No Matter How Hard We Run, We Can Never Escape Our Childhood Breakfast Cereals

I don't want to admit this, really, but -- and what you're about to read is pretty much actually true -- since I was a child, I've had a strong revulsion to Kaboom cereal, due to what may be called a early-childhood type of social dysmorphia.

And, ultimately, self-hatred.

You say you've never heard of Kaboom? You think I'm making Kaboom up?

Well let me explain this. You've heard of Apple Jacks, right? Sure you have. Everyone has.

I wanted to be an Apple Jacks kid.

Apple Jacks kids had so much fun in the commercials. Fresh-faced, healthy, and free, and hopeful for the future. Singing and dancing and just loving on their Apple Jacks.

And the cereal was awesome too. I had it once in a Snack-Pack that fell off a truck.

But there were no commercials for Kaboom.

It was just a dirty little secret, like massage parlors and the back room at a pawnbroker's.

That's why you never heard of it.

But Kaboom kids know. Kaboom kids understand.

Apple Jacks was for winners.
Kaboom was the cereal of The Defeated

I mean, look at this box. Who is that box for? Who is the intended demographic here ?

People who are coming up in the world? People who are upwardly mobile?

No. Kaboom was for people -- children, I mean -- who had decided to give up on life. And it's a sad thing for a six-year-old to have already thrown in the towel and said, "Ah well. The hopes and dreams of kindergarten are ultimately exposed as so much folly. Give me the Kaboom, Ma. I'm ready to settle."

Because that's all such a cereal is fit for, those who settle, who accept, those who lower their gaze in defeat and shame. This, this horrid Clown Cereal that looks like it's some kind of weird generic brand but it's actually marketed by General Mills. I suppose this was General Mills' attempt to tap the "downscale demographic" in six-year-olds.

First of all, children hate clowns. All children. There's a joke that everyone's afraid of clowns. Well that's not true. But everyone does hate them. Children most of all, because clowns get up in your grill with horrible jokes and diseased breath, eyes glassy with vodka and pedophilia.

So who's this cereal for exactly? I suppose clowns might buy it for their victims and abductees, but that's not a large market. Well, not that large, anyway. Couple hundred thousand units a year, tops.

When marketers found that most children
described the Kaboom clown as "creepy,"
they called a meeting, and then added
a creepy bear and creepy hippo into the mix.
Note that the hippo is not really your classic circus animal
but this is in line with Kaboom's "Who Cares?" design parameters

And look at that box. Look at the colors. They're horrible. And this was not a color scheme that was in vogue back in the day, either. No, among all the other breakfast cereals, Kaboom stood out as a cereal where the manufacturers simply were not even trying, because they wanted to appeal to children who had already decided that Track 3 in reading class was probably a bridge too far and not really worth the effort.

It's like they gave a bunch of crayons and construction paper to illiterate hobos and said, "Do your best. Or your worst. We don't care. We're aiming for the dregs of second grade. Try to include a clown. Or don't. It really won't matter either way."

And the cereal was not even good. You would think that if you're selling this abortion of a breakfast cereal to the primary school underclass -- the emerging nihilistic YOLO demographic -- you would at least load it up with sugar because, what does it even matter?, the sort of kids who eat Kaboom know they're going to die young anyway. They have no illusions.

But you'd be wrong. Actually Kaboom was not very sweet at all.

I think they decided to skimp on sugar so they could put extra sugar on the more upscale cereals like Frosted Flakes and Frosted Mini-Wheats.

It was mostly just... oats.

You know: Like what they feed to the animals.

Prize at the bottom of the box? Oh no way, not with Kaboom cereal. No way they're throwing a ha'penny whistle in there for the poor kids. You're lucky they even bothered putting the cereal into a box, instead of just distributing it off a government assistance truck into your cupped hands.

I think occasionally they had mail-in sweepstakes where you could win a welfare voucher.

Or maybe a coupon for the orphanage PX. So you could buy some extra gruel and sewing supplies for the weekend.

A "prize," if you can call it that, included in Kaboom cereal,
when they briefly offered such toys in 1972.
Kaboom cereal pioneered Choking Hazard technology
until tepid public criticism forced them to end the practice
and to issue a halfhearted apology.

And it was unappetizing looking in the bowl as well. The colors were off. They weren't bright friendly colors like you might find in more respectable, upwardly mobile cereals like Lucky Charms. They didn't even pay for regular food coloring. They made Kaboom with discount irregular food coloring usually used for cat treats.

Kaboom's color palette was like the bright hues of a poisonous toad designed to warn off predators, a mixture of the garishly day-glo and and bizzrrely dark (the purple was that of a deep bruise, still bleeding beneath the skin). When milk was added, Kaboom became a nightmarish swirl of ugly, angry colors not to be found in nature, making your milk look as if it was just curdling into a loathesome cheese produced by an alien mold.

Detail of Kaboom Cereal.
Nothing says "part of a balanced breakfast"
like the Faces of the Unquiet Dead.
The famous "death mask imagery" of Kaboom
teaches children that aspiration is vanity
and all dreams are lies

They should have called it "Kabul." Just come right out with it. Let the people know what they're in for.

This is a cereal intended for bulk purchase by the United States Department of Agriculture to feed dirty foreign children. And their animals, too. One stop shopping-- they can all feed out of the same trough.

The cereal's chief use was as a humanitarian insult.

You might wonder at this point, What possible connection is there between the clown theme and explosions, as suggested by the name "Kaboom"? Well, don't bother thinking about it too hard. They sure didn't. This product was slapped together more or less randomly by People Who Didn't Even Care, intended for sale to People Who Care Just a Little Bit Less Than That.

Kaboom is not really a product designed for those who enjoy the life of the mind. Quite the opposite. It's a product designed for those whose subnormal IQs locate them in the brutish twilight existence that divides, hazily, the crude human from the cunning beast.

The cereal is essentially designed with an eye towards the inevitable devolution of the species. Future-proof, if you will.

