X-Entertainment | Oatmeal Swirlers, you can give it a swirrrl.

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 on 12/11/2006. E-mail me!

Discussion Thread: 98 comments

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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.

Chestnuts roasted by Invader Norbert @ 12/12/2006 2:26 AM

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.”

Chestnuts roasted by Mars @ 12/12/2006 3:07 AM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by squee4242 @ 12/12/2006 3:09 AM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Moony @ 12/12/2006 7:11 AM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by MissJess @ 12/12/2006 7:11 AM

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

Chestnuts roasted by Abbie @ 12/12/2006 7:31 AM

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…

Chestnuts roasted by Fristine @ 12/12/2006 8:08 AM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by kb @ 12/12/2006 8:32 AM

Matt,

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

Chestnuts roasted by Cotter @ 12/12/2006 9:33 AM

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

Chestnuts roasted by Jessica Marie @ 12/12/2006 11:10 AM

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

Chestnuts roasted by Liz @ 12/12/2006 11:25 AM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Darth Galvatron @ 12/12/2006 11:40 AM

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/

Chestnuts roasted by Cameron T. @ 12/12/2006 12:10 PM

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

Merry Christmas!

Chestnuts roasted by Fox @ 12/12/2006 12:36 PM

“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!

Chestnuts roasted by Steven @ 12/12/2006 1:15 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Lori @ 12/12/2006 1:18 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Darth Galvatron @ 12/12/2006 1:27 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Julie @ 12/12/2006 1:47 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Ariel @ 12/12/2006 2:17 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by LemurCat @ 12/12/2006 2:24 PM

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

Chestnuts roasted by colls @ 12/12/2006 2:31 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Cameron T. @ 12/12/2006 3:27 PM

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!

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash @ 12/12/2006 3:41 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Trish @ 12/12/2006 3:47 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Mystie @ 12/12/2006 3:50 PM

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