Minnesota Stores Ready for Halloween- Return of Monster Cereals
As I was walking through Target a few days ago I noticed that the Monster cereals were out again. The traditional monster cereals are from the Minnesota based General Mills and include Count Chocula, Franken Berry and Boo Berry. Is it weird that there are two berry cereals? Hadn't really thought about that before, but I almost feel like all the berry cereals should be in one box... but I digress.
The three main cereals were the only ones that I believed existed. But now I find out that there are (at least) three more cereals. Yummy Mummy, Frute Brute (wouldn't that almost be the same as the berry cereals), Sir Grapefellow, Bizarre O's, Revenge of Yummy Mummy and Freakin' Scary. That last one...Freakin' Scary... I'm not even sure what that is, but the "monster" on the box looks to be something out of Mad Magazine.
I had no idea there were these other cereals, other than the main three. But apparently some of these other cereals will rise up as special releases every few years as a "back by popular demand" type of thing.
As a kid we would always seem to have Count Chocula or the other two main ones on hand. Were they always only available during Halloween season? Did a little bit of research, and found out that yes, they used to be available all year since they were introduced in the 70s. In 2010, GM decided that they would only be available during the Halloween season.
Also I found out that Frute (formerly fruit brute) was pulled in 1982 (no wonder I didn't remember that one) and Yummy Mummy was pulled in 1992. But every few years they do make a comeback. I haven't seen them so far this year... but die hard ceral fans, sort of a cereal "cult" will special order them wherever they can find them including sometimes places South of the border where they may have different release dates. People even go so far as to checking expiration dates to see how long they can make the cereal last. The boxes don't turn into collectors items though. People actually eat the cereal, just not all at once.
Maybe next year will be the "special" year when we get ALL the monster cereals again here in the states.
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