If the Morlocks had a cereal it would be Kaboom. But they'd insist on more flavor.

Wow, Kaboom, 45% of some vitamins and iron.
Way to swing for the fences on nutrition.
You know what 45% is in school? That's right, it's a failure.
Kaboom relentlessly transmits the message that Failure Is Freedom.
And I can't wait to cut out that "Circus Game" and
play with some cardboard, either.
It's like it's designed to teach kids that the power
of imagination will only end in embarrassment.

Kaboom was made with a special secret ingredient: Contempt.

Did I eat Kaboom as a kid? You bet I did. If I didn't, I wouldn't have such a strong memory about it. If I never ate Kaboom, I would have just said, "Oh, that's the cereal that other children whose parents don't love them eat."

But no. I ate Kaboom. Quite a few times. More times I care to remember. And every time my mom brought home that garish yellow box of sorrows, I had the same thought: "Ohhh... we're that sort of people then, eh? We're just not even keeping up appearances anymore, are we, Mother?"

We weren't. And although we struggled to deny it to ourselves, we were now Kaboom People.

The truth is a relentless hunter.

Oh, we didn't quite sink to Kaboom's level. Not at first.

We strove to endure.

We were fighters.

But the cereal did drag the family down. It very nearly ruined us all.

And this is hard to say, but -- in the end we surrendered ourselves to Kaboom.

The "New Look" of Kaboom attempted
to make the cereal more "relevant" to kids in the 80s,
apparently seeking to play on fears of nuclear holocaust.

Ultimately, our sin wasn't in consuming Kaboom. Our sin was in letting Kaboom consume us.

We Descended.

We found the Kaboom Folk, or rather, they found us. The Kaboom Folk know their own. The downcast eyes, the twitch in a shameful smile. The know the Signs.

And then together we went wild into the night, without shame and without shoe, running petty scams at the carnival, stealing newspapers out of boxes and selling them for a nickel, eking out a rough existence at the grubby margins of human habitation.

Half-feral urban nomads living in communion with packs of wild dogs. For six months I wore nothing but a a fur jerkin and a genital sock.

My pack name was Mokh-Mokh.

And each night we came back from our scavengings to our shelterpit to eat our Kaboom, our shabby bowl of weirdly-colored animal feed and shame. But we no longer cared. We were free, but it was not true freedom.

It was only the dark, oatey freedom of Kaboom. A freedom I would not wish upon my worst enemy, or even the urban dogs who would fight us for pigeon carcasses.

Nowadays I can afford any sort of cereal I like. I can even spring the extra quarter for the high-class muesli-inflected Eurocereals if I like.

But I'll never escape where I came from. And where I came from was Kaboomville. Population: A ghastly clown, his stupid pink-purple parasol, and me. With my spoon, crying into my oddly discolored milk.

Tarantino Used the Ghastly Imagery of Kaboom to Create a Mood of Unease:

See the counter at 0:05-0:06. Light content warning for Profanity, Violence, and Kaboom cereal.

He knew what he was doing. He was subliminally preparing the viewer for the horror to come.

They should serve this in prisons. They probably do. Like in Texas and Alabama.

thanks to @rdbrewer4.

Posted by: Ace at 07:23 PM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Frist?

Posted by: Blanco Basura at September 04, 2013 07:26 PM (JawqV)

2 My college's old computer lab named its terminals and networked PCs (yes, they had them then, barely) after breakfast serials. This is the only reason I remember Kaboom.

And Croonchy Stars.

Posted by: Brother Cavil and his Flying Toaster Circus at September 04, 2013 07:26 PM (m9V0o)

3 Kaboom!

I love that cereal. And the song.

Kaboom, Kaboom. Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la. Kaboom, Kaboom.

Posted by: John "Straight Flush" McCain at September 04, 2013 07:27 PM (7ftrD)

4 /golfclap

Posted by: sithkhan at September 04, 2013 07:27 PM (EXCVJ)

5 If that clown goes after my lucky charms again I'll clock him.

Posted by: Lucky the Leprachaun at September 04, 2013 07:27 PM (8ZskC)

6 Kaboom? No.

We had the stuff that was so cheap it was sold (and still is) in plastic bags. Because it wasn't good enough to rate cardboard.

Posted by: Blanco Basura at September 04, 2013 07:28 PM (JawqV)

7 "I don't like to talk about humble beginnings, but we were dirty Kaboom Folk."

I envied the people who could afford Kaboom. My mom had me on coffee at 6 with tea and toast for "special days". Food before dinner, what a concept!

Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 07:28 PM (qzWDd)

8 No, I don't recall Kaboom Cereal. I ate Trix and Lucky Charms.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at September 04, 2013 07:28 PM (j+lCW)

9 Really? All that from a cereal box?

I've never seen or had Kaboom. Did it at least taste good?

Posted by: EC at September 04, 2013 07:29 PM (doBIb)

10 Michelle will not stand for this.

And I loved Lucky Charms.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 07:29 PM (lVPtV)

11 I love Kaboomville, homey. Quit talking shit about our hood.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 07:29 PM (uQIKb)

12 Where else but AoSHQ can you find pro-quality invective directed at an obsolete box of sugary oat cereal?

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at September 04, 2013 07:29 PM (8ZskC)

13 Wait a minute Ace, I'm 44 so I think we're about the same age and I've never seen that scary frickin' box nor have I heard of "Kaboom" cereal. I think you're making this up...

Posted by: Timon at September 04, 2013 07:30 PM (kTI1S)

14 After the cereal failed, they must have reformulated it into a cleaning product that Billy Mays sold.

Posted by: EC at September 04, 2013 07:30 PM (doBIb)

15 I was a fucked up kid. I liked Shredded Wheat and Weetabix.

Posted by: Gingy at September 04, 2013 07:30 PM (aH+zP)

16 I've never eaten a cereal with a clown on the box. Or a spider.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 07:30 PM (lVPtV)

17 I don't think Kaboom made it up to my corner of Canuckistan.

Posted by: Vendette at September 04, 2013 07:30 PM (gRnt+)

18 FU! Kaboom was luxury! 6 months out of the year, I got Cheerios. The other 6 months, hot cereal. It didn't matter that my Dad was Navy and we lived in tropical climes...OCT-MAR hot cereal.

