Want Some Cereal?

Breakfast. It's claimed to be the most important meal of the day. Why? Does it really give you that zest needed to start off your day? Can breakfast somehow raise your scores exponentially on standardized tests? FALSE. Just to let you know, out of the hundreds of millions of people in the United States that eat cereal every morning, 87% of them are children. Furthermore, 59.2% of all statistics are also made up on the spot. I digress. When I was younger, I couldn't wait until Sunday or Saturday morning when my mom or dad would make the "big breakfast." The big breakfast consisted of either french toast or a cheese omelet, 2 or 3 slices of sharp cheese, pulpless orange juice (because who likes to chew their beverage), and swine. When I say swine, I mean almost endless plates of bacon, scapple, and sausage. God DAMMIT do I love the pork. Anyway, the reason why the big breakfast was looked forward to every Friday night was because from Monday to Friday I was subjected to its inverse: the little breakfast. Oh, you don't know how many Thursday mornings I would wake up and pray, by the graces of Thor the Thunder God, that someone had broken into my home the night before and poked holes in the gallon of whole milk (because skim is NOT milk...) and buried the cereal boxes at the bottom of the dirty clothes bin. Needless to say, I do not believe in you anymore, Thor. All I am saying, is who really likes cereal? I wouldn't ever consider it food, yet these cereal corporations work tirelessly to create marketing schemes and colorful mascots to make the "little breakfast experience" a healthy and well balanced start of my day. Excuse me, Mr. Cereal CEO (you know I actually like that title) but I do not find ANYTHING remotely healthy or balanced going on with Smaks the Frog...

My beef, for lack of a better word, with the cereal industry is that these companies create mascots for their products that are blatantly representative of the underclass we have in America. However, we overlook any obvious character flaws these mascots regularly exhibit due to the character's funny voice, bright colors, and humorous style of dress. These cereal companies have successfully created a fraternity of physically destructive, drug addicted, possibly child molesting, and overall funny looking mascots who have been staring you and me in our faces every Monday through Friday morning for our entire lives. Should the trend continue, who knows what bigger, better, and bolder mascot will capture the hearts and imaginations of our little breakfast consuming children. Is the world really ready for Eve the Milk Mama?

Look at Lucky from the Lucky Charms cereal brand. There's obviously something terribly wrong with this little man. Who really still thinks leprechauns are fun? Personally, if you take away their hats, leprechauns starkly resemble Prince. As for Lucky's cereal, it's 75% marshmallow (disregard my previous statement about statistics, America). Half of Lucky Charms' commercials show this man curled up in a little ball sitting in dimly lit areas whispering to himself, "they're after me Lucky Charms." Is that even proper English?! Furthermore, if he wasn't so hopped up on marshmallows to begin with, he could remember that children actually are mesmerized by magic. And, oh yea, LEPRECHAUNS KNOW FUCKING MAGIC. There is obviously something illegal in that little red box...or there should be at least. Hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers and blue moons, pots of gold and rainbows, and some red balloons. The toy at the bottom of this box should be a beautiful bag of mushrooms. All I'm saying is school would be a lot more fun if you thought your school bus drove ON a rainbow every morning. Uncle Toucan Sam was obviously inspired by Sean Penn after playing the role of David Kleinfeld in Carlito's Way. He has no wife, children, or siblings yet he has three children that call him uncle. I'm sorry, I just find that fishy. Toucan Sam's catch phrase was "follow your nose" and coincidentally I tend to hear that a lot on BET's American Gangster. I wonder what Toucan Sam's episode title would be. The Trix Rabbit is actually the most cunning mascot of them all. This humanized rabbit has a college degree in reverse psychology. Have you ever met anyone who has said his or her favorite cereal was Trix? Do you even know what's in a Trix cereal box? When was the last time a grocery store was sold out of Trix? I'll wait while you ponder that. Children of America, you've been dooped. Trix are for kids? HA...you all have been "Tricked" it seems.

Look, all I'm saying is that these sugar saturated cereals are hardly good for anyone, especially children at 7am. Yet, they are sold to us by these suspect cartoon characters. Oh sure there are the straight arrows, Cornflakes' Cornelius the Rooster and Frosted Flakes' Tony the Tiger. However, no one cares or even eats that healthy crap anymore. It's all about how many kids Count Chocula and Captain Crunch can lure away from the playground swings in the new millennium. Come to think about it, I'm pretty sure Count Chocula is what Michael Jackson would resemble if he were animated.