Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dan Ray on w BZY, Boston's
Speaker 1: news video.
Speaker 2: Thank you Madison. This is my last night filling in
Speaker 2: for Dan Ray. This is my fifth show. I started
Speaker 2: last Thursday, then I did Monday, Wednesday, Yesterday Thursday, and
Speaker 2: now today Friday. And today's show will be a bit
Speaker 2: more light than I have done this week. And we're
Speaker 2: going to start off today the way it should be.
Speaker 2: Started off with Breakfast Cereal. Maybe you heard the conversation
Speaker 2: Bradley Jay and I were have in the other day
Speaker 2: and somehow we get on the subject of Captain Crunch
Speaker 2: and I had to teach Bradley about Captain Crunch's crew,
Speaker 2: Brunhilda the only female of the crew, and Alf and
Speaker 2: Dave and Carlisle and Sea Dog. They were all in
Speaker 2: those commercials from the mid sixties. Now, yeah, I remember
Speaker 2: these things. But the man who is better at remembering
Speaker 2: all of those commercials and history woven through Breakfast Cereal
Speaker 2: since the early nineteen hundreds up to present, is here,
Speaker 2: mister Tufer. Ellis and Tofa wrote a book called the
Speaker 2: Great American Cereal Book, amongst others. Tofer welcome back. It's
Speaker 2: been a.
Speaker 3: While, it has been thank you very much. I'm glad
Speaker 3: to be here.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad to have you. And did I get
Speaker 2: Captain Crunch's crew front center and accounted for? Of course
Speaker 2: you did. And I even remember. I'm not playing trivia
Speaker 2: with you. I know better, but I'm just going to
Speaker 2: ask you if you remember Sea Dog's cereal.
Speaker 3: Yes, that was the Nilli Crunch on the nose, on.
Speaker 2: The nose, because they've they've had several Captain crunch varieties.
Speaker 2: And I remember when Crunchberry's was a seasonal cereal for
Speaker 2: several years and it became so popular they just had
Speaker 2: to make sure you could get it any month of
Speaker 2: the twelve months of the year.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, with the Crunchberry Beast from Crunchberry Island in
Speaker 3: the Sea of Milk.
Speaker 2: You see the stuff that you can do just stuff
Speaker 2: the top of your head. I am impressed. Tell people
Speaker 2: how you got into breakfast cereals.
Speaker 3: Ah, Well, as a kid, I had two brothers and
Speaker 3: we all liked This was in the early sixties, so
Speaker 3: that was kind of the heyday of having prizes inside
Speaker 3: boxes of cereal and we would all fight for the
Speaker 3: privilege of getting the prize in the bottom of the
Speaker 3: box and so we would have quite a few different
Speaker 3: boxes of cereal at home and taking turns and who
Speaker 3: gets the prize.
Speaker 2: I remember tricks had the Whirligig, which was basically a
Speaker 2: propeller on something akin to a swizzle stick, and you
Speaker 2: put it between your hands and you just quickly rubbed
Speaker 2: your right hand fast against your left hand, and that
Speaker 2: thing would fly all the way up to the ceiling
Speaker 2: and rotate back down to the floor. I don't know why,
Speaker 2: but that thing just captivated my attention.
Speaker 3: There was no That's clearly one of the fun prizes
Speaker 3: in side. Back in the day, one of my favorites
Speaker 3: was the spoon Sitters, Yes, the winning of the poohspoon
Speaker 3: Sitters or the spoon men, for these nice plastic characters
Speaker 3: that you can always play with, but they would also
Speaker 3: sit on your spoon, or they would kind of sit
Speaker 3: on the hands inside your bowl.
Speaker 2: You mentioned you mentioned we need the pool, and you're
Speaker 2: just setting me up to take a golf shot straight
Speaker 2: down the fairway. We need the pool, we need the
Speaker 2: Pooh Caddlio Bear has a prize for you. That was
Speaker 2: the jingle for you, WENI the pool spoon Sitter from
Speaker 2: the Bisco I could have done the whole thing, but
Speaker 2: I I try to restrain myself when I catch myself
Speaker 2: going off in a tangent of singing one of these jingles.
Speaker 2: And is your great American serial book still available?
Speaker 3: It's not currently in print, but folks have found that
Speaker 3: occasion occasionally on eBay or used copies on Amazon.