Posted by: osoloco at September 04, 2013 07:30 PM (R5JSa)

19 That, Ace, is one of the funniest posts ever. Forget whatizzname Thick. This is the one.

Posted by: Mike Hammer at September 04, 2013 07:30 PM (aDwsi)

20 100% of your minimum daily requirement of insect parts.

Posted by: General Mills at September 04, 2013 07:31 PM (8ZskC)

21 BTW, if you put enough sugar on pencil shavings it's just like Frosted Flakes. Really. As long as you don't get too much of the black bits in. Then it's more like Raisin Bran.

Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 07:31 PM (qzWDd)

22 I tried probably every cereal that came out when I was a kid. Yes, Kaboom was horrible but did you ever try Rocky Road cereal? That was some awful crap.

Posted by: S Bern at September 04, 2013 07:31 PM (vsbxS)

23 SEE!!!! SEE!!!!

THIS is how CEREAL KILLERS get started !!!!!11!!!!

Posted by: Adriane... at September 04, 2013 07:31 PM (j/FJV)

24 good post

Posted by: MJH at September 04, 2013 07:31 PM (xAK7h)

25 15
I was a fucked up kid. I liked Shredded Wheat and Weetabix.

Posted by: Gingy at September 04, 2013 07:30 PM (aH+zP)

I eat Shredded Wheat mixed with Fiber One most mornings.

And get off my lawn.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 07:31 PM (lVPtV)

26
quisp......

shudder

Posted by: Bannable at September 04, 2013 07:31 PM (Lp6I1)

27 I can see the grimy picture of your morose childhood in my brain now, Ace. This explains a lot.

Seriously, I love this piece. Love it. I truly did LOL.

Posted by: mama winger at September 04, 2013 07:31 PM (P6QsQ)

28 This may be TMI, but I remember as a kid shitting blue after eating a coupla bowls of Boo Berry.

Posted by: jakeman at September 04, 2013 07:31 PM (GXKTh)

29 Brilliant post. Simply brilliant.

Posted by: SL at September 04, 2013 07:31 PM (NZ5oG)

30 I don't remember Kaboom and I'm roughly Ace's age (I think).

I ate Honeycombs. A lot. So much that I couldn't even think about eating them now.

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at September 04, 2013 07:31 PM (V1ZIU)

31 Interestingly, the clown is balancing the stuff on his toe..., presumably afraid to taint his free hand.

Posted by: Mike Hammer at September 04, 2013 07:32 PM (aDwsi)

32 It's like someone took a look at generic-brand Froot Loops and said "we can do worse."

Posted by: @JohnTant at September 04, 2013 07:32 PM (GLTPR)

33 I ate Trix and Lucky Charms.
--

Don't forget Froot Loops! If it was colorful and full of sugar, I ate it, so I probably tried Kaboom too.

Posted by: Mayday at September 04, 2013 07:32 PM (eHc+1)

34 As far as ghastly clowns, be glad you didn't eat your breakfast cereal with this one:

http://tinyurl.com/k9r4cgw

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at September 04, 2013 07:32 PM (j+lCW)

35 By high school, breakfast just got in the way of the grain alcohol Tang I was chugging on the way there.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 07:32 PM (uQIKb)

36
Krebs' Rule for Cold Cereal Consumption: if the remnant of milk in the bowl is unnaturally colored, you may want to rethink about continuing to consume said cereal.

The lead off brands cited here all violate Krebs' Rule.

'Nuff said!

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2013 07:32 PM (9hekj)

37 From such humble beginnings do great political careers begin. Spade/Peterson 2020.

Posted by: Motionview at September 04, 2013 07:32 PM (2yPl+)

38 I liked and still eat Life cereal. Not too sweet, not too "grain-y".

Posted by: EC at September 04, 2013 07:32 PM (doBIb)

39 I don't remember Kaboom. I did love Count Chocula.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 07:32 PM (lVPtV)

40
Remember Cinammon Toast Crunch? Damn was that shit good. I remember eating it over Saturday cartoons and thinking, "Boy am I glad I'm not some Kaboom eating sorry-ass. "

Posted by: Warden at September 04, 2013 07:33 PM (HzhBE)

41 Also, there is only one inedible cereal and that's Grape Nuts. WTF? Grapes don't have nuts and those ain't friggin nuts anyway. It's softish gravel.

Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 07:33 PM (qzWDd)

42 We were a happy family: we ate Quisp & Quake.

Posted by: RondinellaMamma at September 04, 2013 07:33 PM (EJ/Tn)

43 17 I don't think Kaboom made it up to my corner of Canuckistan.
Posted by: Vendette at September 04, 2013 07:30 PM (gRnt+)

************

Is it that--or is Ace just really old and stuff?

Posted by: tasker at September 04, 2013 07:33 PM (r2PLg)

44
Ace is doing the pot. What else could explain this, but wild hallucinogenics?

Posted by: MJ at September 04, 2013 07:33 PM (uUq75)

45 I'll show you some Kaboom, kid. Where are my launch codes, Bo?

Posted by: Prez'nit McMissle at September 04, 2013 07:33 PM (Dwehj)

46

I mean, look at that box. Who is that box for? Who is the demographic?

People who are coming up in the world? People who are upwardly mobile?

No. Kaboom is for people -- and children -- who have decided to give up
on life. And it's a sad thing for a six year old to have already thrown
in the towel and said, "Ah well. The hopes and dreams of kindergarten
are ultimately exposed as folly. Give me the Kaboom, Ma. I'm ready to
settle."

---------------

Classic.

Posted by: mama winger at September 04, 2013 07:33 PM (P6QsQ)

47 I eat Shredded Wheat mixed with Fiber One most mornings.

And get off my lawn.

