Cereal Killers

Monster mash. There, I said it.

Since the 1930s, the Universal horror monsters have terrified young and old with their grotesque visages and murderous exploits. So it seems only natural that they should be turned into breakfast treats for children.

1971 saw the introduction of Franken Berry and Count Chocula by breakfast food product magnates General Mills - crude cartoon bastardizations of two of the greatest monsters of literature and cinema. Their Frankenstein's monster revision gave the monster a sickly pink hue all over and comical additions to his iconic neck bolts, including a steam valve and pressure gauge. Dracula was de-fanged, you might say, as his vicious canines were redesigned into beaver-like extended front teeth that are more suited for opening canned cream corn than puncturing necks.

A future release would see Boo Berry cereal, which was not based on any particular ghost, but whose advertising did capitalize on classic cinema by giving him a voice like Peter Lorre - the Steve Buscemi of his day. Rounding out the cast over time were Fruity Yummy Mummy and Frute Brute (who, in addition to being created by a terrible speller, hearkens more to the greaser werewolf Michael Landon played in I Was A Teenage Werewolf than to the classic Universal Wolf Man).

Through the years, the members of this lineup came and went at the whim of the cultural zeitgeist until they finally disappeared from store shelves altogether. Now, in response to the trend toward camp and nostalgia that allows us to tolerate Transformers and G.I. Joe on the big screen and My Little Pony cartoons that are enjoyed by little girls and grown-ass men alike, the Cereal Monsters are back (at least for Halloween).

Generally speaking, the cereals consist of corn puff bits and marshmallows in vaguely horrific shapes - ghosts, bats, severed heads, and the like. With the exception of the "chocolatey" Count Chocula, the cereals are all in fruit flavors with complementing marshmallows - strawberry for Franken Berry, blueberry for Boo Berry (natch), cherry for Frute Brute, and orange-cream flavor for Fruity Yummy Mummy.

The orange-cream flavor of Fruity Yummy Mummy is notable in that it really tastes like a Dreamsicle or similar orange-cream confection. It's a very bold, in-your-face flavor that is unexpected, even if you have read what it will be before tasting. It is also notable in that is gross as a cereal.

The deep, rich, purplish-blue color of Boo Berry belies the subtlety of its blueberry flavor. This stands in stark contrast to the aforementioned FYM's over-the-top flavoring. The problem is, Boo Berry goes too far the other way. There's just not enough flavor there to wake me up in the morning.

Frute Brute has just the right amount of its cherry flavor, and is a solid entry in the mascot-based sugar-cereal food sub-genre. Cherry seems an odd choice for breakfast, and wouldn't be something I would gravitate toward naturally, but I could see incorporating Frute Brute into my complete nutritious breakfast as an occasional lark.

Coming close to the top of the horror cereal heap is Count Chocula. Having experienced chocolate breakfast nightmares like Cocoa Pebbles in the past, my tendency is to steer clear of this sort of thing. Imagine my surprise when Count Chocula came out subtle and nuanced, far out-classing its aggressively chocolatey competitors. And, true to the promise on the box, Count Chocula cereal makes chocolate milk out of the leftover liquid in the bottom of the bowl. That's a prize of far greater value than the door knockers and toothbrush stands typical of this line of cereal.

And that leaves us with the king of the Cereal Monsters: Franken Berry. Strawberry is a natural choice at breakfast - think of all of those "serving suggestion" photos you have seen on countless cereal boxes with sliced strawberries jauntily displayed on fields of bran. Franken Berry eliminates the middle man, as it were, and incorporates the strawberry flavor into the main course itself. The cereal stays crunchy in milk, yet works by itself as a vibrant and invigorating dry snack. And can you imagine it as a topping for a good Philadelphia-style vanilla ice cream? Drool. Yes, Franken Berry is the winner of the battle of the Cereal Monsters, hands down.

One word of caution about Franken Berry that I feel I must address, despite its unpleasant and distasteful nature. It has been reported (though fortunately not experienced first-hand) that Franken Berry's red dye - the venerable Red 40 (or at least that's what's in there in today's incarnation) - sometimes does not digest properly, leading to a disconcerting but ultimately harmless condition known as "Frankenberry Stool." (No, really. Look it up.) To be safe, it's probably best to limit your consumption of the cereal until you have determined how you may be affected by this aspect of the experience. In the end, it may be for the best that it's only sold once a year. There truly can be too much of a good thing.