Speaker 2: Okay, and that's not the only book that you have written.
Speaker 2: What others have you written?
Speaker 3: Psh, No, that's that's it. There was a there was
Speaker 3: a pre quoll to that called Milking that Crazy Cow. Okay,
Speaker 3: he's really lucky to find that one out there that
Speaker 3: was different press. Outside of that, we got the serial.
Speaker 2: Website, all right, And I want you to tell the story.
Speaker 2: I'm going to take a break in about a minute,
Speaker 2: but how people, everyday people could own property in Alaska
Speaker 2: thanks to a breakfast cereal. Every time you tell that story,
Speaker 2: I just love hearing it. And I'm going to invite
Speaker 2: people to call in. If you have a vague memory
Speaker 2: of a cereal or its commercial, but you're not one
Speaker 2: sure of the details, give us a call six one, seven,
Speaker 2: four ten thirty or eight eight, eight, nine to nine
Speaker 2: ten thirty. It's a guarantee that Toufort will help your
Speaker 2: memory and fill in the blanks and talk about the
Speaker 2: fact that Yogi Bear used to be on a cereal
Speaker 2: from Kellogg's called Okay's, or that there was from Ralston
Speaker 2: Purina a cereal called Freakis which I loved that cereal
Speaker 2: in the nineteen seventies. And I even got some of
Speaker 2: the stuff that you could send away for t shirts
Speaker 2: and other things somewhere. I still have patches from Freakys cereals.
Speaker 2: They lived in a freaky tree. So if you want
Speaker 2: to call in and talk about Freaky's or Kellogg's Okays
Speaker 2: or Captain Crunch or Tricks or what have you, I've
Speaker 2: got demand for your car station. Here he is, mister
Speaker 2: taufer Ellis. And on that note, let me take my
Speaker 2: break here on Nightside, Dan Ray is off. He'll be
Speaker 2: back on Monday. I'm Morgan filling in and Nightside comes along.
Speaker 2: Whether Dan is here or not. Time and temperature eight
Speaker 2: point fifteen eighty one degrees.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Way Live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Life Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: Dan has been off for over a week, but he
Speaker 2: will be back on Monday. I'm Morgan. Been proud of
Speaker 2: the BZ fabric. Oh good grief since the mid nineties,
Speaker 2: and tonight we're talking about breakfast cereals. And before I
Speaker 2: take some calls that are already cued in line, by
Speaker 2: the way, there's a line available if you want at
Speaker 2: six one, seven, two, four, ten thirty, eight, eight, eight,
Speaker 2: nine to nine ten thirty is there for your use
Speaker 2: as well. This is a true story. Tofer Elis, who
Speaker 2: is my serial historian, is here and he's going to
Speaker 2: tell you how you could have by buying a box
Speaker 2: of cereal, wound up owning land in Alaska tofa taken away.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Back in the mid fifties, Quaker Oaths was
Speaker 3: punted in a radio show called Start Impressedon of the Yukon,
Speaker 3: and they wanted to promote that show, so they went
Speaker 3: out and purchased nineteen point one one wilderness acres in
Speaker 3: the Yukon Territory, divided up those parcels into one square
Speaker 3: inch tracks, created a Fox certificate essentially a deed of
Speaker 3: land called the Klondike Big Inch Land Deed, and they
Speaker 3: made those available through Quaker puffed wheat, Quaker puffed rice
Speaker 3: and Muppets treaded wheat. Essentially the idea was, hey, wow,
Speaker 3: maybe your parcel, your parcel, your one inch parcel might
Speaker 3: have that golden nugget in it. And so in nineteen
Speaker 3: fifty five they just started distributing those deeds. They were
Speaker 3: really pretty. You can find them on eBay, probably for
Speaker 3: between ten and twenty bucks, but demand was so great
Speaker 3: they were running two and three ships to get these out. Originally,
Speaker 3: you had to send in a box top to trade
Speaker 3: in for a deed, but as the Ohio Securities Division
Speaker 3: ruled that Quaker couldn't trade a square inch of Yukon
Speaker 3: for a box stop unless they received the state license
Speaker 3: for the sale of foreign land, Quaker eliminated that aspect
Speaker 3: of other and started sticking them in boxes. So they
Speaker 3: ended up doing about like I mentioned, about twenty one
Speaker 3: million deeds. And then in about nineteen sixty five, the
Speaker 3: Klondike Big Inch Land Company dissolved and allowed as Yukon
Speaker 3: Land to revert back to Canadians government because of non
Speaker 3: ponment of thirty seven dollars and twenty cents in taxes.
