Top 5 Breakfast Cereal Mascots

OK, what the hell? No new posts since Monday? Well, here's one for you that's completely accessible to anyone and everyone.

Dan's Top 5:

1. Tony The Tiger, Frosted Flakes - Not my favorite, but who am I to deny the king of breakfast cereal his rightful throne? The fact that he's great with kids and ultra-cool has thankfully diverted investigations of steroid abuse, of which I'm almost sure he's guily. I mean, look at the size of his upper body. A tiger isn't supposed to be able to bench-press that much.

2. Buzz Bee, Honey Nut Cheerios - Again, not so much my favorite, but do you remember that older Christmas commercial, wherein Buzz actually warmed the heart of the classic old miser, Ebenezer Scrooge? All with the power of a bowl of cold, yet tasty, breakfast cereal. That means Buzz had as powerful an effect as four ghostly spirits and a handful of grim lifetime experiences.

3. The Trix Rabbit, Trix - Talk about rotten luck. This guy never gets to enjoy what we would assume would be the standard perk of getting to enjoy the same cereal that you promote day in and day out. I remember there was a huge vote held as to whether the rabbit should be allowed to finally have a bowl... "While he is known to have previously enjoyed a bowl in 1976, following this public intervention in 1980 he has not succeeded in gaining access to Trix's fruity goodness again, and anti-rabbit sentiment persists within the animated juvenile community." God, I love Wikipedia.

4. L.C. "Lucky" Leprechaun, Lucky Charms - Really, Lucky is about on par with the Trix rabbit, the only difference being that he is actually defending what is rightfully his - his breakfast cereal. Then again, you can't feel too bad for him, as he has magic on his side. I suspect that at any point he could willfully set the thieving children ablaze, but instead lets them have their fun.

5. Count Chocula, Count Chocula - I didn't actually try this cereal until I was in college. Can you believe that? I can't, especially since it was promoted by the most amiable cartoon vampire ever, even accounting for Count Duckula. His image was cheapened by the existence of boo Berry and Frankenberry, even the Fruit Brute back in the day (see Tarantino's first two movies), but there's no denying that Count Chocula was king of the monsters.

Honorable mention: Sugar Bear (Golden Crisp), Sonny (Cocoa Puffs), Wendell the Baker (Cinnamon Toast Crunch)

Ryan's Top Five

Dan you ignorant slut. How dare you leave off El Capitan?

1. The Cap'n, Cap'n Crunch - O Captain! My Captain! This guy is so good at promoting children's breakfast food that Walt Whitman once wrote a famous poem in his honor--BEFORE HE WAS EVEN BORN. According not to wikipedia but to my own personal wealth of Cap'n knowledge, his full name is Cap'n Horatio Magellan Crunch. His parents no doubt named him after two well-known seafarers: Horatio Nelson and Ferdinand Magellan. With a name like that, how could one not grow up to become one of the best-known children's breakfast cereal nautical icons of the latter half of the twentieth century in the USA?

2. Tony the Tiger, Frosted Flakes - I won't quibble with you here, Dan. Who hasn't spend hours upon hours rehashing the tired drunken argument, "Who would win in a fight between Tony the Tiger and the Cap'n?" We all know so many variables come into play, but I ask again, as I have countless times before: does Tony have access to a cannon? I don't think so. Advantage: Cap'n.

3. Count Chocula, Count Chocula - Growing up, my dad was out of the house on frequent six-month deployments for the Navy. Occasionally in search of a male role model, I turned to Mr. Chocula, who taught me everything I know about manners, humility, and chocolate-flavored corn cereal bits and marshmallows.

4. Toucan Sam - Cereal mascots taught me most everything I know about the animal kingdom, like, for instance, that toucans and tigers can talk, and that they love cereal. Incidentally, Toucan Sam deserves special mention for being one of the greatest salesmen of his time; did you know that, despite the different colors of Froot Loops, they all have the same flavor? I've said it before and I'll say it again: Toucan Sam could sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo. Or an Inuit, rather.

5. The Trix Rabbit - May the children who taunt this rabbit so burn for all eternity in cereal hell (much more chocolatey than real hell).

Tim's Top 5:

1) Tony the Tiger - Frosted Flakes - No contest here, if he'd told me to smoke, I'd have done so, glad that I could fulfill his desire after turning something as wholesome as corn flakes into compressed lumps of high fructose corn syrup. They're grrrreat! is pretty much all I remember from years of Saturday morning cartoons and really all I remember post-Saturday morning cartoons also. This might be a sign of grave dangers ahead.

2) Cap'n Crunch - Note that he's not technically referred to as "Captain", just Cap'n, since he was banished from Her Majesty's navy after keelhauling Dig'Em the Frog. While he doesn't rank as high in my esteem as his naval superiors Captain Morgan or Admiral Nelson, he is a perfect marketing tool for cereal that provides 900% of your RDA of mouth-tearing crunchiness. Whether it's the absurd Village People sailor's uniform or the aged Ron Jeremy moustache, there's just something about the Cap'n that permits me to overlook the wanton homosexual overtones of the whole cereal.

3) Fruit Brute - There's a lot of camp value in a werewolf who feasts on fruity cereal...and he earns a lot of street cred just for being unsuccessful, because General Mills has its head up its ass when it comes to hawking cereal. Frankenberry is the best of the monster-based cereals, yet it's virtually impossible to find in a reputable grocery store, but you'll find Count Chocula in 7-11s nationwide like it's too hard to just go buy some cocoa puffs. (See #5)

4) Frankenberry - Count Chocula is a little too jocular to be selling chocolate, he's not even promoting a cereal that's reddish in tint. It's just utterly inappropriate, since vampires and chocolate are a total mismatch. However, a lust for Frankenberry was one of my strongest emotions in college, proving that it does in fact appeal to the undead. More importantly, it's hardly outlandish that if a person were constructed from the body parts of criminals, they would walk the earth in search of marshmallows. This is a fat country.

5) Sonny The Cuckoo Bird - Cocoa Puffs - Any cereal which promotes insanity = well worth your effort. I don't much care for the cereal itself, but given the additives and chemicals that have seeped into most everyday foods over the last two decades, it's only a matter of hours before Cocoa Puffs are in fact linked to schizophrenia and perhaps bird schizophrenia. Truth in advertising = it works.

Dishonorable mention: The Trix Rabbit for performing a valuable social service by informing young middle-class white children that their role in the world is to either oppress the needy or cause wanton pain in animals. Without you, Trix Rabbit, Michael Vick would just be a lousy quarterback, not a lousy quarterback with a zeal for murdering dogs; Fruity Pebbles because the Flintstones suck. Period.