd be bound to include EPL footballers. The thought of a bunch of eight-year-olds running around with John Terry or Wayne Rooney's face is, well, quite terrifying really.

[Guest]

Breakfast Thrills

Haha I remember baking crisp packets.

My flatmate just gave me the 'prize' as he called if from the cereal. It's 4 pictures of dragons from something called Die Drachenjager, which presumably is 'dragon-hunter'. Apparently I can collect more dragons online and maybe win a super prize.

[Er Liquidatore]

Breakfast Thrills

I remember around the time Cher released 'It's in His Kiss' for some film she was promoting, Kellogs were putting a 7"" vinyl single on the back of Frosties boxes. They were glued on and impossible to get of the back without too ripping the box apart, so you would have to wait till you finished it before you could listen to it.

I distinctly remember as a kid dancing round the room to some MC Hammer single, and I also remember the dull ache that comes from your teeth and stomach when you eat three bowls of Frosties in the morning.

[evilC]

Breakfast Thrills

This thread is brilliant - one of the most amusing in ages.

Andy C wrote:

As soon as I saw the thread title my head was full of the pleasures of baking-soda-powered submarines. They were brilliant. Thanks, Amor.

Not to be confused with caustic soda. A mistake you'd only make the once, I think.

[evilC]

Breakfast Thrills

Did anyone get from their cereal packets those lumps of coloured plastic which turned into dinosaurs when you dropped them into near-boiling water? Only I never got my hands on those when they were around. I feel like I've led a deprived childhood.

[evilC]

Breakfast Thrills



More cereal-related near-mirth here.

Mind you, this one is pretty amusing:

[evilC]

Breakfast Thrills

Finally...

A different kind of 'free gift' in your cereal.

...and...

Blast off!

[Hot Orange]

Breakfast Thrills

There was an excellent series of Calvin and Hobbes strips in which Calvin ate several bowls of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs a day in order to save up the coupons needed to acquire a beanie hat adorned with a propellor. After weeks of waiting impatiently, it finally arrived and inevitably was swiftly broken, sending Calvin into a fit of apoplexy.

You had to be there, but I thought it summed up the anticipation followed by disappointment that cereal-box gifts always brought.

[Er Liquidatore]

Breakfast Thrills

If I remember correctly he thought the propeller would allow him to fly.

[Guest]

Breakfast Thrills

He did. But in the end

SPOILER

it turned out not to be a total loss, cos it came in a great cardboard box.

[Gangster Octopus]

Breakfast Thrills

Anyone mention those cut-out-and-fold animals heads they used to do on the back of Corn Flakes packets? They did different breeds of dogs too...

[Taylor]

Breakfast Thrills

Amor de Cosmos wrote:

A personalised bit of pop art like a miniature Walkers Prawn Cocktail packet made a much cooler key ring than some crap out of a box of Shreddies.

That sounds so tragically cool it would freeze your nuts off. What type of paper were the crisp packets made of? I've really got to try this.

It was the old Walkers packet, with a clear section in the middle so you could check there were actually crisps in there. I suspect they've since changed the stuff they make the bags out of, so I'd not dare to bake a modern packet, lest it filled my house with some kind of toxic miasma.