Posted by: Jane D'oh
------------------

Sounds..., bulky.
Prune juice?

Posted by: Mike Hammer at September 04, 2013 07:33 PM (aDwsi)

48 Who would waste a screwdriver with real vodka on a child? Actually, they'll drink just about anything.

Posted by: Hairy Reed at September 04, 2013 07:33 PM (8ZskC)

49 I was never allowed sugary cereals as a kid. I was stuck with Cheerios (plain) and Rice Krispies (plain). If mom was feeling generous, I'd get cinnamon Life. My grandma would buy me Cap'n Crunch and I think I got Boo Berry once. I'm always obsessed with looking at all the different sugary cereals.

*childhood scars*

Posted by: DangerGirl, home sweet home at September 04, 2013 07:33 PM (GrtrJ)

50 28
This may be TMI, but I remember as a kid shitting blue after eating a coupla bowls of Boo Berry.

Nehi Blue Cream Soda. Pretty classic episodes in the bowl from that one too.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 07:33 PM (uQIKb)

51 This? This is why Ace is still my favorite blog. Anyone can write about Syria, only Ace can serve you childhood shame and make it hilarious.

And sort of sad too, but still hilarious.

Posted by: Austin in TX at September 04, 2013 07:33 PM (7YBwO)

52 Here you go, kid. Here's a bowl of Kaboom.

A bowl? You were lucky to have bowls. We'd have Kaboom poured in our open hands, we did. And the milk would slowly drip through our tiny fingers.

Posted by: AmishDude at September 04, 2013 07:34 PM (T0NGe)

53 Wow, I must have been a high-end kid. I preferred Rice Chex (with lots of sugar). Still do, as a matter of fact.

Posted by: qdpsteve at September 04, 2013 07:34 PM (7B7jB)

54 It does look generic. But even 30 years ago, i think GM cereals were a one size fits all price scheme. So, if price is not a difference maker, then you're arguing that it's the aesthetics that made this the preferred cereal for the open mouth reading crowd.

Posted by: oeJay44incday at September 04, 2013 07:34 PM (QxSug)

55 I LOVED Kaboom!

Kaboom had an odd effect on me. For years I had steadily developed stomach/intestinal problems (Turned out I had gradually developed lactose intolerance) but all my symptoms would disappear when I ate Kaboom.

I don't know what they put in it, but it sure worked well on my stomach issues. I would very much like to get some more of it but I haven't seen it for decades.

Nothing else ever had the same effect.

Posted by: Diogenes' Lamp at September 04, 2013 07:34 PM (bb5+k)

56 In Kill Bill pt 1 Vivica Fox reaches in the cabinet for a box of Kaboom cereal and fires a big ass revolver hidden it. the box goes KABOOM

kind of clever

Posted by: blaster at September 04, 2013 07:34 PM (DWZjc)

57 44

Ace is doing the pot. What else could explain this, but wild hallucinogenics?

Nice. *that* is why I connected so well with this post. Now I understand...lol

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 07:34 PM (uQIKb)

58 If it had Sugar in the title i was on it. Sugar Pops , Sugar Smacks...at least it was truth in advertising- as my 8 cavities at age 10 will attest to.

Posted by: jjshaka at September 04, 2013 07:34 PM (RNAsF)

59 I was a cruel mother. I fed our kid Cheerios with no sugar.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 07:34 PM (lVPtV)

60 meanwhile, those of us from intact families were subjected to "healthy" cheerios. It was a rare gift when we could find someone to scam into getting us froot loops or one of the other gutter cereals, like Lucky Charms.

Posted by: oeJay44incday at September 04, 2013 07:35 PM (QxSug)

61 My father owned a bakery when I was growing up. He worked nights so would call before he came home in the morning and ask what I wanted for breakfast. I was the only kid I knew who had chocolate eclairs for breakfast. Surprising that I weighed under 100 lbs when I left for college.

Posted by: Sharon at September 04, 2013 07:35 PM (DtEq4)

62
I'm sure Moms bought this for the extended shelf life. Get the FAMILY size and you don't have to shop as often.

Posted by: Liberty Lover at September 04, 2013 07:35 PM (2DgBs)

63 Did I eat Kaboom as a kid? You bet I did. If I didn't, I wouldn't have such a strong memory about it. If I never ate Kaboom, I would have just said, "Oh, that's the cereal that other children whose parents don't love them eat."

********

Ah-ha!

Posted by: Freud is Weary at September 04, 2013 07:35 PM (r2PLg)

64 Who was the guy that promoted a cereal by eating pine nuts?

Posted by: Mike Hammer at September 04, 2013 07:35 PM (aDwsi)

65 Don't forget Froot Loops! If it was colorful and full of sugar, I ate it, so I probably tried Kaboom too.

Posted by: Mayday at September 04, 2013 07:32 PM (eHc+1)

Froot Loops and equally sugary kin I eat straight out of the box. Milk ruins things.

Posted by: Vendette at September 04, 2013 07:35 PM (gRnt+)

66 I know there's some way to tie in the bombing of Syria with KABOOM cereal.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at September 04, 2013 07:35 PM (j+lCW)

67 Remember King Vitamin?

Talk about a creepy old guy on the box looking back at you, watching eat breakfast.

Posted by: EC at September 04, 2013 07:36 PM (doBIb)

68 Apple Jacks came out when I was a kid and (at least the first version) it was nasty! Very fake 'apple' flavoring; reminded me of the time my mom picked up "pork chop shaped protein" at the base commissary

Posted by: the Butcher at September 04, 2013 07:36 PM (8g9qq)

69 We had Kaboom. That was what we got off of the WIC truck. Nasty crap.

Posted by: guy at September 04, 2013 07:36 PM (piOfL)

70 You people have obviously never known the sheer pleasure of a warm waffle, served to you by a manservant.

Posted by: Preezy Choom at September 04, 2013 07:36 PM (lVPtV)

71 At the risk of being banned...

...I think we know waaaaaaay too much about you with this post, Ace.

