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12/11/2006: Oatmeal Swirlers, you can give it a swirrrl.

In the most shocking turn of events ever, I went and posted a real, regular article. Caveat is, it’s a really short, malformed article. Actually, it was going to just be a blog entry, but I couldn’t convince myself to sentence something as awesome as Oatmeal Swirlers to the depths of the blog archive, so, here we are. Oatmeal Swirlers delighted my childhood hands and tongue by letting me draw edible pictures all over oatmeal, and even if you weren’t around for those joys, I hope this article will help you understand why they were joys. Includes poorly made spiral graphics and a download of the original commercial.

Posted by Matt. E-mail me!

Discussion Thread: 97 comments

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Matt, have you seen the hermit crab kits @ Target? They have Spiderman and the Hulk on the provided shells.

Ghosted by Joe H @ 12/11/2006 10:38 PM EST

Yes! These were the highlight of my breakfast when I could actually convince my mom to buy them. I had totally forgotten about them.

Ghosted by Cyclone @ 12/11/2006 10:39 PM EST

I can’t… figure out… if I remember this stuff. Argh.

Ghosted by Hey I'm Jeff @ 12/11/2006 11:00 PM EST

Dude! I totally ate these all the time in winter as a kid! Loved the icing. But if you made any shape other than a swirl, it tasted bland in parts cause it didnt’ soak into all of it.

Ghosted by Terror Claws Cole @ 12/11/2006 11:07 PM EST

I remember something very similar to these, but the stuff was green or red or some other bizarre hue.

They were so much a part of breakfast that I actually found it odd that my “Maple and Brown Sugar” packages didn’t come with them – which reminds me, I don’t know if it was just a Canadian thing or not, but does anyone remeber that they used to print little “animal profile” things on the individual packets of oatmeal (the Quaker stuff, natch)? It was like little greenpeace-propaganda with your breakfast, they were fun.

Ghosted by Roadblock @ 12/11/2006 11:09 PM EST

Mmmmm… I also loved Oatmeal Swirlers. You know what expired food product I’ve been hungry for lately? Mr. Phipp’s Pretzel Chips!

Has anyone seen the Disney red and green “Magic Middles” cookies in their grocery stores? I have yet to see any, and strangely the Magic Middles wiki has been gone for the past few weeks. It’s giving me this little sliver of hope they might bring back REAL Magic Middles, and I don’t want to get my hopes up. ._.

Ghosted by Mystie @ 12/11/2006 11:16 PM EST

OOOOOooooo this is the one gimmick my mom would let us buy! Because oatmeal was healthy……and we were allowed to pick out a fruit flavor(fruit is healthy). My sister and I only liked/agreed on the Strawberry red color….
Wow…. This was actually not included in my mother’s ‘you can’t get what you see on TV’ reign of terror! These things were great…It took my sister and I some time to figure out how to cut open the packages to make drawings. We would fold the packages over on themselves to make the opening smaller…. strategic drawings….
Nice.
ahhhhh nice memories

Ghosted by Fristine @ 12/11/2006 11:16 PM EST

Yet another product I remember, but did not try, nor did I want to try at the time. But yet again thanks to this place, I don’t think I can go on until I try it!

This stuff needs to come back!

Ghosted by IHAQ @ 12/11/2006 11:45 PM EST

Roadblock I totally remember the animal things! Did they also have random facts like the worlds longest yodel or something on them too? It made every breakfast my mom had time to make oatmeal fun!

Ghosted by Phil G. @ 12/11/2006 11:51 PM EST

God I miss this shit. I still eat oatmeal (Any kind with cinnamon and sugar in it) almost every day.

Ghosted by Bryan @ 12/12/2006 12:04 AM EST

My. that. was. bad. Really. really. bad. I mean Harvey was awesome, but other than that, just absolute shite. Bummer.

Only good part was their song. And that’s on Youtube, so I’ll take solace in that. I won’t even begin to tell you how much they mucked up.

Ghosted by K- @ 12/12/2006 12:04 AM EST

Awe, Matt, you think of everything!