Speaker 2: Aw, now did your friend get together? So everybody in
Speaker 2: your neighborhood put their piece together, and now they were
Speaker 2: something of a conglomerate amongst themselves.
Speaker 3: There were some of that going on. Absolutely. There was
Speaker 3: a fella who acquired three square inches and donated those
Speaker 3: as for use as a national park. There was one
Speaker 3: guy that went all over the United States collecting deeds.
Speaker 3: He finally ended up with eighty of those deeds, which
Speaker 3: amounted the seventy five square feet, and he wrote to
Speaker 3: a Quaker to see if he couldn't consolidate his holdings
Speaker 3: in the one hunk, and he said he preferred land
Speaker 3: close to the water and as quiet as possible. There
Speaker 3: was one other fellow that officially succeeded from Canada. His
Speaker 3: three square inches be a letter. And then there was
Speaker 3: one of the There was one of the fellow that
Speaker 3: sent a bunch of toothpicks to a Quaker asked him
Speaker 3: to put a fifth round his property.
Speaker 2: Now that's creative. That's creative. Tell you what. We've got
Speaker 2: some people that have called in and let's first go
Speaker 2: to Lowell and speak to Ryan. Ryan, I bet you
Speaker 2: have a question for tofa.
Speaker 3: Yeah, guys, hey, I appreciate the blast in the past.
Speaker 3: And uh talking about the prize in the box of
Speaker 3: cereal coming from three other brothers. It was. I can't
Speaker 3: tell you what the breakfast table looked like. Fighting for
Speaker 3: the prize.
Speaker 2: Yeah, name name one instance, be specific.
Speaker 3: Uh. There was something in the bottom of the tricks
Speaker 3: and I forget what it was, but it was like
Speaker 3: we fight, fight to get it.
Speaker 2: Tricks had tiddley winks at the bottom, a little cup
Speaker 2: with a variety of tiddley winks, a number of Go ahead.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry the tricks I thing you were talking about
Speaker 3: when you spun it in your hands and went flying
Speaker 3: up in the air. Yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 2: A whirligig.
Speaker 3: The whirligig the reason I'm calling you guys if I
Speaker 3: my memory correct, what I remember some box that you
Speaker 3: could cut out the box and it was a record.
Speaker 3: You could play it on a record player.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, we've talked about this to.
Speaker 3: Fa Am I am I correct or not?
Speaker 2: You're one correct tefer tell them all about it.
Speaker 3: Yes, Post had a number of those boxes on Sherman
Speaker 3: I think was one. I know some of those names
Speaker 3: are coming.
Speaker 2: The Monkeys, Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson, five, the Monkeys, the Archies.
Speaker 2: At various times on the backs of alphabets and sugar
Speaker 2: Crisp cereal. You had a real forty five record.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I really thought I was going crazy,
Speaker 3: but said, I got to call these guys and see
Speaker 3: if they recall it, because I remember putting it out
Speaker 3: and put it, put it on the on the record
Speaker 3: player and listen to it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, but it wasn't healthy for the needle on your record.
Speaker 1: Player, right right.
Speaker 3: I mean it wasn't the top quality.
Speaker 2: No it was not. But you could play Sugar Sugar
Speaker 2: by the Archiees as you ate your alphabets covered with sugar,
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to make confirm I wasn't going crazy.
Speaker 2: You were not going crazy.
Speaker 3: Gentlemen, Thank you so much and keep it up. I
Speaker 3: love the blast in the past.
Speaker 2: Ron, thank you for the call. We appreciate your comment.
Speaker 2: Good night, enjoy your weekend. Let's go, Let's go to
Speaker 2: San Francisco tofur and speak with my buddy David. So
Speaker 2: David and San Francisco. Welcome to Night's side.
Speaker 4: Thank you, borian as A, Hello, Toper, Hello, Nassy, Hello Gray, Hello, Cora,
Speaker 4: Hello Tody Ohio. On first saw war is I want
Speaker 4: to thank you very much for ford be the opportunity
Speaker 4: to shot with Bradley.
