Remember that feeling when your parents went grocery shopping and got your favorite cereal with that awesome prize inside of it?
Usually your mom would tell you “don’t you dare dump out all that cereal just to get to the prize!”
But if you were smart, you knew there was a certain art to turning the box all around just so you could reach your hand in and grab the prize before the sneaky brother/sister came running along.
But for newer generations, they never really had the joy of picking out your “favorite” cereal based solely on the prize that was offered.
When did we, as a society, find it acceptable to allow cereal companies to slowly but surely take away our prizes?
Upon Googling, I found this pretty thorough study on “The Sad Fate of Cereal Box Toys” in which they have a pretty good idea of why they are fading:
“Urban legend would have it that flocks of children accidentally inhaled the toys, mistaking them for bizarrely misshapen Froot Loops or mutant Cheerios, and the makers discontinued the toys in an effort to limit their legal liability. Adding fuel to the fire is the well-known (and true) fact that US law forbids the importation of one of Europe’s favorite candies, the Kinder egg, because each one contains a small toy.”
Even though there hasn’t been any death or injuries from traditional cereal box prizes, most of the ones offered nowadays having or mailing in a UPC code. No thanks. I want a real prize and I want it now.
Blame it on legal liabilities all you want but companies have been slowly taking away our cereal prizes. And we are all letting them get away it.
Take a look at some of my personal favorite cereal box prizes below and let us know which prize was your favorite…