Can we talk sports? I'm feeling a bit awkward.

Posted by: AmishDude at September 04, 2013 07:36 PM (T0NGe)

72 So.

Mr. Ace.

How long have you had these feelings of rejection about your Mother?

Posted by: Bitter Clinger and All That (Ecclesiates 9:11) at September 04, 2013 07:36 PM (28TG+)

73 I think they actually melted Crayons for the coloring. Old, throwaway Crayons, the ones that are too short and broken up even for kindergarteners.

Posted by: rdbrewer at September 04, 2013 07:37 PM (Iyg03)

74 Euell Gibbons approves this post.

Posted by: jakeman at September 04, 2013 07:37 PM (GXKTh)

75 Wow, Ace. Kaboom really had an effect on you, eh? I ate it. I loved it. We always had junky kids cereals in our pantry. Grins, Smiles, Giggles and Laughs....Fruity Freakies (I had all the magnets on our fridge)....Quisp, my personal fave. The only sugary kiddie cereal I disliked was Cap'n Crunch Peanut Butter. That shit stuck to the top of my mouth. and teeth.

And I hated Fiber All. It was like the Fresca of cereals.

Posted by: Lady in Black, in a dead thread talking to myself at September 04, 2013 07:37 PM (XB5Ak)

76 We only got "sugar" cereals for special occasions. The funny part was my Mom would let us use sugar on our Wheaties soit was probably worse for us. And BTW We got WHOLE milk. None of that wussy ass skim or even 1% crap. Of course I drink that wussy ass 1% now as to not clog the arteries so much but man whole milk with cereal was awesome.

Posted by: Minnfidel at September 04, 2013 07:37 PM (MZLjr)

77 We tried Kaboom in the rat traps at our trailer house but it was ineffectual. Too bad because we really needed the protein.

Posted by: Mr. Dave at September 04, 2013 07:37 PM (NCc1Z)

78 I laughed all the way through this. And yes, I ate Kaboom as a kid. But I preferred King Vitaman. Despite the healthy-sounding name, it was like a denser Captain Crunch with a sugar glaze (probably to cover the taste of added vitamins).

Posted by: Splunge at September 04, 2013 07:37 PM (bKA83)

79 I never hated clowns. In fact, I loved J.P. Patches with all my heart and watched him religiously every morning while getting ready for school. He and his clown-in-drag girlfriend Gertude were hilarious.

Posted by: kathysaysso at September 04, 2013 07:37 PM (6H6o8)

80

A ghastly clown, his stupid pink-purple parasol, and me. With my spoon, crying into my discolored milk.

HA! That's what you get, loser! YOu and your white-trash parents, and your sister with the all-too-brief blossoming into attractiveness and sexual availability all at the same time, and your mom chain smoking in a bathrobe (at 2:45 in the afternoon), with your dad, who the hell knows where.

Yeah, you eat that shit. EAT IT.

The rest of us got cocoa pebbles. And a bowl full of chocolate milk at the end.

Posted by: imp at September 04, 2013 07:37 PM (L9AnB)

81 I'm so od I remember "Quisp" and "Quake".

Posted by: Liberty Lover at September 04, 2013 07:37 PM (2DgBs)

82 I remember Kaboom as having a playful topnote of baby aspirin.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at September 04, 2013 07:37 PM (8ZskC)

83 Ok, that was very funny.

Posted by: Flatbush Joe at September 04, 2013 07:37 PM (ZPrif)

84 KabOOM! The official cereal of the Syrian freedom fighters

Posted by: Mama T loaned me her Botox at September 04, 2013 07:37 PM (Z8BWe)

85 Kaboom either cures cancer or causes cancer, there is no middle.

Posted by: Freud is Weary at September 04, 2013 07:37 PM (r2PLg)

86 17 I don't think Kaboom made it up to my corner of Canuckistan.
Posted by: Vendette at September 04, 2013 07:30 PM (gRnt+)

************

Is it that--or is Ace just really old and stuff?

Posted by: tasker at September 04, 2013 07:33 PM (r2PLg)

Naw, based on the Kaboom box I'd say that I'm not that far behind him in age. I guess I was deprived. Or not.

Posted by: Vendette at September 04, 2013 07:37 PM (gRnt+)

87 The once-a-month-trip to the commissary...ahh yes. It's all coming back now. Both carts full to the brim, just so they only had to do it once a month.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 07:37 PM (uQIKb)

88 TOP FIVE LEAST POPULAR GENERAL MILLS CEREALS OF ALL TIME

5. Sushi Squares (1989)

4. Nuclear Nuts 'n Flakes (1953)

3. Jalapeno Jelly Crunch (1995)

2. Vegemite VaVoom (1982)

1. Obama Oaty O's (2009)

Posted by: qdpsteve at September 04, 2013 07:38 PM (7B7jB)

89 >>>64
Who was the guy that promoted a cereal by eating pine nuts?<<<

Euell Gibbons.

"I am going to eat this pine tree to demonstrate a healthy way to start the day...."

Posted by: the guy that moves pianos for a living... at September 04, 2013 07:38 PM (E3gqr)

90 52
Here you go, kid. Here's a bowl of Kaboom.

A bowl? You were lucky to have bowls. We'd have Kaboom poured in
our open hands, we did. And the milk would slowly drip through our tiny
fingers.

You had hands? Well lah-di-dah. My parents would put our "cereal" in a bowl out in the yard. Well, we called it a yard. It was really just a patch of dirt that was atop a nuclear waste repository. And the cereal looked remarkably like grass clippings.

Posted by: pep at September 04, 2013 07:38 PM (6TB1Z)

91 lol, right? There's a war going on and Ace is wasting valuable internet time on non-war!

1oz sugary oat cereal?

ONE FUCKING OUNCE?