Ghosted by Gemma @ 12/12/2006 12:12 AM EST

YES. Loved this stuff, and I miss it, too. One time I was just squeezing it in randomly, and I ended up with a deer. I still have the photo. Most of the rest of the time it was swirls. Always strawberry.

Ghosted by Rainbowfeet @ 12/12/2006 12:20 AM EST

Sweeet! I loved that stuff, except I never remembered the name of it. It could also be that I enjoyed a similar product that was in competition to swirlers, but anyway, fruity paste in oatmeal = happy.

Ghosted by Mattman @ 12/12/2006 12:42 AM EST

Great stuff matt the commercial was so awesomely 80s

Ghosted by thejyav @ 12/12/2006 12:45 AM EST

I have a few notes from the last two blog entries, since Matt is being kind and making so many.

First, Predaking could totally take on Voltron all by himself. I said this once before, and I’m saying it again. Also, someone asked the names of the Voltron force. They are Keith, Hunk, Pidge, Lance, and Sven (who was replaced by the dumbest princess in the unviverse).

Second, while it’s kind of hard to see, the hardwood floor in Matt’s apartment looks pretty nice. I’ve always kind of wanted hardwood floors, but I heard they are cold in the winter. True? False? Also, Matt why the heck would you spend the time and money to upgrade an apartment? Do you own the place, or is the landlord paying you? Please tell me you’re not screwing yourself.

Third, Spazz is not Spaz307. It should be patently obvious since s/he managed to hold it to a couple of sentences.

Fourth, Cameron T., I was incorrect when I said iTunes converted everything in my My Music folder. It actually duplicated everything. This is good because I can still go back to Creative and just delete iTunes and all the files it created. This is bad because my media now takes (at a guess) 120 gig instead of 60 gig. I think I actually found a half-ass way to delete stuff on the fly from the iPod. If I rate the craptastic stuff like “Star Wars Disco” as one star, I think I can tell iTunes to only sync unrated stuff and ratings higher than one star. It’s still slower, because it means I have to actually cue the song, but it’s better than nothing. I haven’t actually taken the iPod back yet, and it might be growing on me. It still annoys me that I have to find work arounds when a software update could fix almost every problem I have with this device. (The audio quality still isn’t great, but I think that may have more to do with the file compression than the hardware. I haven’t done enough research yet to know if I’m right about this.)

Ghosted by spaz307 @ 12/12/2006 12:47 AM EST

Yeah, those animal facts were the only reason I ate oatmeal. Now I don’t touch the stuff.

Also, Advent Calender = Crack. I’ve been reloading ehre for the past 15 mintues waiting for the Dec 12 entry, hoping it won’t be updated at 5 PM tommorrow. Maybe I should sleep on it.

Ghosted by Roadblock @ 12/12/2006 1:23 AM EST

I remember Oatmeal Swirlers, too. I loved the strawberry, and still eat oatmeal with strawberry jam on the rare ocassions that I actually eat oatmeal.

I’d also like to mention that the Advent calendar update was particularly awesome today.

Ghosted by Sami @ 12/12/2006 1:34 AM EST

I think I remember eating these, but I’m probably mistaken.

Ghosted by Mike P @ 12/12/2006 1:36 AM EST

Knacks and Tigerboy sure found a way to make the time pass up there.

I know what they’re doing up on that Advent Calender

Ghosted by K- @ 12/12/2006 1:39 AM EST

I loved, loved, LOVED Oatmeal Swirlers when I was a kid. I was always one to play with my food, and any food that was MEANT to played with helped my cause greatly.

Ghosted by MissJess @ 12/12/2006 1:39 AM EST

This is an ideal product for those of us who love the tons of flavor and sugar all in one spot. I used to love it in regular oatmeal when I’d get a chunk of the undissolved powder flavoring. But then you don’t want to eat the rest of it because it’s so bland.

Fristine – did your mom ever realize that it wasn’t really a healthy meal at all?

