Far Out Breakfast Cereals We Miss From the 1970s

The world of breakfast cereal is a lawless desert of chaos, with flavors, mascots, and ideas that rarely feel cut from the same cloth. In the 1970s, it was even more untethered; themes ranged from specific characters to movies to pieces of wood. Wild times. 

Feeling nostalgic? Here are 10 wacky cereals we miss from the '70s.

You know Count Chocula, of course. He’s still kicking around. You may even know his friends Franken Berry and Boo Berry, but did you know he had other buddies, other members of this inseparable squad? Because he did. Their names were Frute Brute and Yummy Mummy. They pop up as limited editions every now and then, but they’re mostly extinct.  

Buc-Wheats, the mapley, wheaty cereal that eventually became honey-flavored, never really took off too hard and was eventually discontinued in 1983. Maybe kids don’t love crunching down on a big stalk of wheat? 

We all know and love Cocoa Puffs for its work on the “turning regular milk into chocolate milk” project. Crazy Cow was doing that too, back in the '70s, only it also turned your milk into strawberry milk, which is a flavor far less people are interested in. Bold move, you Crazy Cow. 

You know how kids are always like, “I wish I could chew on logs like a beaver!” Me neither. Somebody at Kellogg’s thought they were, though, and that’s why this log-themed, pancake-flavored cereal existed for a brief time. 

Nothing sells breakfast cereal like the release of a big movie, especially when that movie is one of the biggest movies of all time. When “Star Wars” dropped in 1977, it was an instant icon, and it landed… C-3PO his own cereal? Not the character I would have guessed. 

How delightful is this? Cheery name aside, I can’t make heads or tails of what’s going on with this cereal — apparently this robot, Cecil, dispensed cereal when he was amused — and the idea of having to say it out loud at any point seems like a real chore. This was off the shelves by 1977. 

These are somehow not Puff the Magic Dragon-themed, but instead themed like a big hat. Not a wizard’s hat, for some reason, but a red and yellow top hat with a face. Disturbing stuff, but you could always look past it to get your hands on that free magic trick inside. 

This feels like something straight out of a '70s horror movie. Freakies were exactly that: freaky. These little Os represented seven Freakies characters: BossMoss, Snorkledorf, Hamhose, Grumble, Cowmumble, Gargle, Goody Goody, which coincidentally happens to be my nicknames, in ascending order from 6th to 12th grade.  

A German pilot is a strange mascot for a '70s breakfast cereal, but I suppose it’s not that much stranger than those mucus-like little ghouls above. His nemesis, you ask? 

Baron Von Redberry, of course. These two were always at each other, Baron bringing the fruity, berry-flavored cereal and Grapefellow with the (duh) grape flavors. Not enough cereals these days feature characters that have vendettas against one another. 

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