Monday 2 January 2017

When cereal packets were exciting...

Do you remember the days when cereal packets had goodies in them?  Things like plastic toys and little gadgets, stickers and cards.  I presume the danger of the cereal manufacturers being sued if a child should manage to swallow one is the reason they don't exist any more.  Gone are the incentives to push children into asking Mum or Dad to get a particular cereal.

Here are a few you might recall.

Football stickers

Clip clop horses



Cowboys and indians


Toy soldiers



Magic straws


A water squirting ring


The cast of the Magic Roundabout came, I think, with Ricicles.  How many can you name?  (Answer at the bottom)


Sometimes there were competitions and here is one Partner-who-loves-tea would have loved to win -


A weekend with Liverpool and England footballer Kevin Keegan.  But I don't think playing football with him would have been her first priority....


My all-time favourite was this little submarine that you filled with bi-carbonate of soda to propel it along in the bath.  It gave me many hours of fun.


Magic Roundabout cast -
Back row - Zebedee, Mr Rusty, Florence, Mr McHenry
 Front Row - Brian, Ermintrude, Dylan, Dougal

Grumpy Dougal (loosely based on Tony Hancock) was my favourite character with Zebedee a close second. In most episodes Zebedee appeared, usually summoned by Florence, with a loud "boing" sound, and he usually closed the show with the phrase "Time for bed".


7 comments:

  1. Oh, I had forgotten all about these John, but now you mention them I think I had one of those submarines too. Those little toys could be really good and I do indeed remember the excitement of them. And the way, too that I pestered my mother to buy more of the packets of cereal! Happy New Year to you.

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  2. Of course we had different things in cereals, as there were different programs on telly for children in Germany. But we often had a comic on the back of the box, and kept reading it over and over.

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  3. BUMMER. I couldn't remember Mr Rusty's name. For someone who used to join the masses religiously in the students' common room to watch it I'm ashamed of myself. I agree with your favourite characters. However the only things I recall from the cereal packets is the little submarines into which you put bicarb. Wonderful things they were.

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  4. Over here in the states, we had rings that were whistles when you blew into the tops, and stickers, and those hologram pictures that changed when you tilted them back and forth, etc. There were always prizes in Cracker Jacks, which were caramel coated popcorn snacks.

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  5. I think the demise is because children expect more than little plastic toys, but you may be correct in that it is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

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  6. We used to get prizes in the cereal boxes, but it's been a long, long time.

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  7. If I remember correctly the submarine was part of a set that included a speed boat and a diver (all to different scales) which gave hours of fun in the kitchen sink.

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