Speaker 2: Oh, no problem.
Speaker 4: That just made week. His spirit just really raises me.
Speaker 2: And uh, he's a very popular personality from the history
Speaker 2: of BZ and periodically I bring him back.
Speaker 4: Yes, he's uh, we're all radio buddies, and he just
Speaker 4: like really, uh, we're about the same age, so we
Speaker 4: have to save uh, you know, counterculture experiences.
Speaker 2: And he and I got into a conversation about Captain crunch.
Speaker 4: Ah. So you guys were talking to them. Remember who
Speaker 4: wrote this song, Red rubber Ball?
Speaker 2: Who wrote it for the Circle? Yeah, uh, I don't know,
Speaker 2: but we're talking about breakfast cereal tonight.
Speaker 4: I know this is just a side for you, Paul Simon.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, thank you, okay.
Speaker 4: And I was just above a bowl of cereal before
Speaker 4: What's school the boy as a child as uh, we
Speaker 4: all did Rice Christie's or poor Flakes, and always had
Speaker 4: a banata and sometimes I had it with chocolate bill Okay,
Speaker 4: I remember those uh packs of small small boxes of
Speaker 4: cereal usually comes like eight or tens of packs right
Speaker 4: cut on the dot. It would be lot with waxed
Speaker 4: paper and you actually make the cereal in the box.
Speaker 2: Yes you could.
Speaker 3: About those.
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, let to let to fore.
Speaker 2: Tell you about the variety packs go ahead to for Oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: there are.
Speaker 3: Any number of them, uh, from the different companies, and
Speaker 3: as he mentioned the you know they typically with your
Speaker 3: snack pack where you have a little box would be
Speaker 3: half an ounce or so you you're great, You cut
Speaker 3: it open on a kind of an H shape and
Speaker 3: pull back the two wings. Yeah. You pour pour milk
Speaker 3: directly into the box itself and then eat directly out
Speaker 3: of the box. Typically had varieties that included all your
Speaker 3: favorite sugary cereals and you can still buy them today
Speaker 3: and anyone between six and six and.
Speaker 4: Yeah, do you remember they were Rice Christie's and I've
Speaker 4: had the court Flakes tross the place.
Speaker 2: Kes Kelloggs did theirs. Every company had their General Mills
Speaker 2: had theirs.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we got Kells right natural a raisin brand. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and I think Cheerios is one of them too.
Speaker 2: No Cheerios would have been in the big G package.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, and uh, well that's about it, all right.
Speaker 4: Trivia question if your mind.
Speaker 2: Well, you're already led with one, leve with one, and
Speaker 2: I you're closing with one. What's the question.
Speaker 4: Do you know where the term of uh ivy league
Speaker 4: came from?
Speaker 2: Yes? I do, Roman numeru four.
Speaker 4: You're big, old man. You're good. You are so good.
Speaker 4: Well call and have a great week, everybody.
Speaker 2: David, you take care. Byebye, And I've got about thirty
Speaker 2: more minutes with TOFA to talk breakfast cereals. I'm about
Speaker 2: to take a break. Maybe we'll throw a hit a
Speaker 2: news in there if you want to call in, as
Speaker 2: the previous two callers did. Six one, seven, two, five, four, ten,
Speaker 2: thirty eight eight, eight, nine to nine, ten thirty TOF
Speaker 2: is here and as you can tell, he can answer
Speaker 2: any question, at least the one so far dealing with
Speaker 2: breakfast cereals. And it may take you back to when
Speaker 2: you were in the fifth grade in the sixties, or
Speaker 2: you were in junior high in the fifties, or maybe
Speaker 2: as recent as just two weeks ago, when you're going
Speaker 2: down the aisle in the supermarket and you saw uh
Speaker 2: a box of your favorite cereal and you said, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna buy it for all times sake. You do that,
Speaker 2: you give us a call here on nights side. This
Speaker 2: is w b Z time and temperature eight thirty and
Speaker 2: it's now seventy nine degrees.
Speaker 3: Oh bed behind a Greek stream.
Speaker 2: Sunday, the boss.
Speaker 3: We call them my curious spell it right.
