Wednesday, 01 July 2009

• Cereal is Endangering the Lives of our Children

  It's not the cereal itself that's the problem, it's the mascots.  Many cereal companies have cartoon mascots, which makes perfect sense considering their marketing their product to children.  Cartoons are bright, colorful, and generally non-threatening.  The problem is, the real-life counterparts of these mascots aren't any of that.  Here is a short list of cereal mascots that misrepresent themselves and lure children into a false sense of security.
  
  
  

  Tony the Tiger
  

  Sure, Tony may look like a nice guy.  He plays sports, he's got the James Earl Jones voice, he's bi-curious (the bandana is a dead giveaway), but Tony is lying to children about what tigers are really like.  You know what every kid is thinking as he walks up to the tiger's cage in the zoo?  "Oh hey, a tiger.  Like Tony the Tiger.  I bet he's good at soccer.  I bet he thinks things are great."  Well you know what the tiger's thinking?  "Man, I'd really like to eat your face.  Oh, and some Frosted Flakes for dessert would be awesome."  Then one day, that kid grows up and goes to Africa on a safari and meets a tiger.  Unless he's some sort of tiger mind reader, he has no idea that the tiger wants to eat his face.  So he kicks a soccer ball over to the tiger, and the tiger eats his face.  And then has some Frosted Flakes.  Because they're great.
  
  
  

  Count Chocula
  
  

  To be fair, Count Chocula doesn't have as much of an effect on children's attitudes towards vampires as a certain group of rather sparkly ones, but this author is so ashamed of that aspect of his own culture that he refuses to mention it.  Also this is an article about cereal mascots.  The point is, when I think of vampires the first thing that comes to mind should NOT be chocolate.  In fact I'm pretty sure vampires don't even like chocolate.  But what is Count Chocula teaching our children about vampires?  A) Vampires love chocolate.  2) Vampires have buck teeth.  iii) Vampires look good in brown.  Now my knowledge of vampires is rather limited, but I'm pretty sure the scary looking guy on the right didn't just pull his face out of a red velvet cake.  Also he has what looks like about 32 very healthy, very pointy teeth that would love to rip a hole right through your flesh.  Also no one looks good in brown.  NO ONE.
  

  
  
  

  Lucky
  
  

  What's the first thing when you think of leprechauns?  Rainbows and pots of gold right?  Well what's the first thing you SHOULD be thinking of?  How about Jennifer Aniston running through the woods trying to get away from this guy for an hour and a half?  Well, you can thank the Lucky  for this horrible misrepresentation of leprechauns.  Lucky Charms commercials are teaching children that they should be seeking out leprechauns and chasing them - blatantly trying to put children in harms way.  What the commercials aren't showing is the part where the leprechaun turns on them, skins them alive, and wears their skin as clothing.  It actually makes sense that the cereal has marshmallows in it though.  It's just like a leprechaun to try to turn the entire world diabetic.

  
  

  
  

  The Honeycomb Thing
  
  

  I'm not quite sure what the Honeycomb thing is, but it's scary as hell.  The fact that it kinda looks like a cracked-out lion that can only say "Honeycomb! Honeycomb!" makes me not want to eat cereal so much as lock that thing up before it robs a bank with a screwdriver to pay for its very expensive heroin-filled bagel addiction.  What makes me even more worried is that the kids in the commercials actually change into this thing and do strange things, like this commerical where the boy suddenly morphs into the Honeycomb thing and then seduces some bears by dressing in drag and batting his eyelashes.  Look, I understand.  I like cereal too.  But I'm not going to sell my body to wild animals just to get my fix.  I feel like that's how AIDS started.  Thanks Honeycomb thing, you gave our children AIDS.
  

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