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The 80s saw breakfast cereal undergo its biggest transformation in history
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and things have never been the same since. Today, we're going to investigate why the 80s was the golden age for sugary cereals
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Ronald Reagan's presidency is arguably best remembered for its deregulation of just about everything
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Restrictions on children's advertising were entirely rolled back. What came next was a tsunami of pent-up kid-focused marketing
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It wasn't just toys that were being sold to kids, though. In 1982, General Mills launched Strawberry Shortcake Cereal
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with its own cute animated commercial to boot. It was an instant success
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And General Mills made moves to secure more existing IPs for the growing product line
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They soon released E.T. Cereal. Shortly thereafter, they also came out with Pac-Man Cereal
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Neither E.T. nor Pac-Man came anywhere near the success of Strawberry Shortcake, though
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and General Mills stopped pursuing character licenses by the mid-1980s. Kellogg's tried their hand at a few licensed serials during this time, too
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Most notably, in 1984, the company released C-3PO's. Unfortunately, the brand suffered from having been released a year after
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the original Star Wars trilogy was already completed, and Star Wars hype faded considerably as the decade went on
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But that didn't stop Quaker Oats from wetting its beak. In 1984 they released the relatively successful Mr T cereal Ralston Purina stepped right in where the other cereal companies left off and started their own never lineup of cereals in 1985
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Grocery store shelves were stuffed full of cereals for Donkey Kong. You want to help get Donkey Kong
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Give me a crunch. G.I. Joe. Bye, Mom. G.I. Joe. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
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This is the cereal and this is the poster that'll turn your room into a sewer
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Barbie. Batman. Ghostbusters. And Gremlins
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Licensing characters for cereals lasted well into the early 90s, with such hits as Spider-Man cereal
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Bill and Ted's excellent cereal, and everyone's all-time favorite, Urkel O's. However, most of them lasted only 14 to 18 months
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And when General Mills spent $570 million to purchase the Ralston portion of Ralston Purina in 1996
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they largely ended the trend of never-ending licensing. What's more, as the 90s dragged on, consumers became increasingly critical of the amount of sugar in cereals geared towards children
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So companies began to load up their cereals with extra vitamins and minerals
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When that wasn't enough, they began to reduce both the use of artificial ingredients
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and the amount of sugar they were putting into the recipes. In other words, they made cereal lame again