Posted by: oeJay44incday at September 04, 2013 07:38 PM (QxSug)

92 Kneel bitches. Kneel.

Posted by: Cap'n Crunch at September 04, 2013 07:38 PM (VrVBw)

93 Ace, show us on the clow doll where Captain Crunch touched you.

Posted by: fluffy at September 04, 2013 07:39 PM (X93Wv)

94
Anybody remember the "Freakies" cereal from sometime in the mid-to-late 1970s? The one with the faux-fruit-flavored/colored creatures on the box artwork that looked like the Smurfs had decided to stop being good and had enlisted in the Army of Darkness?

Posted by: RamonAllones at September 04, 2013 07:39 PM (2/63a)

95 LMAO

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at September 04, 2013 07:39 PM (DmNpO)

96 Most tasteless cereal: Kix

What was that shit? It's like someone managed to materialize a popcorn fart and put it in a box.

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at September 04, 2013 07:39 PM (V1ZIU)

97 Those Chocolate Chip Cookie Crisps? Very disappointing. Some sort of large hard cereal with black dots painted on.

Posted by: blaster at September 04, 2013 07:39 PM (DWZjc)

98 Mom always kept a few baggies full of Kaboom handy to distribute to the "lowlifes" at Halloween. Sometimes she'd throw in a pinch of rat poison, too, if a kid seemed unusually poor.

Posted by: Warden at September 04, 2013 07:39 PM (HzhBE)

99 Who was the guy that promoted a cereal by eating pine nuts?

Posted by: Mike Hammer at September 04, 2013 07:35 PM (aDwsi)

Euell Gibbons.

"Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible."

Posted by: Diogenes' Lamp at September 04, 2013 07:39 PM (bb5+k)

100 Captain Crunch is not a captain. He holds the rank of Commodore.

Posted by: EC at September 04, 2013 07:39 PM (doBIb)

101 Was just reading about this horrible place. Wonder how many Ace readers lived through it. (And last I heard, the Kaboom was for the *good* kids there.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dozier_School

Posted by: qdpsteve at September 04, 2013 07:39 PM (7B7jB)

102 The legendary Phil Hartman and Colon Blow.

www.hulu.com/watch/10304

Posted by: jakeman at September 04, 2013 07:39 PM (GXKTh)

103 Oooh...Captain Crunch.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 07:39 PM (lVPtV)

104 Can we talk sports? I'm feeling a bit awkward.

Posted by: AmishDude at September 04, 2013 07:36 PM (T0NGe)

ProStars cereal! I remember the edition with Wayne Gretzky on the box. It was everywhere in my part of Canuckistan.

Posted by: Vendette owns two Edmonton Oilers jerseys at September 04, 2013 07:40 PM (gRnt+)

105 I couldn't get enough of that Super Sugar Crisp, especially since it was as close as I could get to emulating my father who would only ever eat Puffed Wheat. I hated that Quaker bastard. Plus Bing Crosby voicing Sugar Bear was Awesomeness to the Awesomenest power.

Posted by: Working Class Hero at September 04, 2013 07:40 PM (JJacw)

106 Seriously though, Grape Nuts are the best. Crunchy, lots of flavor, clean your teeth like a Milkbone dog biscuit. What's not to like?

Posted by: pep at September 04, 2013 07:40 PM (6TB1Z)

107 I loved this but I don't remember this cereal either---we were a Rice Crispies household.
Gotta wonder what they were thinking with "KABOOM". Why not just shoot for the stars with "SPLAT" ?

Posted by: farmersusie at September 04, 2013 07:40 PM (ydb8s)

108 Puffa Puffa Rice

Posted by: King Barack at September 04, 2013 07:40 PM (PYgvR)

109 Some years ago, General Mills made one or more substitutions (IIRC rice was one) in Life Cereal's ingredients, ruining its oaty taste.

Those responsible for the decision deserve to be bound and thrown into a bog, preferably where rice is grown.

Posted by: adams Mikey Syrial porn at September 04, 2013 07:40 PM (gQKHE)

110 >>>my mom brought home that garish yellow box of shame...

>>>With my spoon, crying into my discolored milk.

Hah!

Posted by: rdbrewer at September 04, 2013 07:40 PM (Iyg03)

111 I laughed, I cried, I cried from laughing, then I cried because of the middle class, Syria You Guys

Posted by: Chelsea Danger at September 04, 2013 07:40 PM (mHol2)

112 Never heard of this stuff. Must have been a New England/Northern/Midwest thing to go with the dreary winters and the impending rust belt implosion.

Posted by: Random letter of the Alphabet, after S at September 04, 2013 07:41 PM (qP3is)

113 Rice Krispies treats.

That is all.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 07:41 PM (lVPtV)

114 There's a war going on and Ace is wasting valuable internet time on non-war!

No, he didn't, It's called KABOOM. How more warlike can you get? ;^)

Send a box to Hagel, Kerry and Obama

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at September 04, 2013 07:41 PM (j+lCW)

115 I never ate a lot of cereal until I discovered pot and realized what a great thing Captain Crunch Peanut Butter is straight out of the box. Shit's like Scooby Snacks.

Posted by: the guy that moves pianos for a living... at September 04, 2013 07:41 PM (E3gqr)

116 Kaboom was the name of a vitamin fortified, circus-themed breakfast cereal produced by General Mills, which contains grain-flavored corn cereal bits shaped like smiling clown faces and marshmallow bears, lions, elephants, and stars. Its mascot is a smiling circus clown. It originated in 1969.

******

omg--I knew it.

Ace is a self hating Grandpa!!!

Ace of Spades--it's full of old people!!!!

