Happy Halloween 2009!

I hope everyone is having a nice Halloween. I've sure had my fill of candy and treats today.

Here are a few holiday themed items I thought I'd share today.

First is a special edition of Chips Ahoy! cookies from Nabisco. Cookie Guy, their mascot, is dressed up as a vampire bat! Orange morsels are mixed in with the chocolate to make an extra special treat.




Next is a fun Halloween sign from a Hostess outlet store. This is from a few years ago and features Fruit Pie The Magician and Twinkie the Kid showing off the holiday goodies. Thanks to my buddy Gregg for this!



Lastly, here's a surprise find at Dunkin' Donuts this year. It's a pretty groovy Halloween box. Best of all it was filled with those delicious Munchkins!

Sugar Crisp Cereal - 1960s

One of my all-time favorite product mascots is none other than Sugar Bear, the wise-cracking, super-cool, anthropomorphic bear from Post Cereal fame.

Though the cereal has changed names over the years from Sugar Crisp to Super Sugar Crisp to Super Golden Crisp to finally just Golden Crisp, Sugar Bear has been keeping it cool on the breakfast table since 1963.

Here's an unused wrapper that would have gone on a single-serving cereal box between 1966 and 1968.

"Can't get enough of that Sugar Crisp!"

National Waffle Day 2009!

Today, August 24, is National Waffle Day in the United States! This celebrates the day in 1869 that Cornelius Swarthout patented the first U.S. waffle iron -- 140 years ago!

Be sure to enjoy some waffles today in celebration of Mr. Swarthout's contribution to the American breakfast table! Here are a couple of items I pulled out to share today.

First is this vintage Eggo Nutri-Grain waffles box from 1985:

And here's an Eggo Cereal box from Kellogg's earlier this year, 2009:

Lastly, here's an old Eggo Waffles commercial which appears to be from the late 1970s or early 1980s. It was posted to YouTube by Thessair.

Blackberry meets Blackberry

I was having a little fun here with my smartphone. Now I can take a bit of vintage Fruit Pie magic with me everywhere. After all, you never know when a giant sea monster will appear demanding snack cakes. Now where's my cape...?

Jungle Fred and the Toast'em Animals

(not Fred)

Did you ever have wild animals pop out of your toaster? If you were a kid in the late 1960s, that may have happened in a kitchen near you!

Popping off supermarket shelves and onto breakfast tables everywhere in the mid 1960s were new toaster pastries. There were Pop-Tarts by Kellogg's, Toastettes by Nabisco and Toast'ems by General Foods.

It seems that around 1967 Toast'ems launched another product specifically geared for kids called Toast'em Animals. These goodies came in colorful boxes, brilliantly designed with fun animals. The first flavors were Sugar Spice Lions, Chocolate Elephants and Berry Bears. (Oh my!) Sugar Spice Lions were also called Cinnamon Lions, though I'm not sure when the name changed.

My friend Dan has one of the original boxes on his blog: click here

And my friend PopTartsBox has an original supermarket display photo on Flickr: click here

According to the commercial and some loyal Toast'em fans, these pastries were bursting with flavor! Here's an image of the one-and-only Jungle Fred, a seasoned wild game hunter with a keen awareness of Toast'em Animals.

(Jungle Fred)

As the commercial goes, Jungle Fred reviews his super-secret supermarket map to stalk his crumbly prey. A priceless bit of animation and advertising history, here's the commercial which was uploaded to YouTube by retrotvluver.

What a treat! Jungle Fred looks like he may have been a cousin of the great Cap'n Crunch.

Some time after the original three flavors hit the market, General Foods continued the line with three more -- Peanut Butter Buffalo, Munch-A-Berry Monkey and Tutti-Frutti Owl. I have this lovely fold-over coupon in my collection which shows the three new fun-to-eat varieties. It's undated but I'd guess it's from 1968.

We see here that there were other Toast'em brands including Fancy Frosted and Pop-Ups. As for premiums, I know of some Toast'em Animals iron-ons. There may have been other items, though I'm not an expert on this product line.

As for Jungle Fred, I can only hope that he had many more adventures and lived a long life full of pastries and stories to tell. If you have memories or more information about Toast'em Animals, click the comments link below and post a comment. Of course I'd love to find one of the original boxes if you've got one lost in the back of your pantry. :-)

(Jungle Fred and his super-secret supermarket map)

Happy 7-Eleven Day 2009!

Today is 7-Eleven Day -- July 11th! Stores were giving away free 7.11 ounce Slurpees today in celebration.

Slurpees have been one of my great obsessions since childhood. The perfect mix of ice, syrup, colors, cool straws and cups. Of course back in the old days we were treated to all sorts of collectible plastic cups featuring super heroes, baseball players and cartoon characters. Fortunately I've never outgrown my love for Slurpees. I grab one whenever I can, and rather frequently in this crazy summer heat!

Here's a vintage matchbook cover from 7-Eleven in the 1960s. They used this bespectacled fellow in some of their ads back then. I'd like to know if he had a name. Also we see the older style store logo here. I'm more familiar with the logo atop this blog post from the 1970s to today.

And while we're at it, let's enjoy some salty snacks with our Big Gulp or Slurpee. Nothing better than Frito-Lay products to tackle that job! Here's a cross-promotional pog from the early 1990s in Hawaii featuring Chester Cheetah. "It isn't easy being cheesy," though it's much easier with an ice cold Slurpee on hand.

Golden Crisp / Night At The Museum Promotion

Post Cereal had a nice promotion this year in conjunction with the Night At The Museum movie. Some really cool cereal boxes were produced, like this one from Golden Crisp. I saved one from Honey-Comb and Fruity Pebbles, too.

They didn't do anything special on the box backs. They've used this same back in recent years.

Saturday Commercial Break #18: Hostess Fruit Pies

This week's commercial break features our good friend Fruit Pie The Magician bringing some snacks to the kids at the Franklin School. Good wholesome fun with Hostess Cakes.

This commercial was uploaded to YouTube by divishion, and should date to the early 1980s.

I sure miss the old Hostess gang! Let's hope that Fruit Pie The Magician returns to his rightful place on the pie wrappers soon.

Saturday Commercial Break #17: Exploding Jack In The Box

I haven't been posting as regularly as I would like on my blog. I'm going to try to start posting twice a week. We'll see how that goes...

I thought that I would revive the Saturday Commercial Break segment. I had stopped it for a while because it seemed that YouTube was removing old commercials from their site. Apparently that was due to copyright issues or something. I'm still seeing a lot of new commercials being posted there, so I'll try it again for a while.

Here's Saturday Commercial Break #17 from Jack In The Box restaurants. I don't recall the year, but I do remember when this commercial came out. What a sight to see that clown exploding! Maybe they decided to stop clowning around and concentrate on good food -- like their *new* Hot Ham and Cheese (as shown here)! This was uploaded to YouTube by commercialclassic.

Invisible Ink Monster Pens

If you were rolling your shopping cart down the cereal aisle in June of 1978, you may have spotted this Super Sugar Crisp box and had some fun with an Invisible Ink Monster Pen.