Behind The Cereal Box, Part Three

In two previous posts, I answered the "Where are they now?" questions for the mascots of 20 breakfast cereals. But you probably noticed one famous pitchman, who seemed more real than the others because he wasn't a cartoon character, was missing.

That's right, I'm talking about Mikey, the fussy 4-year-old who put LIFE cereal on the map.

What happened to him? Where is he now? Are the rumors true, or just part of breakfast Urban Legend? We need to go Behind The Cereal Box one final time to get some answers...

Mikey first appeared on a TV commercial in 1972, when his two brothers were in the kitchen having a heated debate over who should try "a cereal that's supposed to be good for you." They pissed and moaned, saying "I'm not gonna try it, you try it!" while sliding a bowl back and forth as if it was filled with Fear Factor fare.


Mikey's two brothers were lifelong dullards with no sense of adventure. It took them years to muster up the courage to try Reese's Peanut Butter Cups because "mixing P.B. with chocolate was 100 times crazier than mixing P.B. with jelly!"

Flashback to the LIFE commercial. After both brothers wuss out, one of them suggests Mikey try it and slides the bowl his way. "He hates everything!" one of them snips.

But the next thing you know, Mikey is shoveling through the cereal like it's the first course of a Roman food orgy. "He likes it! He likes it!" his brothers shriek. A star was born.

The commercial spots were so hot, they ran from 1972-1987, making one wonder how Mikey remained a 4-year-old boy for a span of 16 years. Many just thought it was reruns of the same commercial, but rumors were spreading that told a more sinister story.

President Reagan, a former actor, was fascinated to know the truth behind LIFE. Was it a talented makeup artist who transformed dozens of kids into looking like the original Mikey? Was it trick camera work? Or did Quaker discover some sort of "Fountain of Youth" technology that could help him bring Bonzo back to the big screen? It wasn't long before the Quaker CEO was under a hot light at FBI headquarters.

"He wasn't talking at first," bragged one FBI interrogator. "But when I threatened to make him wear shoes and a hat without buckles, he totally caved and was singing like a canary."

The shocking results of the Quaker CEO's confession: The original Mikey was real, but he was cloned 15 times.

"People think it's a big deal those scientists cloned a sheep," the FBI guy who cracked the case said. "Big deal, Quaker could clone Mikey hundreds of times. Think about it: They make millions of identical cereal pieces, so was cloning a kid for commercial use far behind?"

With so many Mikey clones running around, the "Where is he now?" question is difficult to answer with 100 percent certainty. John Gilchrist claims to be the original Mikey. He quit doing commercials in 1988 after about 250 spots, including Pepto Bismol and Jell-O. Now he's a successful advertising executive.

But there's also over a dozen other freckle-faced folks who say their claim to fame was the role of Mikey. Could they be the clones? It seems likely, as many just can't shake the single word that once defined them. One is a photographer for LIFE magazine. Two are lifeguards. One is a Lifetime TV movie actor. Five sell life insurance. One is serving 40 years to life for killing someone with a spoon.

In the 1990s, a story circulated that Mikey died from a deadly combination of pop rocks washed down with a six-pack of Coke, making his stomach explode. It was no Urban Legend: It happened to one of the clones.

Quaker thought about capitalizing on the publicity. Before rolling out Mikey clone #16 for another "remake" of the original commercial, the pilgrims actually thought about changing gears in their advertising campaign.

"We almost switched the cereal's name from LIFE to DEATH to try and corner the goth cereal-eater market," one Quaker Oat guy admitted. "But we couldn't close the deal with the Grim Reaper to appear on the box, and Quaker thought it might seem distasteful to put a toe-tagged Mikey morgue shot on the cover."

In 1997, Quaker had a contest to find a new Mikey. The winner - out of 35,000 entrants - ended up being a little girl from Tampa, Florida. The company insisted the contest was legit, trying to take the Mikey ad campaign in a new direction.

"When we started production of Honey Graham Life, it really cut into our cloning time," the Quaker Oat guy said. "Some people might think we just gave one of the Mikey clones a sex change, but that actually would be an Urban Legend."