Saturday morning cartoons used to represent the national repository for children's consumer culture in our country. According to the advertisers on network television, the jet fuel that ran the engine of commerce in the 3 to 10 year old set on Saturday mornings was the almighty breakfast cerael.Quisp and Quake were space aliens that blasted away at each other to vie for the attention of small hungry flying, parent-less children. Capt'n Crunch was always on the move finding treasure and trying to keep his sleepy eyes open. The Lucky Charms leprechaun danced across the screen as tiny marshmallow 'hearts, moons and stars' sprinkled electrons of joy into our collective psyche while slightly dazed children snatched at the empty air. Boo-berry, Count Chocula and Franken-berry pretended to scare unsuspecting toddlers into grabbing their spoons. Pebbles and Bam Bam, Sugar Smacks and Frosted Flakes all injected sugary rocket fuel into our young developing frontal lobes and left many a tearful supermarket aisle calamity in their wake.
Today, only a few of the mighty ceraels remain a serious fixture in children's television culture. Trix are still for kids, Lucky the leprechaun is still hopping around to confuse and annoy our children as we were once annoyed when we were children. Cocoa-Puffs remain one of the mighty heavy hitters in children's programming to this day. That brown bird has been "Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs" almost as long as I've been alive. With that many sugar balls in him, he should be zinging off the walls every five minutes. He should also have been dead long ago of a brain aneurysm but cartoons don't really die do they?
Cocoa Puffs must be what Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones eats for breakfast!
"Quisp sprang from a noble cereal lineage. He was related to Bullwinkle the Moose, Rocket J. Squirrel, and Captain Crunch. All of these characters were created by Jay Ward and Bill Scott. Scott and Ward teamed up in 1959 to make cartoons in Los Angeles."
Quoted from Wikepedia
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