Some things don’t translate well to TV. Like the backs of cereal boxes. Look, how many hours have you spent in your “life” reading the backs, sides, and bottoms of cereal boxes. When I was small, this was like my freakin’ New York Times in the morning, you know?
The great thing was, unlike the New York Times, I didn’t get a new one every morning, I would read the same cereal box over and over for however long there was still cereal in it. As such, it was a gift to keep interested in reading the same brightly colored advertisements, recipes, and contest announcements over and over each day. You had to pace yourself.
“I’ll read half of this hard-hitting piece about how to make Rice Krispie fondue this morning, and maybe browse the headlines over in the ‘Win A Lifetime Supply Of Pop Tarts’ section…”
That actually also puzzled me: Why advertise for Pop Tarts on a cereal box? I realize they may all be made by the same company, but you’re tempting me away from a lifetime dedication to your crappy product. I mean, as I got to be about age seven, there was nothing tangible holding me to my brand allegiance of Cap’n Crunch. They just had me on momentum. You dangle that Pop Tart in front of me too much, I might just switch. The Pop Tart is, after all, more elegant, more grown-up, more chic. (I actually believed this for a while when I was young, and a few years later, I declared that the only product refined enough for my sophisticated 10-year-old tastes was the flaky and delictable Toaster Strudel… later I rebuffed “breakfast pastry” as too bourgeois and returned to my roots.)
I’m tellin’ ya, if you really wanted to hook people into a periodical from an early age, you should start a kid-centered newspapers, and plaster it on the backs of cereal boxes.
“Hmm, the American Toy Maker’s union doesn’t support the Bush tax plan…oh! Willy Wonka’s up three points!”
And you could put this on any cereal boxes. Because after I pored over my entire box, I’d move on to my parent’s cereal. I could write a Ph.D. thesis on the benefits of Special K as a part of balanced diet. And the FDA Recommended Daily Allowances? Know ’em like the back of my hand. It’s impressive how steadfastly I’ve gone on to ignore all this nutritional information despite knowing it so well.
Anyway, my actual point was: If all this cereal box reading was so damn entertaining, how come it’s never been fully recognized and adapted to another medium? How come there’re no reality shows based on helping Count Chocula through a giant maze to find his cape? How come there aren’t any Aaron Sorkin hour-long dramedies about monosodium glutamate and yellow dye #5? And why doesn’t the WB have some sort of Trix Rabbit vehicle?!
Probably because the networks don’t wanna burn their hands. Yeah, if there’s any idea that’s just too hot, it’s cold, cold cereal boxes. Well, wake up, America. Call your local affiliates and demand the programming you long for. Me, well, I’m busy at the moment, I’m doing some freelance work for Post. It’s a smart little humor piece about Fruit Loops wherein the toucan gets arrested for making Loops too flavoricious. It’s a little edgy, but I know kids will read it. They have no choice; what’re they gonna do: talk to their families at breakfast? Yeah. Right.