Speaker 2: But weird.
Speaker 3: I really have to see.
Speaker 1: My name is gumble green smell.
Speaker 2: This is my game.
Speaker 3: I know more than you do it, so I'm pretty goody.
Speaker 2: I always do what's right and my freaking serious because
Speaker 2: it's not a lot of Minday you.
Speaker 1: Do, I'm gonna have funky, rinky cereal is part of
Speaker 1: your good breakfast.
Speaker 2: Then there's a brave freaky especially Mark Boxers.
Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Ray on w Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: Rob and I are just reminiscing about all these cereals
Speaker 2: in our past, and that's what we're doing for the
Speaker 2: rest of this hour. I've got to for Ellis, who's
Speaker 2: looked upon as a serial historian, and he's already told
Speaker 2: us the story about you could have owned property in
Speaker 2: Alaska thanks to puffed wheat and puffed rice quaker out cereals.
Speaker 2: And I've got another call, so let's take a phone call,
Speaker 2: and then I've got some more things to talk about,
Speaker 2: specifically with Taufer Douglas. Welcome. Are you calling from Douglass
Speaker 2: or is your name Douglas? Hello, Yes, you're on the air.
Speaker 2: Not anymore, You're not on the air called back in
Speaker 2: and toft, let's talk about the battle between Cisp and
Speaker 2: Quake and how that just galvanized kids to be on
Speaker 2: one side or the other.
Speaker 3: Okay, you're talking mid sixties. They back in the day.
Speaker 3: These were Jayward drawn characters, and yes, sure has a good,
Speaker 3: good series of these, and it was I feel like
Speaker 3: those ads went on forever because there was constant battle
Speaker 3: between Cuisp and Quake. Cuisp had a kind of a
Speaker 3: plat flatterer or fossor shaped serial Quake had. He was
Speaker 3: a minor, so he had a little nugget shape cereal, Yes,
Speaker 3: basically the same cereal, just different shape, and they battled
Speaker 3: to be the guy who is going to be the
Speaker 3: most popular. Quisp. I was a Quisp guy, was too.
Speaker 2: I was a Cisp guy. And Quake. I think the
Speaker 2: you pour milk in and it would become orange because
Speaker 2: of the nuggets giving off that type of flavoring.
Speaker 3: Look, yeah, there was kind of a corn meal that
Speaker 3: was causing that. Okay, that was the merry ingredient and
Speaker 3: that was causing that that flavoring coloring of your milk.
Speaker 2: Okay, and I'm giving Rob credit. He and I during
Speaker 2: the commercial break, we were talking about the monster cereals
Speaker 2: by General Mills, and I asked him to name all five.
Speaker 2: Not only did he name all five, he told me
Speaker 2: about a newer one, number six. Do you want to
Speaker 2: rattle off the five monster cereals for the listeners?
Speaker 3: Originally we had Crank and Berry, Count Chocola Boolberry, and
Speaker 3: then came along Fruit Brute, Yummy Mummy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: For whatever reason, General Mills was like, the count Yummy
Speaker 3: Mummy is a a monster ceial. I've got no idea why,
Speaker 3: but officially it's not. And then most recently they've introduced
Speaker 3: a DJ character. Their name's not coming to me quickly.
Speaker 2: Rob, tell me Caramela. Thank you, Caramela. And I remember
Speaker 2: the controversy because there were and this is long before
Speaker 2: the LGBTQ conglomerate of people. They felt that fruit Brute
Speaker 2: was an unfair representation of a gay character. Now, there
Speaker 2: was nothing outwardly noticed by me about Fruit Brute being gay,
Speaker 2: but people complained about that and they pulled the cereal.
Speaker 3: Okay, well that's news to me. I never considered them gay,
Speaker 3: and I wouldn't have picked up on that anyway. I
Speaker 3: don't think me either. Well, we're talking fruit fruit though.
Speaker 3: I do think it's interesting that a box of fruit
Speaker 3: grout showed up in pulp fiction. Yes, and also in
Speaker 3: reservoir Dogs.
Speaker 2: Okay, I remember it in pulp fiction. Tay, what, let's
Speaker 2: go back to the phones this time. We're going to
Speaker 2: go to Beverly, mass and speak to Joline. Joline.
Speaker 5: I'm Morgan Hellotova.
