Behind The Cereal Box, Part Two

Cereal mascots. Where have they all gone? The answers to the "where are they now?" questions for the pitch men of 10 different cereal brands were revealed last time. But the story has not even reached the halfway point.

Perhaps you noticed that your favorite cereal mascot was missing, like an elusive Wheaties flake, sunk far below the surface of milk. The story continues today with the mascots of another 10 cereal brands.

Tony The Tiger
This big cat was always running around telling people they should eat his cereal "to show 'em you're a tiger." But then Tiger Woods started tearing up the golf scene and when anyone mentioned the name Tiger, no one thought of their striped orange breakfast buddy anymore.

"At first it was devastating," Tony said. "When parents told their kids to be like Tiger they didn't put a red kerchief around their necks and growl while hammering through 3 bowls of Frosted Flakes. They skipped breakfast and grabbed a bag of golf clubs."

Deep self-esteem issues arose, making Tony's signature phrase "They're Great!" a struggle at times.

"I guess I should be thanking Tiger Woods," Tony said. "He made me realize I was living a lie sometimes. Frosted Flakes are really great, but sometimes for breakfast I'd rather just gnaw on a Wildebeest carcass while shooing away pesky dingos."

L.C., the Lucky Charms Leprechaun
When the little leprechaun dropped out of the limelight, some assumed he might have been plotting with the IRA. It turns out Lucky was diagnosed with obsessive-complusive disorder instead.

Initially, Lucky was OK with the five simple marshmallow shapes of pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers and blue diamonds. But as the years went by, Lucky became obsessed with marshmallow shapes in his cereal.

"Whenever those little fuckers weren't after me Lucky Charms, I would dream about new shapes," Lucky reminisced. "When I went into a General Mills meeting and told them we needed to add purple horseshoes to the cereal, they asked where they would be gettin' purple horseshoe marshmallows? So I pulled one right out of my arsh. Me luck hasn't been the same since, but the cereal looks better than ever."

Red balloon, rainbow, pot of gold and even swirled whale marshmallows followed. But not every marshmallow shape has graced boxes of Lucky Charms.

"I've been asking for Irish Eyes A Smilin' shapes for years, but they won't hear of it," Lucky said bitterly. "But ye might go for a frosty mug of Guiness shape, aye?"

Sonny, the Cocoa Puffs bird
Some say the looney bird is wearing a straight jacket somewhere and in constant shock therapy treatment to help control his addiction to Cocoa Puffs.

"We thought it would only be 28 days at first," a close feathered friend said. "But that was 8 years ago."

Sonny was sent over the edge when he went to the General Mills facility to pick up a service award for being such a great mascot over the years. Unfortunately, no one was paying attention to the production calendar, and the day Sonny was at the plant was the day they were mass producing millions of Cocoa Puffs. The sight, sound and scent of it all drove Sonny into an insane rage multiple times worse than anything seen on TV commercials.

"The actually had to lock down the plant, or it would have been a Chernobyl meltdown on the Cocoa level," the feathered friend said. "But it was the company's fault. They toyed with his addiction and knew he would go crazy for this cereal, but they thought it made for funny TV, and that only ended up driving Sonny deeper over the edge."

BuzzBee
The Honey Nut Cheerios Bee gained fame for his peppy commercials, but this buzzer was known to have a temper behind the scenes.

He has not been seen or heard from since a run-in with several paparazzi near his hive. Witnesses say BuzzBee flew out of the hive to confront the mob of photoghraphers who had been batting his home with a broomstick hoping to get some swarm photos. One photographer claims he was stung by BuzzBee, and pulled an alleged large cartoon stinger out of his arm as "proof."

"BuzzBee was really pissed, even more than Sean Penn ever got at me," the photographer said. "That little buzzy bastard stings worse than Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake combined!"

Bees are known to die once they use their stinger. Since BuzzBee has made no commercials or public appearances since the incident, rumors of his demise can't be proven to be exaggerated yet.

Diggem
The Smacks' cereal famous frog has endured a whirlwind of controversey and tragedy, but his story ends up having a fairy tale ending.

"Shortly after my commercials started airing, I was under constant surveilance by the DEA and Narc units," Diggem said. "They had heard on the street that I was the front man for Smack. Not a good thing."

After an early-morning raid, narcotics officials roughed up the frog and trashed his luxury tree loft apartment. Soon they realized that the Smack everyone was talking about was just sugar-coated puffed wheat.

"Even though the cops made a mistake, it was still bad publicity for the cereal," Diggem said. "They even changed the cereal's name from Sugar Smacks to Honey Smacks, wanting to totally distance the product from any white powdery substance."

Diggem lost his job and the cereal box went without a mascot for several years. Depressed, Diggem spent many days suicidal, sunning himself on a bridge in New Orleans.

"You have no idea how many days I wanted to just jump and end it all," he said. "But then one day out of nowhere this chick picked me up and totally made out with me. That changed my life forever."

