Most kids grew up eating cereal before heading
off to school, or while watching their favorite Saturday morning cartoons, and have very fond
memories of the stuff. Unfortunately, cereal is one of the most frequent victims of discontinuation.
As a result, many of the cereals that people loved growing up are no longer being produced.
It’s time to reminisce with 10 discontinued cereals we miss. Breakfast with Barbie As one of the most popular toys of all time,
Barbie has appeared in several movies, on half the T-shirts in the kid’s section of
Wal-Mart and even has her own shampoo. As a marketing tool, the doll is one of the most
effective – slap the Barbie logo on anything, and children everywhere clamber to buy it.
Breakfast with Barbie made its debut in 1989, and, while its Barbie theme made it uber appealing
to kids, it also put considerable effort into pandering to parents. The box listed the cereal’s
several health benefits: it was lower in sugar than most other kid’s cereal, it contained
four “wholesome” grains and no artificial flavors or tropical oils were used. The cereal
itself came in various shapes, including hearts, cars, bows, stars and the letter “B”,
with the colors of the pieces including yellow and several shades of pink. During the “Got
Milk?” campaign, Mattel released a Breakfast with Barbie doll in 1999. While the doll had
no official ties to the fruit-flavored cereal, it would definitely be fun for kids to get
to enjoy their favorite breakfast alongside their favorite doll. Ice Cream Cones Cereal Some cereals on this list had long runs and
are looked back on with nostalgia by many. Others were discontinued before they ever
really had a chance to make it. Unfortunately, Ice Cream Cones Cereal falls into the latter
category. Introduced and discontinued in 1987, this cereal had a run shorter than its shelf-life.
The pieces of this cereal where shaped like tiny scoops of ice cream and cones. While
the ice cream scoops and the cones were separate, they actually fit together perfectly to form
miniature ice cream cones. The optimal way to eat this cereal was to ensure that you
got a mixture of ice cream and cones with each mouthful. Ice Cream Cones Cereal’s
animated mascot was a man named Ice Cream Jones, who, instead of driving an ice cream
truck, delivered ice cream cones from his bike. The cereal was revamped in 2003, to
honor the 100th anniversary of the ice cream cone, which is pretty cool, though the anniversary
edition is no longer available either. However, all hope is not lost, as General Mills released
Drumstick cereal, which while not similar in shape or appearance, is said to have a
similar taste to the original Ice Cream Cones Cereal, we'll let you be the judge! Rocky Road Keeping with the theme of ice cream inspired
cereals, Rocky Road cereal drew its inspiration from one of the most beloved ice cream flavors
of all time. The ice cream originated in 1929 and was named “Rocky Road” with the hopes
of bringing some joy to people’s lives after the stock market crash that led to the Great
Depression. The ice cream flavor consists of nuts and marshmallows mixed into chocolate
ice cream, and the cereal did a great job of emulating all the necessary components.
Rocky Road cereal was made up of chocolate and vanilla corn puffs, as well as marshmallows
covered in a dusting of a nutty chocolate coating. On the box was an illustration of
the cereal’s mascots: The Rocky Road Breakfast Band. The band members included a vanilla
corn puff named Van, a chocolate corn puff named Choco and a chocolate-covered marshmallow
named Marsha. In the Rocky Road commercials, the animated band performed the cereal’s
jingle, which claimed that “waking up to Rocky Road makes your breakfast sing.” Rocky
Road cereal was a huge hit in the eighties, but it was pulled from shelves because it
contained too much sugar. When you consider the fact that it was based on an ice cream
flavor, it’s not too surprising that it didn’t exactly make for a healthy, nutritious
breakfast. Following that logic, it’s also not surprising that kids everywhere were very
upset when it disappeared from grocery store shelves. Their parents probably weren’t
too broken up about it though. Smurf Berry Crunch It seems that the key to a successful cereal
is to base it off of a popular movie or TV show. The Smurfs was a hit cartoon back in
the day, and this cereal rode that popularity to great heights. The cereal first hit shelves
in 1983, two years into the TV show’s eight-year run. In the cartoon, smurfberries are one
of the primary sources of nutrition for the Smurfs. They’re small round berries which
are harvested from bushes. While this cereal doesn’t actually contain smurfberries (due
to them being fictional and all), its sweet, fruity flavors are designed to make it taste
like it is. A follow up cereal, Smurf Magic Berries was released in 1987, and was very
similar to Smurf Berry Crunch, except for the fact that it contained star-shaped marshmallows
alongside the berry-flavored cereal. With the trilogy of Smurfs films released in the
past decade garnering decent success, it might be time to bring this cereal back for round
two. Waffle Crisp When given the choice between French toast,
pancakes, and waffles, everyone in their right mind would choose the latter option. So, step
aside French Toast Crunch and make room for Waffle Crisp. Waffle Crisp was composed of
miniature versions of the breakfast food it aimed to emulate, in this case, waffles. The
corn cereal pieces contain a maple flavoring in order to maintain the illusion that you’re
actually eating waffles drenched in syrup, instead of settling for cereal. The most recognizable
mascot for Waffle Crisp was Waffle Boy, an anthropomorphic waffle in red sneakers (who
bears a suspicious resemblance to the Mini-Wheats mascot), but his predecessors were far more
interesting. Originally, the cereal was advertised with a group of grandmothers who spent their
days making waffles – implying that each piece of the cereal was a homemade, mini waffle.