Posted by: tasker at September 04, 2013 07:41 PM (r2PLg)

117 I'm 36, a bit younger than Ace, and I have never seen nor heard of Kaboom in my life.

I do remember being a big fan of C3POs cereal when they made that for a few years after Return of the Jedi came out. Tasted like cake. For most of my childhood, my mom was an anti-sugar cereal warrior though, who would usually force me to eat Cheerios or Kix or Crispix. What made it worse was that we always had Capn Crunch or Smacks in the house - I just wasn't allowed to eat it. They were for my dad, who was (and remains) a sugary cereal fanatic. About three times a year she'd let me have a sugary cereal, but even then there were restrictions. She just refused to buy Apple Jacks or Froot Loops for some reason, as if Frosted Flakes was somehow healthier. Once I made the mistake of asking for Cookie Crisp, and being enormously disappointed that they weren't actually little cookies.

Posted by: radar at September 04, 2013 07:41 PM (ey6pQ)

118 We got this cereal through the WIC program for the youngsters in the mid 1980's. It turned the baby poo a bright turquoise blue. Loved the days when you got the good food dyes.

Posted by: Nana at September 04, 2013 07:41 PM (ttUJg)

119 I liked Quisp too. Having 3 brothers, whoever woke up first would eat the marshmallows or berries out of the cereals that had them.

Posted by: Baldy at September 04, 2013 07:41 PM (tyDFN)

120 Oooh...Captain Crunch.

Shredder of Palates

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at September 04, 2013 07:41 PM (8ZskC)

121 So, am I supposed to eat the cereal or not?

Posted by: PAgirlinNC at September 04, 2013 07:42 PM (gl1op)

122
And I hated Fiber All. It was like the Fresca of cereals.

Posted by: Lady in Black, in a dead thread talking to myself at September 04, 2013 07:37 PM (XB5Ak)

What you talkin bout? I loved FRESCA! Still Do when I find it!

Posted by: Diogenes' Lamp at September 04, 2013 07:42 PM (bb5+k)

123 25 15
I was a fucked up kid. I liked Shredded Wheat and Weetabix.

Posted by: Gingy at September 04, 2013 07:30 PM (aH+zP)

I eat Shredded Wheat mixed with Fiber One most mornings.

And get off my lawn.
Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 07:31 PM (lVPtV)
---
I WAS SEVEN. Now I eat cardboard willingly.

Posted by: Gingy at September 04, 2013 07:42 PM (aH+zP)

124 Most tasteless cereal: Kix

What was that shit? It's like someone managed to materialize a popcorn fart and put it in a box.

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at September 04, 2013 07:39 PM (V1ZIU)

Kix was actually packing material. At least that's what my Mom said when she would feed us a bowl of packing material.

Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 07:42 PM (qzWDd)

125 106
Seriously though, Grape Nuts are the best. Crunchy, lots of flavor,
clean your teeth like a Milkbone dog biscuit. What's not to like

That gummy residue of mashed Grape Nut paste that always clings to your molars like a face-hugging spider?

Posted by: Splunge at September 04, 2013 07:42 PM (bKA83)

126 For the record, Grape Nuts soften up and taste better if you nuke 'em with milk for a minute and put maple syrup on top.

Posted by: jakeman at September 04, 2013 07:42 PM (GXKTh)

127 At least he didn't molest you with his eyes like Sugar Bear did with Sugar Crisp. yeah, the Clown may have touched you the wrong way on the inside, but the eyes of Sugar Bear...

the eyes of sugar bear...

May God have mercy on my soul

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_Bear

Posted by: radioactive at September 04, 2013 07:42 PM (rLgYm)

128
Did I eat Kaboom as a kid? You bet I did. If I didn't, I wouldn't have such a strong memory about it. If I never ate Kaboom, I would have just said, "Oh, that's the cereal that other children whose parents don't love them eat."
------------

Maybe it's just me, but this sounds like a GLADOS taunt.

"Your parents must have really loved you. They gave you a lifetime supply of Kaboom for breakfast. Oh. Wait. It says here that Kaboom was the cereal that children whose parents don't love them eat."

Posted by: junior at September 04, 2013 07:42 PM (UWFpX)

129 I'm in the mood for a pine tree sammich.

Posted by: Meggie McMac at September 04, 2013 07:42 PM (Dwehj)

130 You had hands? Well lah-di-dah. My parents would put our "cereal" in a bowl out in the yard. Well, we called it a yard. It was really just a patch of dirt that was atop a nuclear waste repository. And the cereal looked remarkably like grass clippings.
Posted by: pep at September 04, 2013 07:38 PM (6TB1Z)

There you 1%ers are with your bowls again. We were lucky if we got irradiated dirt. Lucky, mind. We sometimes got to sit in irradiated manure. If we were lucky. On holidays and the occasional birthday.

Grass clippings were a luxury for the guests. We had to make due with stray whisps of dandelion fluff.

Posted by: AmishDude at September 04, 2013 07:43 PM (T0NGe)

131 Let's take up a collection and send the Obama girls some sugary cereal.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 07:43 PM (lVPtV)

132 In deepest darkest Africa, our cereal, if you can call it that, was tree bark bits with mud milk. The rich kids got one or two small chunks of antelope horn with theirs.

Memories. Sigh.

Posted by: Chelsea d'afrique, late to the meme as usual at September 04, 2013 07:43 PM (r+7wo)

133 Frosted Flakes is the best cereal of all time.

Why? SUGAR! And lots of it.

Posted by: EC at September 04, 2013 07:43 PM (doBIb)

134 the dregs of second grade

I saw those guys open for Queens of the Stone Age in '98.

Posted by: Armando at September 04, 2013 07:44 PM (IDypm)

135 129
I'm in the mood for a pine tree sammich.

Posted by: Meggie McMac at September 04, 2013 07:42 PM (Dwehj)

Your daddy's got a fevah, and war's the only cure. Join the military, twit.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 07:44 PM (lVPtV)

136 I think it's time for Ace to finally level with us and at least tell us where he grew up. State, at least? Region within that state?

C'mon Ace, we all have that picture of you from your one TV appearance saved to our hard drives. We KNOW you look like an Ewok already.

My guess: northern New Jersey or upstate New York (i.e. outside NYC but not the Adirondacks).

Because we would never have tolerated this Breakfast Of Poors where I grew up, in leafy, tony suburban Maryland.

