Cereal box toys

Adults can struggle through life trying to find happiness, but kids can find it in a cereal box toy. That innocense is one of the wonders children posses. I wish I could find hours of fun from a cereal box toy. Actually... maybe I do... because with 3 kids I get to vicariously see the world through their eyes. That is invaluable and just raising them so they can smile and laugh at the silly wonders of childhood is enough meaning for me.

I can still remember to this day a particular cereal box toy from my childhood. I can remember the round kitchen table with metalic silver 2 inch siding. I can't remember what cereal it was... but it must have been Cheerios, because that is all I ate for breakfast until I was a teenager. An oh yeah... I can remember the giddy excitement as my dad put the toy together. It was some type of blimp balloon thing... (or maybe a submarine) but there was a balloon and as he was blowing it up for me... the thing burst. POW! I went from giddy excitment to outright horror!!! I screamed and cried... I was devistated. As a father myself I *know* now what that can do to a dad trying to do something cool for his kids. I don't remember how he reacted to my crying. Must have been the knock on the head (just kidding) I wonder how would I react in the same situation as a dad?

I can also remember spilling a container of bubbles on the back steps. I am sure my parents thought I was crying because I spilled them... but I seriously remember being sad for wasting my parents money... I had envisioned a liquid so cool and fun as bubbles must have cost infinitely more than say gasoline... and me spilling the bubbles must meant the family would be short on cash for awhile. Sure I probably wanted the bubbles back too... but the overwhelming emotion I remember was sadness that I ruined something my parents gave me. It terrifies me to think I may have been angry at my own kids for the same thing

I am not sure McDonald's had toys are even happy meals back then... happy meals... isn't that kind of freaky nice name? It kind of freaks me out and makes me think of anti depresant medication or something... just eat your Happy Meals and smile and wave boys... smile and wave.

But toys in food... be it cereal of junk food bag... was a huge thing to kids back then. There were no video games... no cable or satelite TV... and simple toy was days worth of planing. My kids now have so many small toys like that I fear they are breading like rabbits. We have a rule 'no toy before eating' or the kids would never eat. TV has the same effect. Maybe... hey... maybe we *should* leave the TV on... it could be a TV diet... they would get so hypnotized in the TV they wouldn't remember to eat.

The Jolly Green Giant vs Santa

Advertising can be the act of lying about your product without trying to let the public catch on to what you are doing. There are certain advertising buzz words that we have all grown to know and love... OK... maybe not love... but we all know them. "Three in one formula" is a nice one. You could also say no one formula is good enough for the job. Even better is "triple action." Action is good in its own right... everyone loves action... but TRIPLE action... now that is some serious action. Of course... it also means that no one formula is good enough in its own right.

Sometimes the advertising is just plane contradictory. Take "new and improved." You can't improve something that is new... it is either new or it is improved. Product makers would say it was the formula that improved... making it in a sense new... but of course they want the same old brand name... packing and looks that everyone has grown to love.

I love the "no fat" label on bags of licorice. Sure enough... it's true... but it is also almost pure sugar which will still most definitely make you fat. Talk about brillient reframing there. That is good stuff there.

One of my favorites is "scrubbing bubbles." Remember the commercials with all the bubbles flying around scrubing for you? Nice. Very nice... of course they are bubbles... and in my experience bubbles don't really scrub... they just sit there or course... but it is damn nice thought that somehow these bubbles were cleaning agents for you. Powerful stuff. If someone could really invent that... nice! Like va-poo-rize in the movie Envy where they sprayed it on poo that just made it disappear... if I could get something that would just clean the toilets... now that would be nice.

And who doesn't love the 'pop-o-matic' in the Trouble game? Brilliant. If that same game did not include the 'pop-o-matic' it would never had made it. "O-matic" is a brilliant buzz word. You can throw "O-matic" onto just about anything and create a nice buzzword. Google O-matic and you will see how many times this has been done. Anything you need done... just create a product and put "o-matic" in the name and there you go. Chore-o-matic. Exercise-o-matic. Bill-o-matic. Toilet-clean-o-matic.

Then we have the newer buzzwords... like organic and green... and carbon footprint. Come on who wouldn't want to be green? It worked for Oscar the Grouch and the Jolly Green Giant. Speaking of the Jolly Green Giant... how did we let him steal 'ho, ho, ho...' from Santa. "Ho, ho, ho" was clearly Santa's saying and then along comes the Jolly Green Giant... probably because he is well... a giant, and he steals Santa's saying to sell peas. It's not right. I bet he got coal in his stocking for sure. I wonder who would win a fight between Santa and the Green Giant? To make it even we'd let the reigndeer join in... the Green Giant would swat at them like King Kong with helecopters... then Santa comes in like a Sumo wrestler to the Giant's leg... causing him to lose his balance and topple to the ground except in the next shot he isn't so huge... he gets smaller like the abomidable snowman did in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reigndeer... but the giant fights back by pulling Santa's hat over his eyes and starts to beat Santa until out of no where Yukon Cornelious whacks him with a pickaxe... OK... maybe not.

Organic, natural, green... ah yes... all wonderfull new buzzies, but Uranium is natural too... and it doesn't get much love. The world is full of organic and natural things that will kill you. The 100% whole wheat bagels I have have like 30 ingredients.

Bottom line... I think there should be an advertising buzz word hall of fame... and "pop-o-matic" should be in there... and someone needs to invent the Toilet-Clean-O-Matic... and oh yeah... Santa would totally take down the Grean Giant because Santa is good and even friendly Giants that say "ho, ho, ho" probably have some evil hiding in their closet.

Turtle vs The Bird

You have to love nature. Here on one hand we have a bird… with wings to slip “the surly bonds of earth”… to fly and soar swiftly and with freedom. On the other hand… a turtle. Slow… methodical... left to crawl around in an armored truck with such little agility a simple topple can be a death sentence.

You have to think turtles might be on the grumpier side of fair natured… watching birds flip around the sky or dance along the shore chirping and laughing and playing and taunting… taunting… always… TAUNTING and perhaps… singing poetry…

“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor eer eagle flew –
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.”

But when I danced along the shore so fertile…
I was fatally owned by one pissed off turtle

High flight - (John Gillespie Magee, Jr)

You have to see it to believe it

Turtle vs Bird

Talk about a bad day at the office. Can you imagine the bird conversation after that?

“Where’s uncle Zed”
“You don’t want to know”
“Seriously… cooo… cooo…. Where’s Zed”
“Zed is gone”
“Where? When is he coming back… we were supposed to fly over to…”
“HE WAS EATEN BY A TURTLE!!! There! Now you know.”
“You’re shitting me”
“Look around… coo… coo… do you see Zed?”
“What… did he eat a bad berry and pass out and a turtle got him?”
“No… he was just… just…”
“What… he was riding on the turtles back and slipped off? Hit his head on a rock maybe?”
“No… not like that”
“His wings were broke right? Lost a wing in a battle with a hawk? That was it I bet… cooo… broken wings is not good”
“Zed’s dead, baby, Zed is dead”