The wholesome group of grannies seems far more endearing than Waffle Boy, who is about
as generic as cereal mascots get, but that’s beside the point. Unfortunately, Waffle Crisps
were indeed discontinued in 2018. We can already hear all of you saying that you just saw a
box of Waffle Crisps at the store. Well, get them while they are still there as yes, some
stores still have them, as cereal has a very long shelf life, it appears to just be the
final stock being cleared. All of that said, only time will tell! Nerds Nerds are a small rock-like candy that come
in boxes separated in two flavors, with the iconic pairing being grape and strawberry.
If you were a kid at any point during the period of 1983 to present, odds are your childhood
was ruled by these little guys. The candy is so great that in 1985, it was named “Candy
of the Year” by the National Candy Wholesaler’s Association. If you take anything away from
this video, let it be that if a candy, movie, cartoon or toy is successful, the next move
is always to slap it on a cereal. And that’s exactly what happened to Nerds in 1985. Just
like the candy, Nerds cereal boxes were divided to hold two different flavors. The two pairings
were orange/cherry and strawberry/grape. You could opt to eat one at a time, or you could
live on the wild side and mix them together. If you wanted to enjoy both flavors without
cross-contamination, you could purchase the Nerds Cereal Nerd Gate Bowl. The bowl had
a division across the middle, so you could fill each half with its own flavor of cereal.
The divider could then be lifted manually to let milk flow from one side to the other.
We’re sad to say that Nerds cereal wasn’t sold for very long before being discontinued.
Luckily, there are still several flavors of Nerd candy to keep us satisfied. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cereal First there were the comic books, then the
cartoon. Action figures, video games, movies, and, you guessed it, a cereal. The crime-fighting
turtles named for Italian Renaissance artists took the world by storm during the eighties
and nineties, and from 1989 to 1995, its cereal was a major hit as well. Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles cereal was composed of “ninja nets”, pieces of cereal that were netted in a way
that resembles Chex, and marshmallows, which came in various shapes and colors. Not long
after the cereal’s release, they added marshmallows in the shape of pizza slices – the TMNT’s
food of choice. Additionally, several prizes could be found at the bottom of the box, including
mini comic strips and a packet of “green ooze,” a sugary topping that you could drizzle
on your cereal. Interestingly enough, although this cereal was available throughout the United
States, it was very hard to find in Canada. Canadians weren’t completely deprived, however,
as they actually had a TMNT cereal of their own. The weird thing about that cereal was
that all the pieces were ninja-turtle green, which definitely isn’t the most appetizing
color out there. And for those of you thinking you just saw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Cereal at the store, what's being sold now is a reboot and is a far cry from the original.
They look and taste nothing alike, have no marshmallows, and are just little Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtle face shaped cereals... such a disappointment. Cröonchy Stars The Muppet Show was a revolutionary television
series of the seventies, and this cereal stars one of its most popular characters. The Swedish
Chef’s skits are always a crowd-pleaser, and using the character as the mascot for
a food item was a genius move. Cröonchy Stars which of course is described by the Swedish
Chef as being "cinnaomonnamony” which, for those of you not cultured enough to understand
his highly sophisticated dialect, means that it’s deliciously cinnamon-flavored. It actually
sounds pretty similar to Cinnamon Toast Crunch in terms of both flavor and texture. On the
back of every cereal box were a variety of puzzles and games. In keeping with the ridiculous
nature of the cereal, many of them were actually unsolvable. This is both absolutely hilarious
and slightly infuriating, but we love it all the same. Unfortunately, as great as the marketing
was, this star-shaped cereal wasn’t a hit. It was discontinued a year after its 1988
release and made a brief reappearance in 1992 before disappearing permanently. The popularity
of the Muppets is timeless, so there’s a chance that future attempts at creating another
Muppet-themed cereal might someday be made. Sprinkle Spangles This cereal wasn’t a direct Aladdin product,
but it came out at just the right time to bask in the hype surrounding the Disney movie.
The Sprinkle Spangles cereal box depicts a genie who, other than the fact that he’s
purple instead of blue, bears a striking resemblance to the Aladdin genie character. In the Sprinkle
Spangles commercials, the Sprinkle Genie was voiced by Dom DeLuise, and famous for saying
“you wish it, I dish it!”. Released in the mid-nineties, Sprinkle Spangles was nixed
by 1998. Sprinkle Spangles stood out from the crowd because its pieces, which were shaped
like stars with small holes in the middle, were covered in tiny, colorful sparkles. Sprinkles
may be a great draw for the younger crowd, but the fact that parents might not be so
into the idea of their kids consuming them for breakfast probably contributed to the
cereal’s downfall. The sweetened corn puffs were quite sugary, as is to be expected from
any cereal targeting children, but also had a surprising and enjoyable crunch to them.
Though the sprinkle-covered cereal had a short run, it still made a significant impact. Pop-Tarts Crunch The most efficient way to summon nineties
children is to say the word “Pop-Tart” three times in a row. During that decade,
this jam-filled pastry was at the height of popularity, filling the role of breakfast,
afternoon-snack and dessert for kids everywhere. Curious to see how the food item would fare
in another form, Kellogg’s decided to concoct a Pop-Tart cereal. The resulting product was
Pop-Tarts Crunch, which was first introduced in 1994. It was available in frosted strawberry
and brown sugar cinnamon, and each piece resembled a miniature Pop-Tart. Needless to say, the
cereal was a hit. No one really knows why it was discontinued, but we can’t say that
anyone was all that happy about the decision. If this was one of your favorite cereals back
in the day, well do we have some news for you. Pop Tart Crunch is back and feel free
to hop in your car and head out to buy a box of this long-lost cereal. You never know when
a discontinued food item from your childhood might make its return. Spend more time with us by tapping on another
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