22. The Universal monsters become cereal salesman during Saturday morning cartoons and other childrens’ programming
In 1971, cereal giant General Mills introduced two new cereal lines aimed at children, marketing them heavily towards the audience of the Saturday morning cartoons which were prevalent at the time. The first was a chocolate-flavored breakfast cereal named Count Chocula. It was followed by a strawberry-flavored concoction called Franken Berry. Advertising included animated characters Count Alfred Chocula, based on Bela Lugosi’s Dracula (complete with accent and cape) and Franken Berry, who spoke in tones reminiscent of Boris Karloff. The two characters argued over whose cereal tasted better until something frightened them to the point that the argument was discontinued.
They were not the first cartoon caricatures of the iconic monsters. In 1964 a Frankenstein monster appeared with Bugs Bunny and the Tasmanian Devil in the cartoon, The Devil and Mr. Hare. The Beatles sampled a Frankenstein monster in the film Yellow Submarine (though The Beatles had nothing to do with the production of the film’s animation or story) which morphed into an animated John Lennon after drinking an unknown beverage. Congenial versions of the Frankenstein monster, far removed from its initial Universal appearance in 1931, appeared throughout the 1970s, and continued to appear today.