A recent link on Digg pointed me to yet another compiled list of 20 old cereals which, admittedly, wasn’t much more interesting than prior compiled lists of old cereals. But this time I noticed that a large number of these cereals were made by Ralston.
Big bad evil Google led me to Ralston’s site which in and of itself was retro: it looks as if it hasn’t been updated since 1999. Ralston is a brand of the unfortunately-named Ralcorp, and now mostly churns out store-brand cereals. My guess is that Ralston had a bunch of generic cereal shapes available and went after licenses to make things like Urkel-O’s a little more, uh, appealing. When that all dried up, store brands were the hot thing. Totally makes sense.
Most importantly, though, is that I remember having almost all of these cereals as a kid. Morning Funnies was arguably the most depressing, with its grouping of multiple comic stripes on the front – and wow, I’d forgotten entirely about Marvin – and generic cereal inside. But really folks: The Family Circus sells cereal.
Posted in Childhood Memories