Ghosted by Jessica Marie @ 12/12/2006 1:50 AM EST

I remember trying these on a few separate occasions, but I really despise strawberries and I don’t remember trying any other flavors of goo. I ate a heckuva lot of Toaster Pastries, though, and got my artistic kicks out of those (while trying to be as frugal as possible with the frosting so I could orally mainline the rest).

Ghosted by Special K @ 12/12/2006 1:52 AM EST

Know what I remember from my Childhood that I’d like to place a name on?

(I’m from Canada so I’m not sure if you had them in the States)

There were these cookies right? and they all had a medieval theme to them. (knights,dragons,princesses ,etc) and I vividly remember the commercials where it would show the cookie morph do something than morph back to a cookie.

If any one could help me out here so I know that I’m not insane that’d be great.

Ghosted by Phrat Pirate @ 12/12/2006 1:53 AM EST

I was all about Apple Cinnamon.

Ghosted by Ragnarok @ 12/12/2006 2:17 AM EST

On the new “Year Without A Santa Claus”, I thought it was ok. More like “C” level. not good, not great, but not really horrible either. The original cartoon was “meh” to begin with, with the Misers saving it.

This time around, I’m actually glad that they had SOME explanation on why Santa wants to cancel Christmas! There’s too much commercialism! He’s not a dick here at all! And the Misers…bastardized! I said this before, but I liked the casting choice of Michael McKean as Snowmiser, and Harvey actually made a convincing Heatmiser…yet you just can’t beat the original. I was glad to see that the Miser’s total role was not limited to the youtube preview, with many of the elements of the original intact (I believe Heatmiser’s “Hot Line” was used the first time too)

Speaking of which, during a montage at the beginning, we see clips of It’s A Wonder Life (i think), Christmas Vacation, and a brief clip from the original special.

Ghosted by Invader Norbert @ 12/12/2006 2:26 AM EST

Great stuff matt the commercial was so awesomely 80s

Except they didn’t sell it in the 80’s. It was made and sold in the early 90’s, during the transition period when grunge was starting to cast its dark emo shadow, yet you could still wear loud flourescent junk.

There was a Swirler ad before this that introduced the product, and had the mascot character in it. He taught us that “Swirls just wanna have fun.”

Ghosted by Mars @ 12/12/2006 3:07 AM EST

I definitely remember this stuff, though I don’t know if I ever actually tried it. We were lucky to get anything fancier than plain Quaker. I still keep a few packs of maple/brown sugar in my desk for hungry mornings; I like to put in a tiny amount of water in and just have a shot-sized serving. If the spoon doesn’t stick, cement-like, it’s not my style.
Love the detail of the “Mean People Suck” sticker. Adds to the realism.

Ghosted by squee4242 @ 12/12/2006 3:09 AM EST

I think I would have enjoyed the Misers bit on Youtube if they hadn’t been surrounded by bad dancing girls in Dallas Cowboys cheerleader outfits. Was there some reason they couldn’t at least have made Heatmiser’s girls redheads? Kinda ruined it all for me.

My vote for ‘the boss’ is one of the 2002 Mares who were never properly contained.

Ghosted by Moony @ 12/12/2006 7:11 AM EST

Special K- It came in nummy maple syrup-ish too. Though, I liked the strawberry, the maple was my favorite.

I thought about making an Amazon wishlist for a sec tonight. They don’t sell Christmas in the North East though. I think I might be area-sick for the first time EVER. I miss being able to hit Boston and NYC for Christmas.

Ghosted by MissJess @ 12/12/2006 7:11 AM EST

I remember that stuff, and I know I ate it, but I don’t really remember eating it… that’s why I don’t have a website, I guess

Ghosted by Abbie @ 12/12/2006 7:31 AM EST

Jessica Marie….
I think she had no clue…just loved her rules…..she had a no sugar cereal rule…. no cabbage patch rule.. no pound puppy rule…
lots of rules…

Ghosted by Fristine @ 12/12/2006 8:08 AM EST

We had a no sugar cereal rule in our house as well. But Oatmeal was allowed. I think we had these too. We also had a no Barbie rule and a no Nintendo rule. But my uncle orent and broke that one. Which my parents forgave after becoming addicted to Super Mario Bros.

