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Summer Megaparty: Goodbye, Fair Cap’n.

You know, I hate to sound like a broken record about this stuff, especially because it's done with the right intentions. But come on...

"Limiting Ads of Junk Food to Children."

The basic gist of the story is that a whole load of food companies are altering or outright ending decades-spanning ad campaigns because kids are getting too fat by eating their stuff. And I understand the "epidemic," I really do. I've been to seminars via work where people have spoken at length about how true it is and about how it can't all be written off as "fanatical watchdogs getting their way," but to deprive the world of Cap'n Crunch commercials? I would rather every child on this planet be a perfectly round ball of sick than see them grow up in a society that disallows the continuing animated adventures of a pirate who maintains peace, prosperity and crunchiness against a horde of milky monsters with Scut Farkus eyeballs.

I'm not kidding: They're killing off Cap'n Crunch. He'll still be on the boxes, but without those commercials, he's only as good as that eyepatch-wearing seal on the generic brand's packaging.

Worse yet, the movement is now extending to the Internet. That was these companies' collective ace in the hole. To a degree, it didn't matter how much shit the TV-version of Sonny had to deal with, because he'd still be able to create virtual ball pits out of Cocoa Puffs online. What are kids going to do with their Sunday mornings if they're not getting codes on cereal boxes to enter online for a chance to play riffs on "Asteroids" with cereal pieces in place of comets? What, are they supposed to go outside? Come on.

Oh well. I'm not going to lose sleep over it, because finding out that there will be no more Cap'n Crunch commercials just ain't that important in the grand scheme of life. But I'm certainly glad to do my part to preserve the memories of what's now "what was."


With that in mind, click here to watch an old Peanut Butter Crunch commercial, starring our now-banned pal. Shed a tear. Eat celery.

Posted by Matt on 07/19/2007. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 138 comments
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Darth Galvatron I only quoted you on what I was speaking of, which I felt was a straw man arguement because I’ve never heard a parent say “I’m okay with my kid being badly influenced by tv, video games, music, celebrities and the internet as long as they’re not fat, so I’m going to put all my efforts into only pushing food companies into not advertising towards my child.” which was how I took what you said. I meant no hostility and I’m on the side of bad parenting is the problem… at least to an extent.

X-E is just not a place where I want to debate when you get down to it.

Chestnuts roasted by dohopoki @ 07/20/2007 5:13 PM

Norbert

I completely agree. It’s not like the Cap’n is leaving us. It’s just his lame half-assed cartoon commercials that are. And I for one praise God for that.

Chestnuts roasted by Cotter @ 07/20/2007 5:58 PM

Lori, I’m not sure if you were talking about my post here, but if you were I would like to explain myself. I’m not saying it’s the bright colors and cartoon characters that make kids want the product, I’m talking about the advertising. Those commercials are designed to get kids attention, so they will remember it, and pester mom and dad to buy it. Many parents have to take their kids shopping with them because they have no one to watch them and its easy to give in a buy the stupid cereal or cookies to get them to stop crying. I personally would not take kids shopping but some parents don’t have that luxury. Once the parents buy them the product then the kids taste it and realize how sweet it is they want it more. If the advertising had not been there telling them how good it is, and how every kid should have it, they might not have known what it was in the first place.

Todd, From personal experience there was no buying things to shut us up. Early on, if we carried on, we were taken outside away from the other customers and laid into (verbally) that we do not act that way in public. There was no more carrying on, there was no more begging for toys or cereal. We sat there and shut up will mom went and bought the groceries.. that went for all 5 of us. It’s a lot earlier to shove a bribe down a kids throat than it is to teach them that, that is not the proper way to behave.

Chestnuts roasted by Double G @ 07/20/2007 6:01 PM

not sure where my brain is today… but that should read “while mom…” and “easier to shove…”

Chestnuts roasted by Double G @ 07/20/2007 6:03 PM

dohopoki No hostility felt, or taken. Hopefully I didn’t come off hostile to you, just the morons who make these decisions.

I just think that cereal is the last thing negatively affecting kids, and obese kids are ultimately the fault of the parents, for the most part, since they’re the ones buying the food.

Other than that, I think we all pretty much feel the same way about this piece of news, for the most extent. Which is kind of rare. I think that’s why I like coming here. =)

Chestnuts roasted by Darth Galvatron @ 07/20/2007 6:41 PM

Looking at this article, it has become abundantly clear that General Mills and all those other companies that are voluntarily cutting back on advertising COULDN’T CARE LESS about children.

Think about it – shouldn’t ceasing child-targeted ads of a child-targeted cereal product be the equivalent of marketing suicide? General Mills is trying to send the message “We recognize that our product is horrible and we are trying to help kids stop buying it because we are a good company”. But really, what kind of screwed-up message is that? “Look Mr. Government! We are trying so hard of our own power to stop selling this horrible children’s food product to our target audience of children, but they just keep asking for it and their parents just keep buying it! Whatever are we to do? We’re really trying hard to keep kids from eating junk, but they keep eating the sugary artificially flavored food-stuff we make. Isn’t that weird?” In other words, killing the Captain is just part of a last ditch effort to keep the government from regulating the super-cheap and unhealthy corn-based, etc. products that go into the child-targeted foods by drawing attention to the ethical aspects of the child-targeted ad campaigns

Chestnuts roasted by Anonymous @ 07/21/2007 4:22 AM

(continued from above… Sorry, I pressed send before I meant to…)

So, these companies looked at the monetary risk that having to changing their products (or having them forcibly discontinued because they are too high in dangerously unhealthy ingredients) because of new government regulations would have versus the financial impact of ceasing TV commercials with cartoon characters and opted for the latter.

In summary: IF YOUR SNACKS AND CEREALS FOR CHILDREN ARE SO BAD THAT YOU WANT US TO BELIEVE THAT YOU WILL VOLUNTARILY STOP TRYING TO SELL THEM TO YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE, CHANGE THE PRODUCT, NOT THE COMMERCIAL CHARACTERS!

Chestnuts roasted by Force Captain Adora @ 07/21/2007 4:33 AM

So you’re saying they could’ve removed just a bit of the sugar in the cereal versus jettisoning the Cap’n; that he was just a sacrificial lamb to them? Interesting…

Chestnuts roasted by Andrew @ 07/22/2007 11:08 AM

Adora: Remember that a lot of these foods have an unspoken but substantial teen-to-adult market. Many of us still go for the cereals we grew up on. While more people probably change out to something less sugary and colorful as much out of personal taste than health reasons, there’s still a nut to be had in things like Cap’n Crunch, even without the direct marketing to kids.

In the lobby of my work building is this little coffee shop that also sells quick breakfast and lunch meals for employees-in-a-rush. Among them are several small, prepackaged bowls of things like Trix and Lucky Charms. There are no kids in the building, so somebody else is eating that, too.

But to your general point, it’s still pretty nuts that food companies are being forced to treat their “wares” the same way Marlboro has to treat cigarettes.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 07/22/2007 11:37 AM

I am all rambley and non-pointed. I apologize in advance for the that.

As always we can count on good ol’ Chuck Klosterman for a bit of wisdon:

“[...] [H]ates the way they target children. This is intriguing, because I remember seeing thousands of ‘Just Say No’ advertisements when I was young, and those didn’t seem to take. All those ‘Got Milk?’ ads don’t seem to make people crazy for milk, either. Why is it that the only advertising campaigns that work seem to sell bad things that people actually desire? Isn’t that a weird coincidence?”

(“McDiculous” from Esquire, May 2004)

Children do not want these stupid cereals because the stupid poorly drawn pirate tells them to eat them. They want them because they are pretty much all sugar and have pretty colors. Kids are fucking stupid, but not that fucking stupid. They want things that they like. Kids like the fucking McDonalds and the fucking Cap’n Crunch. Sure it tastes like shit, but it is good tasting shit to some.

It does not matter how well “good” foods are marketed either. It comes down to taste. There is some appeal to certain cereals until the age of 7, but after that kids want what tastes good. Not celery or vegetable juice (which is loaded with salt) or any other “healthy” alternative. Even those fucking singing raisins sold more swag than food.

And as far as everything else goes these cereals are really not that bad. Look at the numbers on the box. Not too problematic. Kids should be out and about playing and shit. Not on the fucking internet playing capncrunch.com minigames. If only the world was not so scary with all the terrorisms and child abductions and murderers on the news (I was going to pun serial killer, but that is fucking hackish.)

The bigger issue here is that this is for childrens under the age of 12. Now I aint know ’bout you folks, but I at the age of 9 years old was not buying my own cereal or junk food. There was really no way I could. I could stop at the local shithole market and buy stuff if I had money. But I did not. I was fucking 10. I did not have a job or other source of income. My parents was buying the products. A lot of taste is learned behavior. Methinks that some lazy parents–who I am picturing as being quite rotund–want to cheap out and put the blame on someone else.

I guess that in the end this is just another example of my fun being ruined because some asshole will not explain to his or her 8 little moron offspring why junk food is meant to be only a small part of a person’s diet and why advertisements need to be viewed with a bit of [I do not know what word I wanted, so madlib this one].

There is also an issue if one does go the route of using popular characters to sell “healthier” items as one is not really educating healthy lifestyle choices but exploiting blind consumption. You know, like I am buying…oh… Ninja Turtles celery because I am loyal to the characters and branded shit not because I want a lower calorie foodstuff.

You have also got to keep in mind that children’s cereals are a very competitive market–worse is that all cereals are pretty much the same (compare energy and nutrition content). Last time I was at the grocer there was an entire aisle of cereal products there for me to choose. Advertising is one way of developing interest in the product. Of course it is not a way to guarantee a customer if they do not like the product, but even I–an educated consumer–have purchased things for which I have viewed ads.

I am all rambley and non-pointed. I apologize for that. Again.

Chestnuts roasted by the jeff. @ 07/22/2007 7:49 PM

Your right! I haven’t seen a silly rabbit or a captain crunch on my television screen in god knows how fucking long!

It makes me rather sad =’[ to think that these insanely awesome characters that made breakfast so fun and exciting, are practically gone from pop culture. Sure, as you said, these characters are still advertised on the boxes of cereal, but it’s totally not the same deal.

I want to watch kids chase a little Irish dude for lucky charms! I want to see silly rabbit one day finally get to eat his Trix; I need to see that rainbow beaked bird eat some more cereal!!

THIS IS MADNESS.

Chestnuts roasted by Victoria @ 07/22/2007 11:35 PM

it’s quite simple. captain crunch doesn’t make people obese. laziness makes them obese. i’ve never been this outraged since they got rid of Back to the Future at universal orlando

Chestnuts roasted by Steven @ 07/23/2007 5:37 PM

I’m on your sides. On one hand, I’ve long thought my mother babied my brother way too much. (He wasn’t allowed out on his own until he was in his teens…which wasn’t true for me or my sisters.)

On the other hand, my brother is lucky my mom is a) one of the least-lazy people on the planet, and b) a health-food freak who has always encouraged her children to eat well and play lots of sports. She studied nutrition when she taught aerobics during the 80s, and a lot of it stuck. My brother plays football, has played soccer and baseball in the past, and is considering lacrosse…AND is a video game fanatic. He regularly works out in his school gym and is more stacked than some guys twice his age, yet still eats pizza and Doritos with his buddies like any normal 14-year-old.

My mom can be a pain about a lot of things (she’s nagged me about my weight problems since I was nine), but some of her suggestions do make sense. I’ve tried to keep as many fresh fruits and veggies in my apartment as my budget and the season allows, and I buy from a farm market ten minutes away whenever I can during the late spring, summer, and fall. (Not only are they cheaper, but they taste better, too.) Cookies are my addiction, so I try to buy ones that are genuinely low in fat and sugar, like Fig Newtons or the hard gingersnaps many stores sell in the late summer and fall. I love to bake and have been working on ways to eliminate fat and sugar in my cakes and cookies without sacrificing taste. (A tip – applesauce does wonders in replacing shortening and makes cakes moist, too. Also try yogurt.)

Even with a busier schedule than my mom or me, it’s not that hard for parents and children to fit in some exercise. Go for a walk around the block or to a local playground. If you have a backyard, park, or even a vacant lot handy, play catch. Even 10 minutes will work wonders.

Let your kids indulge their cravings…in moderation. Don’t give in when they ask for more than they need. (This goes for adults, too – it’s something I’ve been working on myself lately.)

Blaming the media is taking the easy way out. People ought to look at their own habits, not cartoon characters. I didn’t buy candy bars or make fattening cookies because a cartoon character told me so, I did it because I’d done it all my life, and it was a habit.

But habits can be broken…if the person wants to break them.

Chestnuts roasted by starwenn @ 07/27/2007 9:57 PM

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