Ve vant to eat your cereal!

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/10/2014 (4322 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A few weeks ago, Cliff Terriot was craving a bowl of Count Chocula, a chocolate-flavoured breakfast cereal he enjoyed as a child but hadn’t purchased, much less eaten, in years.

Terriot, 48, couldn’t remember the last time he spotted Count Chocula on a Winnipeg store shelf, so he went online, found a grocery chain south of the border that had some in stock and ordered 20 “family-size” boxes, figuring he’d try selling a few to help defray the cost of shipping.

Terriot posted an ad titled, “Monster cereal for sale…” A couple of hours later he received a message from a woman who told him he should have saved his stamp money.

“She said the cereal was for sale in Canada again, in time for Halloween, which was news to me,” Terriot says. “I emailed her back asking where exactly, but when she didn’t get back to me I figured she must have been pulling my leg.”

Turns out she wasn’t tricking him about his treat.

“(Thirteen years ago) was probably the last time the monster cereals were available in Canada in any substantial way,” says Jason Doolan, director of marketing for the Canadian division of General Mills, the company that produces Count Chocula and its count-erparts, Franken-Berry, Boo-Berry, Fruit Brute and Fruity Yummy Mummy.

“Last Halloween we discovered a Facebook site called ‘Bring Count Chocula back to Canada’ that had hundreds of likes. When we matched that up with the number of calls our consumer services line had been getting, basically telling us the same thing, we decided 2014 was the perfect opportunity to bring the cereals back (to Canada).”

When they’re gone, they’re gone

In case you’ve been living under a cereal bowl for the last 43 years, a quick primer might be in order. Count Chocula and strawberry-flavoured Franken-Berry were introduced in the United States in 1971.

The cereals’ animated mascots, voiced in TV commercials by Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff sound-alikes, were such a hit with the Saturday-morning cartoon set that additional brands were soon added to the mix.

Since their inception, each monster cereal has contained “eight essential vitamins plus iron.” That’s not all: initial batches of Franken-Berry reportedly included a type of dye that turned children’s feces pink, resulting in a malady cheekily dubbed Franken-Berry Stool.

Monster cereals used to be available year-round. But since 2010, they’ve only been offered to American consumers in the weeks leading up to Halloween — a marketing ploy repeated in Canada this fall.

“Yeah, when they’re gone, they’re gone,” says Kevin Cooney, a manager at Hosegood’s IGA, located at 650 Elizabeth Rd. At the beginning of September, Cooney’s General Mills rep told him the monster cereals were being re-introduced in Canada and asked him if he wanted any for his outlet. Cooney ordered 12 cases, which worked out to about 150 boxes of cereal, evenly split between Count Chocula and Franken-Berry.

“That’s all we have left,” Cooney says, pointing to a display near the front of the store containing a few dozen boxes, priced at two for $7. “A lot of adults say they’re buying it for their kids, but (judging by) the way they react when they see ’em, I’m not so sure about that.”

Doolan confirms Cooney’s suspicions.

“We have research telling us 60 per cent of consumption of these monster cereals is coming from adults, which is larger than almost all of the traditional kids’ cereals,” Doolan says, when reached at his office in Toronto. “There is definitely a sense of nostalgia associated with this stuff.”

1970s boxes worth $250

Nostalgia, sure, but monster cereals have also become a hit with the collectibles crowd. Doolan says it’s not uncommon for his department to field requests for packaging from “10, 20, 30 years ago.”

This year’s boxes, which were designed by artists associated with DC Comics, are already selling for four times their suggested retail price on websites like eBay and Amazon, he says.

“In the U.S., General Mills has a long tradition of featuring athletes on boxes of Wheaties, which has proven to be a big hit with the sports collectibles market,” Doolan says. “The same thing applies to the monster cereals: if we can bring something new to the packaging design every year, it really increases their appeal.”

Stephen Glew is the person behind the Cereal Box Price Guide — an online resource chronicling 4,000-plus cereal boxes. In addition to sections devoted entirely to Cap’n Crunch, Cocoa Pebbles and Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Glew’s overview also includes a lengthy chapter on General Mills’ monster cereals — a line Glew describes as “my favourite group of cereal boxes, hands-down, no competition.”

Glew has in the neighbourhood of 10,000 different cereal boxes, which he flattens and stores alphabetically in filing cabinets. He is aware of people who collect unopened boxes but “I hate full boxes; over time dust can damage, falling off shelves can damage — just picking up to look at damages,” he says when reached at home in Dewitt, Mich.

Depending on condition, Glew says monster cereal boxes from the 1970s can fetch anywhere from $250 to $750 — more if they include intact giveaways such as monster soap figures, monster-themed Star Wars stickers or (our favourite) a plastic record titled The Monsters Go Disco. Because of the boxes’ and premiums’ disposable nature, however, it’s hard to find any in pristine shape, Glew admits. Every once in a while, though, he gets lucky.

“A recent find was a guy who put them in his attic on purpose as a child, to hide them from his siblings, and forgot about them.”

Glew asserts cereal, more than any other foodstuff, sparks fond memories of days gone by.

“We all grew up with cereal boxes; they were a very important part of our childhood,” Glew says. “I don’t know about you, but my four brothers and I actually fought over the little prizes inside cereal boxes.

“We also built forts at the breakfast table with every cereal box in the cupboard, so we would not have to look at each other so early in the morning.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca