Proof There's Something Wrong With Me
Mark Evanier took a little trip down memory lane and described what it was like to buy those variety packs of tiny cereal:
The thing is, though, is that apparently I was a freak as a kid, because I *loved* Shredded Wheat. And I don't mean Frosted Mini-Wheats, which were invented a little later; I mean the stuff you'd open and there'd be this one giant brick of Shredded Wheat, which you were supposed to break up. I first had this when I was four or five, and for some reason I thought this was GREAT. You got to crush cereal! Plus, it was unsweetened, which meant YOU COULD ADD AS MUCH SUGAR AS YOU WANTED. Clearly, better in the long run.
I did not get as much Shredded Wheat as I would have liked. Partially, this was because of the Quest for Toys, but also I think my parents were adverse to buying it, for some reason. And yet, they were perfectly willing to buy Cream of Wheat, which I didn't like until sometime in my twenties.
The cereal in the variety packs that I hated was the Sugar Smacks. And the Sugar Pops. I think that's what the other one was called. Giant yellow golfballs of mildly-sweeted puffed corn, or something. The cartoon mascot was some kind of cowboy, I believe. As opposed to Sugar Smacks, which had that bear that sounded like Bing Crosby. I don't know if Shredded Wheat ever had a mascot; if it did, it was probably a pair of talking woolen longjohns.
I also had a weird fascination with Grape-Nuts. It's true that the first time I ate Grape-Nuts, I spit it all over the place, but that was only because my cousin made me laugh.
One of the things that occasionally annoys me about Costco is something I call The Kellogg's Variety Pack Frustration. It harkens back to the day when my parents would let me pick out the cereal I wanted at the supermarket. Naturally, getting a sufficient quantity of one I liked was less important than getting those neat little boxes of them that you could stack up and play with. Why get a decent-sized box of Rice Krispies when I could get the Kellogg's Variety Pack and get a little Rice Krispies and a little Sugar Smacks and a little Sugar Frosted Flakes, etc.? It looked so great but there was that drawback...
Shredded Wheat. The cole slaw of breakfast foods.
news from me - ARCHIVES - December 14, 2010
The thing is, though, is that apparently I was a freak as a kid, because I *loved* Shredded Wheat. And I don't mean Frosted Mini-Wheats, which were invented a little later; I mean the stuff you'd open and there'd be this one giant brick of Shredded Wheat, which you were supposed to break up. I first had this when I was four or five, and for some reason I thought this was GREAT. You got to crush cereal! Plus, it was unsweetened, which meant YOU COULD ADD AS MUCH SUGAR AS YOU WANTED. Clearly, better in the long run.
I did not get as much Shredded Wheat as I would have liked. Partially, this was because of the Quest for Toys, but also I think my parents were adverse to buying it, for some reason. And yet, they were perfectly willing to buy Cream of Wheat, which I didn't like until sometime in my twenties.
The cereal in the variety packs that I hated was the Sugar Smacks. And the Sugar Pops. I think that's what the other one was called. Giant yellow golfballs of mildly-sweeted puffed corn, or something. The cartoon mascot was some kind of cowboy, I believe. As opposed to Sugar Smacks, which had that bear that sounded like Bing Crosby. I don't know if Shredded Wheat ever had a mascot; if it did, it was probably a pair of talking woolen longjohns.
I also had a weird fascination with Grape-Nuts. It's true that the first time I ate Grape-Nuts, I spit it all over the place, but that was only because my cousin made me laugh.