Speaker 2: Thank you for calling.
Speaker 5: I love the subject. I'm in my seventies now, but
Speaker 5: in the eighties, when my children were young, they knew
Speaker 5: that treat cereals such as frosted flakes or tricks right only,
Speaker 5: and basically they only ate at breakfast time, playing cheerios
Speaker 5: or something like corn flakes. And I started saving my
Speaker 5: cereal boxes and I would buy throughout the years. Oh
Speaker 5: my gosh, I must have walk over one hundreds, and
Speaker 5: guess what my favorite one is, weedies. I just don't
Speaker 5: know what flavor it is.
Speaker 2: What's your favorite?
Speaker 5: There was an Oracle cereal.
Speaker 2: Yes there was, and that that's from the days where
Speaker 2: real people got on cereal boxes or personalities from the
Speaker 2: world of TV and movie these like see three pos
Speaker 2: and mister t Yes and ercle cereal was the real thing.
Speaker 5: It might have been we used to play a sport.
Speaker 2: Nocle was not an athlete.
Speaker 5: I didn't think so. But I had more fun with
Speaker 5: those cereal boxes. As the kids grew up, we played
Speaker 5: a candy Land game with them on a big rainy day,
Speaker 5: set out about fifty of the It would just be
Speaker 5: the front of the boxes and in a in a bucket.
Speaker 5: I would put the the tops of them, like for instance,
Speaker 5: cereios would be a yellow box top and then the
Speaker 5: face of the box itself would go on the floor. Okay,
Speaker 5: And the kids would just throughout the house, in the kitchen,
Speaker 5: through the living room floor upstairs, and they would make
Speaker 5: a candy Land game. And each kid would draw a
Speaker 5: box top from the plastic bag of the bucket, and
Speaker 5: they would go forward until they reached that particular cereal box,
Speaker 5: and just by candy Land. Sometimes you'd have to go backwards.
Speaker 5: We'd put two or three yellow cheerio boxes out and
Speaker 5: maybe just one of a less popular one. I'd have
Speaker 5: fewer of those.
Speaker 2: Weren't you a creative interactive mother?
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, it got me to so many rainy days.
Speaker 5: You wouldn't believe. It's like, oh, you'll talk about they're
Speaker 5: in their thirties and forties, and I'm betting.
Speaker 2: They would tell their friends when they went to school
Speaker 2: the next day about the fun they had with them
Speaker 2: on playing these games.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 5: I would bring that to my church and after Sunday
Speaker 5: school we would play sometimes a shorter version of that
Speaker 5: while they're waiting for their parents to get out of
Speaker 5: the Sunday for episodes Stairs.
Speaker 2: To thank you for sharing that. Thank you very very much.
Speaker 5: It was fun. I love your show, Morgan, thank you,
Speaker 5: thank you for that.
Speaker 2: Good night, Cheleen To. Can people see a website of
Speaker 2: something that you do updating the information on cereals?
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, good. The name of the site is tofa's
Speaker 3: Great American Serial Guide.
Speaker 2: And what will they find If they go to the
Speaker 2: Serial Guide, they.
Speaker 3: Will find pictures and information on Oh wow, over seventeen
Speaker 3: hundred different cereals and serial characters.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3: One of them is Percolos, which your last caller was
Speaker 3: referring to. That is when they came out about nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety one, based upon family Matters. Steven Erkle character A flavor,
Speaker 3: by the way, was banana and strawberry.
Speaker 2: That's a good combo. I've tasted that combination in the
Speaker 2: past and well, I never bought a box of ercolos
Speaker 2: did not interest me, But good grief did. Julie White
Speaker 2: strike it rich with that character. For people who don't
Speaker 2: know about the history of Steve Erkele. It was meant
Speaker 2: just to be a single episode with this weird kid,
Speaker 2: and the popularity of his appearance on Family Matters led
Speaker 2: to him becoming part of the cast. And it's almost
Speaker 2: like the Doctor Smith character of Lost in Space. He
Speaker 2: became he Steve Erkele, the driving force behind people watching
Speaker 2: it every week, and that happened. Yeah, all right, I've
Speaker 2: got another break to take. If you want to call in,
Speaker 2: I'll give you about another twelve to fifteen minutes left
Speaker 2: with my buddy right here. I've had many a time
Speaker 2: on Beezy Air to for Ellis and I hope you're enjoying.