Ghosted by kb @ 12/12/2006 8:32 AM EST

Matt,

Is eggnog bad for you home made (without alchohol), because of all of the raw eggs?

Ghosted by Cotter @ 12/12/2006 9:33 AM EST

Fristine – Sorry you missed out on so much! At least you’re free now to enjoy the nostalgia.

Ghosted by Jessica Marie @ 12/12/2006 11:10 AM EST

All this talk about Oatmeal Swirlers reminded me of something I adored when I was younger. Does anyone remember the fruit roll-up knockoff that was a skinny line of fruit, swirled around on shiny white cardboard? I feel like it was inspired by/copied from Fruit by the Foot… anyway, I spent many happy lunches carefully removing one end of the snack and eating it in one long string, much like spaghetti.

Between those and Squeez-its, it took me ages to realize what real fruit tastes like

Ghosted by Liz @ 12/12/2006 11:25 AM EST

I know this is going to sound sacreligious to some of you, but I hate oatmeal. I use to hate when my mom made us it eat. Unless it’s some sort of egg, I hate anything warm in the morning.

My mom use to hide all our sweet cereal in the house because my brothers and I could kill a box of it in one morning. Not the smaller boxes either. I’m talking about the big $6-$7 ones.

Now, I buy as much as I want withoug worrying. Matter of fact, I bought 2 boxes of Frankenberry and 2 boxes of Fruity Pebbles yesterday. So =P to my mom.

Spaz307

I found the best way to deal with an Ipod and iTunes is to create your own music lists. I have my music organized in folders, but the auto search function of iTunes sucks and makes a mess of your files, especially if you’re not careful and have it import everything into the /my music/iTunes directory. All I did was create a playlist for each folder I have, and even the sub folders, so it mimicked my current organization scheme. Also, make sure you edit the ID3 tags on the MP3 files. Just right click the song or songs and click get info. If the ID3 tag is messed up, it will show up that way on your iPod and iTunes, sometimes making it impossible to figure out what song your looking for, who the artis is, or even what a song is. Alot of stuff you download off of peer to peer networks have their ID# info messed up. iTunes doesn’t use the actuall file name for it’s display information, just the ID3 tags. I know it’s a bit tedious, but it will save you huge headaches down the road.

Be glad you didn’t download the first iteration of iTunes 7. It was completely fucking up peoples music collections thanks to the gapless playback feature. Complete cutting off the last 5 seconds of every song in some peoples libraries. It happened to some of my songs, but I completely backed up my music the night before I installed iTunes 7, and that was without knowing the myriad of problems that version 7 would present. Apple is getting as bad a Microsoft. Putting out have assed software and fixing it later.

Ghosted by Darth Galvatron @ 12/12/2006 11:40 AM EST

Do you like Nintendo? (Of course you do, you read X-E!)

Do you like Advent Calendars? (Of course you do, you read X-E!)

Check this out:
http://www.mission-in-snowdriftland.com/

Ghosted by Cameron T. @ 12/12/2006 12:10 PM EST

Great article Matt, I remember and also loved Oatmeal Swirlers!

Merry Christmas!

Ghosted by Fox @ 12/12/2006 12:36 PM EST

“Except they didn’t sell it in the 80’s. It was made and sold in the early 90’s, during the transition period when grunge was starting to cast its dark emo shadow, yet you could still wear loud flourescent junk.”

Ah yes. Good ol’ 1990-1991. When the 80’s and (what would become) the 90’s collided and exploded in an explosion of flourescent colors and plaid!

Ghosted by Steven @ 12/12/2006 1:15 PM EST

I wasn’t a real adventurous eater as a kid, so I wasn’t really interested in these. Maybe that would have been different if they had played up the other flavors more, but all I ever saw was strawberry and something about that was really unappealing to me. Now, I’m kind of curious. It didn’t really matter, because I know in my heart of hearts my parents never would have bought these. We were the kind of family that had Malt-o-Meal bagged cereals, so gimmicky food didn’t fare well on our shopping list (unless Dad wanted to try it.)