The princess added: "It was kinda gross and scary at first. His breath smelled like flies and he had a lot of warts. Then he didn't turn into a prince. But then I realized how long his tongue was, and was so in love none of it mattered."

Snap, Crackle and Pop
Like many supergroups, it was only a matter of time before this trio broke up to pursue solo projects. But their sound just wasn't the same when the group was split up.

Some say the last straw that led to the breakup was when Pop started calling himself the King of Pop, distancing himself from Snap and Crackle and King Vitamin (who wanted to be the only cereal monarch).

"Pop looked great, but he ravaged himself with plastic surgery," Snap said. "He started dressing like a garden gnome and only wanted to eat breakfast with little boys."

In a panic, Kellogg's used a Jamaican monkey as a mascot for Cocoa Krispies until the group could sort out their differences away from the cereal bowl. A reunion was inevitable.

"They used a monkey and the cereal wasn't even banana-flavored," Crackle scoffed. "When we heard that dumb ape trying to go all Bob Marley and do a reggae Rice Krispies theme, we knew had had to get the band back together. You can't have any kind of Rice Krispies without Snap, Crackle and Pop."

Raisin Bran Sun
RB Sun's popularity as a mascot started declining the more people became afraid of getting skin cancer from too much exposure.

"We had people who thought they had to wear sun screen when they pulled a box of Raisin Bran with me on it out of the cupboard," RB Sun said. "I never burned anybody."

Soon public resentment affected his job performance.

"It was supposed to be two scoops in every box," he said. "Some days you just don't give a fuck and throw in one and a half. Who's going to notice?"

Some little nerdy QA prick at Kellogg's, that's who. RB Sun was immediately reprimanded and now works under close supervision by glaucoma-goggled geeks smothered in SPF 100.

Kaboom clown
This mascot was the only member of his class not named class clown by fellow graduates at Clown College, where he passed up popular majors such as seltzer bottle marksmanship, oversized shoemaking or balloon animal sculpting. Instead, he majored in food science.

"The Kaboom Clown was kind of like the elf who wanted to be a dentist in that Rudolph show," professor Bozo the Clown said. "He was a clown but wasn't totally into clown things. I haven't seen that since a student named Ronald McDonald, who ironically was also sidetracked by food."

Kaboom Clown soon learned that Clown College's food science degree focused on making cream pies which would be used to throw in people's faces. Kaboom Clown had hoped the only Pi he would be dealing with was one to help figure out mathmatical formulas to make the three-ring circus of cereals.

Eventually, the Kaboom Clown succeeded in developing his cereal. He was invited back to Clown College to pick up an honorary doctorate degree, but was tragically killed following the commencement ceremony.

"A small car pulled up, and Kaboom Clown thought it was his ride to the airport," Bozo said. "Unfortunately, 16 other clowns piled into the car after him as it is a Clown College tradition. Kaboom had never taken the car stuffing 101 class, and without that training he suffocated in the car under that clown hogpile."

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Baker Wendell
Wendell was the most famous Cinnamon Toast Crunch Baker. Recently, he broke away from the other bakers and joined the reality TV craze, joining the cookin' cast of Hell's Kitchen.

Unfortunately, chef Gordon Ramsay wanted exotic dishes, but Wendell could only deliver Cinnamon Toast Crunch Risotto. Ramsay also tired of Wendell constantly singing the Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bakers song in the kitchen.

"That bloody song was so fucking annoying," Ramsay said. "It's like he thought he was in a movie called The Fabulous Cinnamon Toast Crunch Baker Boys and his singing was going to make Michelle Pfieffer roll around on top of a piano like a cat in heat."

Needless to say, Wendell got the hook quicker than Dewberry.

"Believe me, that fat old bastard singing couldn't even get Jessica on top of a piano," Ramsay said. "The only consistent thing this guy could make was cold cereal in a bowl, which made me want to stick his head in a deep fryer."

Big Yella, the Corn Pops Cowboy
Yella was hoping pitching Sugar Corn Pops would pave the way to Hollywood where he could follow in the bootsteps of his idol, John Wayne.

Unfortunately, the great American western movie was dying, and any new roles that came up were usually snatched up by guys like Clint Eastwood or Lee Van Cleef.

"Ah tried out for all three roles in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly," Yella said. "One a them die-rectors said my actin' was too corny."

Yella tried out for 20 more western movie roles and was shot down for all of them. He hit an all-time low when producers picked Chef Boyardee instead of him to star in a Spaghetti western. By that time he had run out of money and was robbing banks.

"Folks often ask why I wore a red kerchief over my face to conceal my identity, but still wore muh two-foot high yella caboy hat," Yella said. "I reckon deep inside I wanted to git caught."

Yella is now serving 30 years in an old west jail in Dodge City, Kansas.

To be continued - It may seem like I've emptied the box on this subject, but don't forget that there's always a prize inside! Next time, I'll reveal the behind-the-scenes story of the last and possibly most famous cereal pitchman of all time. What's his story? Tune in to Behind The Cereal Box, Part Three, coming soon!