Speaker 2: Taufer and I are taking you back in your memory
Speaker 2: to when you were a kid getting ready for school
Speaker 2: and spoon into the bowl woofing down your favorite cereal
Speaker 2: here on night Side Time eight forty five seventy nine degrees.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan ray My from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nice Sight Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 3: Dan Is off.
Speaker 2: He'll be back on Monday, I promise. My guest is
Speaker 2: mister tefer Ellis, and Tofer, I've got a treat for you.
Speaker 2: I used to love this commercial when it came on
Speaker 2: and Raw was able to find the audio clip to it.
Speaker 2: So buckle up and get ready for a spoonful of
Speaker 2: New Country corn flakes. Rob, you count crete cards, tag.
Speaker 6: You can Greek cards. They won't well when you par
Speaker 6: on me. Oh they want bug when they are their
Speaker 6: double toes Brisbane gold General Man next General where they
Speaker 6: show you put rick card drags, you cut rick cards,
Speaker 6: come to the corn some of the three wagging that
Speaker 6: they won't know when you bar on.
Speaker 2: The double bout the corn flag maybe rhyme.
Speaker 6: So buy our card leg You can't drink card bag,
Speaker 6: You can't creek card bags. Please buy our card bags.
Speaker 6: You can drink card wags. You cut Greek card bags.
Speaker 2: See Rob can see that commercial. I have to remember
Speaker 2: it tofor Did that ring a bell for you? It did?
Speaker 3: And what's interesting is that moo at the end. I
Speaker 3: believe it was actually a wooster hatching from an egg,
Speaker 3: yes and mooing right yes.
Speaker 2: And they had a couple of I guess site gags
Speaker 2: throughout that commercial. I think it was a pig that
Speaker 2: went buck buck bark as a chicken wood and it
Speaker 2: was a very creative commercial back in the late sixties.
Speaker 2: I don't think the product lasted. They were trying to
Speaker 2: compete with Kellogg's corn Flakes, they being General Mills, and
Speaker 2: you know, Kellogg's corn Flakes still was king. I don't
Speaker 2: even think Kellogg's cornflx is number one, two or three anymore?
Speaker 3: Are they relative the corn Flekes? They still are, But
Speaker 3: you're right, the Country corn Flkes was General Mills attempt
Speaker 3: to take market share in that area and they failed.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about some of the people, real and
Speaker 2: fictional that wound up on a cereal box. We talked
Speaker 2: about last break Ercolo's and I think I brought up
Speaker 2: mister T Cereal C three pos. Are there any other
Speaker 2: I'll say, individuals, whether they were real a fictional that
Speaker 2: come to mind that adorned a cereal box?
Speaker 3: Oh wow, you can go on for a long time
Speaker 3: on a lot of the characters, like you'll be there
Speaker 3: in the Hanna Barbera group, a lot of the different
Speaker 3: characters coming out of the Deward Studios. We mentioned qu quit.
Speaker 3: But they're also, of course the Huangaroo, Captain Krunt and
Speaker 3: that whole lineup on with a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: That was rast as well.
Speaker 3: Yes we can. We could probably do characters all night long.
Speaker 2: I was telling Rob you mentioned there are seventeen hundred
Speaker 2: examples of breakfast cereals from bygone days. I said, we'll
Speaker 2: be here to October. We started playing bits and pieces
Speaker 2: of all of these things. But if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 2: the top three cereals, and this might be as old
Speaker 2: as five years ago, and not in any particular order, Cheerios,
Speaker 2: frosted Flakes, and honey nut Cheerios are one, two and three.
Speaker 2: Do you agree that they are still the top three
Speaker 2: or has that top three changed?
Speaker 3: Those are probably in the mix. Anytime you've got a
Speaker 3: lot of spin offs like the like the Cheerios, right,
Speaker 3: you're going to capture a lot of market share.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: Corner Flicks of course has the number of spin offs.