I have a feeling I may get a bit long winded about this: I made myself watch The Year Without a Santa Claus until the very end because I wanted to be able to judge it fairly, even though I was thoroughly uninterested by 9:10 (doesn’t it seem odd to air a two-hour, family-oriented Christmas special at 9 PM on a weeknight?) Speaking of which, there was a reason the original was only an hour. That story could not sustain a two hour special. I agree with Norbert that it was nice to see Santa a little more justified in wanting to cancel Christmas (in the original, I wanted to scream, “Need a holiday?! You only work one day a year!”). I also laughed out loud at Jack LaLanne as Hercules in the Mythopolis video. Other than that…blech! This special suffered from an identity crisis. Was it a campy remake or a heartfelt family special? I’ve always enjoyed the Heat Miser/Snow Miser song, and it would have been a crime to remake this special without it, yet with all the changes they made to the story, the song seemed really out of place to me. (Personal opinion: The creole accent that Harvey Fierstein attempted was grating.) I also felt that there were parts when the original story held up just fine, but they changed the story just for the sake of changing it. Synopsis: Though the casting was inspired, and there were humorous moments added in for a more modern audience, trying to combine the quirky concept with the “real-life” B-story and live action resulted in a total train wreck.

Ghosted by Lori @ 12/12/2006 1:18 PM EST

Synopsis: Though the casting was inspired, and there were humorous moments added in for a more modern audience, trying to combine the quirky concept with the “real-life” B-story and live action resulted in a total train wreck.

Sounds alot like what the new Transformers Live Action movie will end up as.

Ghosted by Darth Galvatron @ 12/12/2006 1:27 PM EST

Remember and loved the stuff. Did Quaker have its own version, though? I may falsely remember Quaker jam swirlie crap. In any case, good times, I ate the goo straight from the packet.

Ghosted by Julie @ 12/12/2006 1:47 PM EST

Ohh, I totally remember the commercials for these. We never got them (we never got any fancy stuff like this…) but they sure looked neat. I’m sure I attempted to recreate the experience with syrup at some point.

Ghosted by Ariel @ 12/12/2006 2:17 PM EST

I remember this stuff. I never ate it, but I do remember it. I was one of those picky eaters and I think 1990-91 was the year when I only ate the outer part of a Dunkin’ Donuts sweet roll for breakfast. Every damned day. I sometimes wonder how my mother kept her sanity.

Ghosted by LemurCat @ 12/12/2006 2:24 PM EST

does anyone know if ‘year w/o santa claus’ is going to rerun? i had wanted to see it but i watched the bears game instead.

by the way, the only oatmeal i can eat is steel cut irish oatmeal. i might have been the only kid who DIDN’t want the fruit swirly-ness and was satisfied with the boring stuff

Ghosted by colls @ 12/12/2006 2:31 PM EST

When I see oatmeal, no matter what the fruity wacky gimmick is, I think of Gruel. (Specifically, from “Oliver”). That makes me sick.

I’ll stick to dry cereal, thanks.

Ghosted by Cameron T. @ 12/12/2006 3:27 PM EST

Missed it last night, did some shopping. Sounds like it could of used a swirl of fruity goo.

Steel-cut Irish oatmeal: You can take away it’s life, but you can’t take away it’s roughage!

Ghosted by kingklash @ 12/12/2006 3:41 PM EST

I never bought Oatmeal Swirl for my kids; knowing my boys back then, they would have written rude words on top of the oatmeal.

I did (and still do) buy sugar cereal…it just wasn’t allowed at breakfast – dessert only.

Ghosted by Trish @ 12/12/2006 3:47 PM EST

I don’t recall ever trying to write cuss words in my oatmeal, mainly just stars. Fast forward 8 years later to me picking up a copy of Teen Witch at Barnes and Noble. I blame the oatmeal.

Also, my initials are incredibly easy to write on anything. They’re VMW so I can pretty much get away with going \/\/\/ and attesting all letters are present and accounted for.

Ghosted by Mystie @ 12/12/2006 3:50 PM EST

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