Well, the TMNT episode review is up, and I pretty much hate it. I’ve rarely liked an article that I couldn’t do in one sitting, and because of a crazy busy weekend, I had to do this one in slices for the past four days or so. Luckily the rest of the week looks clear, so I should be able to get the articles up more regularly as we segue into the Christmas season. I’ve got everything from He-Man’s Christmas Special to the Glo-Worms Christmas Special and beyond. Put any proper noun in front of the words ‘Christmas Special’, and rest assured, it’s on deck for the upcoming month. I did want to drop by tonight because I just uncovered an old commercial for what’s easily my favorite cereal premium ever: The Corn Pops Robots!
Actually, they’re not really ‘Corn Pops’ robots. They were given out with Apple Jacks and a few other of Kellogg’s more sugary cereals. Capitalizing on the success of Transformers, the small plastic toys weren’t all that inspired, but made up for it by being one very important thing: free. In a world of gooey wall-crawling spiders and sheets of scratch n’ sniff stickers, these wacky bots stood out big time. While they didn’t have the intricacies or style of the toys they were fashioned after, they did have one thing all their superiors lacked – an intense candy scent! Even though they came sealed in little baggies within the boxes, they couldn’t stop themselves from becoming inundated with that terrific fresh cereal smell. Now I’m not trying to imply that all robots would be better off if they stank like corn syrup, but for whatever reason, it worked with these little guys. Maybe because I was young and preferred chewing them to playing with them; I’m not really sure.
There were four in all, each slightly stranger than the last. The most prominent of the group was a knockoff USS Enterprise, a ship that turned into a robot with an immense dinner plate for a head. Then there was the lame blue shuttle that nobody wanted. He turned up in boxes the most often, because God hates us all. The third was an interesting red helicopter that turned into a very uninteresting robot with its eyes squished together. All of the figures were roughly the size of Go-Bots, and while the first three didn’t quite make me gush cartoony pink hearts out of my eye sockets, I will admit that I once tried to French kiss the fourth.
The final robot? Just your typical spaceship with tiny android arms. He wasn’t too impressive, but I loved him anyway. I used to pretend he was Cobra Commander’s secret spy – a guy who could infiltrate the GI Joe/Star Wars Rebellion camp undetected to collect secret information. I overlooked the fact that Duke and Luke Skywalker would’ve probably noticed a fully functioning spaceship the size of their torso flying around headquarters, but sometimes you’ve gotta forsake a little logic to make with the drama.
I’m not really sure why I felt I had to tell you this, but at least you won’t feel foolish if you end up in a conversation circle about the various toy robots given away as cereal prizes. See you tomorrow.
Posted by Matt. E-mail me!
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So I never, ever got a cereal premium. EVER!
by far my favorite cereal prize was the alpha-bits monster heads. remember those? i still have a few of those buggers floating around the depths of the bottom drawer somewhere.