Speaker 3: Captain Crunch has a couple. Uh that's there anywhere. Everyone
Speaker 3: know what they'ven the top ten, but things such as
Speaker 3: trying to come up with and Rea's puffs. They they've
Speaker 3: been having a pretty good push. But I don't know
Speaker 3: if they've made made top ten. Uh, they've been doing
Speaker 3: a lot of work on the grocery although, changing their
Speaker 3: box up and things like that. Yeah, I wouldn't doubt
Speaker 3: for the kid type of cereals that you've nailed it right.
Speaker 2: Real quick. Tell the story about the fourth Rice Krispy Elf,
Speaker 2: who isn't around anymore.
Speaker 3: I love that one. And everyone's familiar with Snap, Crackle
Speaker 3: and Pop who came out in the Map, of course,
Speaker 3: came out thirty three. Pop was nineteen forty one. Crackle
Speaker 3: was also forty one. But in the mid fifties they
Speaker 3: came out with a fourth brother and his name was Powell,
Speaker 3: and he was supposed to represent the energy that the
Speaker 3: ceial came out with. And basically he wrote around on
Speaker 3: a He had a sort of a I would call
Speaker 3: it a World War One type helmet, but he went
Speaker 3: around on some type of spaceship type vehicle was his
Speaker 3: way again and around. He never never made it to
Speaker 3: a box, but he may have appeared in a few commercials.
Speaker 3: We haven't found any that we can prove that got out,
Speaker 3: but we have seen commercials and concept.
Speaker 2: Dark And why do you think Pow just never caught
Speaker 2: on with the American public.
Speaker 3: Well, it could be more that it didn't catch on
Speaker 3: with the marketing VP there. So those folks really have
Speaker 3: a lot of pull on the early on the early
Speaker 3: looks on these things. And if you know, something happens,
Speaker 3: maybe the budget wasn't there, Maybe that particular VP didn't
Speaker 3: like what that represented. Uh, it just doesn't get doesn't
Speaker 3: go any further along.
Speaker 2: Now if people want to, I'll have to give you
Speaker 2: a website again. But if people want to write to
Speaker 2: you or do people see the website write to you
Speaker 2: and ask you questions and exchange ideas and concepts about Cereal,
Speaker 2: tell them how they do it.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, there are tribal contact areas on my website
Speaker 3: which is Cofer's Practice Serial Character Guide, and you'll you
Speaker 3: can easily find my contact information there, and yes I will,
Speaker 3: I will reply to you and give you my best
Speaker 3: answer to whatever question you've got.
Speaker 2: All right, And you mentioned how valuable the piece of
Speaker 2: land from puffed rice and puffed wheat for the Yukon was.
Speaker 2: I think you mentioned twenty bucks If you can find
Speaker 2: one of those real fast, I only have about ninety
Speaker 2: seconds a show to go for this hour. Give people
Speaker 2: another item that has value that came in a cereal
Speaker 2: box from back in the day.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, I'm going to jump back on the spoon sitters.
Speaker 3: Those are going for the spoon sitters. There were three
Speaker 3: of them in different sizes, and they had several different colors,
Speaker 3: and they were also came out from the Bisco and
Speaker 3: they were like spoonmn and the spoon men themselves will
Speaker 3: range anywhere from I don't know. I don't think I've
Speaker 3: seen them for less than fifteen bucks, as much as
Speaker 3: sixty to one hundred dollars.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: The antenna is to intact little antenna has a way
Speaker 3: of just breaking off really easily. So it's tough to
Speaker 3: get a really good conditioned version of those three. And
Speaker 3: each one has what the youngest one has just one
Speaker 3: little antenna, the second one has kind of a double
Speaker 3: antenna up the middle, and the third one has kind
Speaker 3: of a triple antenna. Okay, like I said, they kind
Speaker 3: of break off.
Speaker 2: Well TOFA, I want to thank you for coming on.
Speaker 2: As you can tell, everybody still has cereal in their
Speaker 2: heart from back in the day, and I'll have you
Speaker 2: on again. Maybe you're on the holidays and we can
Speaker 2: talk about holiday based cereals. And on that note, you
Speaker 2: enjoy your weekend, Okay.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it. Fun as always, Thank you, take.
Speaker 2: Care ta for all. Right, next hour, we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about porch performances in Watertown. You'll try it without
Speaker 2: my tongue in the way. You'll hear more about that
Speaker 2: after news here on WBZ. Time and temperature eight point
Speaker 2: fifty eight seventy nine degrees