Posted by: Jeff B. at September 04, 2013 07:44 PM (n/+FT)

137 Captain Crunch is not a captain. He holds the rank of Commodore.

Posted by: EC at September 04, 2013 07:39 PM (doBIb)

Commander if it's USN.

Posted by: Vendette at September 04, 2013 07:44 PM (gRnt+)

138 115
I never ate a lot of cereal until I discovered pot

My intake went WAY up in my 20s too...milk consumption was absolutely non-existent, yep.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 07:44 PM (uQIKb)

139 >>>Wait a minute Ace, I'm 44 so I think we're about the same age and I've never seen that scary frickin' box nor have I heard of "Kaboom" cereal. I think you're making this up...

Obviously from the toney Frosted Flakes burbs.

Posted by: rdbrewer at September 04, 2013 07:44 PM (Iyg03)

140 I'm so od I remember "Quisp" and "Quake".

--

I'm so old, I remember the national "contest" between those two cereals. Whichever one got the most votes would stay. The other was destined for the discontinued pile. Quisp won.

Posted by: Lady in Black, in a dead thread talking to myself at September 04, 2013 07:45 PM (XB5Ak)

141 Serious watch the first part of Kill Bill you will see a box of Kaboom cereal.

As soon as I saw it in the cabinet I knew what was going to happen.

Posted by: blaster at September 04, 2013 07:45 PM (DWZjc)

142 Kaboom was killer. I ate a ton of cereal as a kid. I had probably 2 dozen favs that mom would rotate through, and kaboom was one of them. I forgot all about that stuff.

Posted by: Berserker at September 04, 2013 07:45 PM (FMbng)

143 Mon Dieu--

Ace has the hots for Miss Mipple!

Posted by: Inspector Clouseau at September 04, 2013 07:45 PM (r2PLg)

144
Puffa Puffa Rice

Posted by: King Barack at September 04, 2013 07:40 PM (PYgvR)

You can make Rice Cakes with Puffed Rice and Elmer's glue. Totally non-toxic too. Unlike Styrofoam packing material.

Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 07:45 PM (qzWDd)

145 In fact, I think it would be a very appropriate gift for them-sending boxes of it to the those clowns-KABOOM!/

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at September 04, 2013 07:45 PM (j+lCW)

146 5 cents. Now.

Posted by: lucy van pelt at September 04, 2013 07:46 PM (2UX1i)

147 Freakies were great. I think I still have the little plastic Freakies figures that came in the box stashed away somewhere.

Posted by: Mark1971 at September 04, 2013 07:46 PM (DFqz1)

148 Sock off

Posted by: phunctor at September 04, 2013 07:46 PM (2UX1i)

149 >>>And it was unappetizing looking in the bowl as well. The colors were off.
They weren't bright friendly colors like you might find in more
respectable, upwardly mobile cereals like Lucky Charms. No, the palette
was like the sort of colors you got when you mixed paint without
knowing what you were doing and put too much black in there so
everything sort of looked like the licorice you never eat.

In other words: late '70s, post-Watergate/Carter-era colors, when America was too down on itself to even spend time investing in uplifting food coloring. "Here, have some industrial-grade shit -- it's what we deserve as a nation."

Posted by: Jeff B. at September 04, 2013 07:46 PM (n/+FT)

150 There's a cereal called Kaboom?

Posted by: Caliban at September 04, 2013 07:46 PM (2ArJQ)

151 all those years of therapy to restore my self esteem went down the drain. I succumbed to a wave of shame when seeing that box.

most cereals get soggy in milk inspiring young minds to hurry up while the settings good. Up and at 'em!

kaboom did not dissolve in milk but rather thicken the milk into an elmers paste-like consistency telling my generation "you're just not worth it".

thanks for nothing general mills.

Posted by: DONKEY PUNCHER at September 04, 2013 07:46 PM (MfeQY)

152 We were grapenuts people. I wasn't allowed any cereal that had sugar listed within the top 5 ingredients. Do you know what that leaves? Grapenuts. So many damn grapenuts.

Posted by: Pretty, Pretty Princess Lauren at September 04, 2013 07:46 PM (Dj9ZM)

153 Ace, you at least had some color in your childhood. I grew up in the sepia world of corn flakes.

Posted by: Decaf at September 04, 2013 07:46 PM (8A7Cc)

154 Grass clippings were a luxury for the guests. We had to make due with stray whisps of dandelion fluff.

Posted by: AmishDude at September 04, 2013 07:43 PM (T0NGe)

Photosynthesis from Sunlight here.

Posted by: Diogenes' Lamp at September 04, 2013 07:47 PM (bb5+k)

155 Anybody remember the original Quaker 100% Natural Cereal? It's changed apparently since the 1970s, but back then I remember it cracked me up because it contained literally EVERYTHING. Wheat, barley, oats, fiber, rice, corn, nuts, maple sugar, brown sugar, white sugar, tree bark, squirrel droppings, pine cones, angel dust, and nuclear fallout.

It was like some weird combination of "Rocky Mountain High" and Chernobyl in a bowl.

Posted by: qdpsteve at September 04, 2013 07:47 PM (7B7jB)

156 Way to go, akula51. You fixed the "italic problem" for this thread and now Ace thinks it's fixed everywhere when it's not; and the home page is ~~a Peruvia~~ an italic dog's breakfast!!!

Posted by: andycanuck at September 04, 2013 07:47 PM (7zANx)

157
Does anyone remember ZAREX, the drink- syrup?

Posted by: soothsayerwing plover at September 04, 2013 07:47 PM (MwW3T)

158 Sugary cereals weren't allowed in my house. I only got Cheerios and Rice Krispies. But when I was at my grandmother's, I had the gourmet meal of puffed rice and powdered milk. Mmmmmmmm. I can still taste the sadness.

Posted by: mrscorpio at September 04, 2013 07:47 PM (89QjE)

159 Upscale my ass. That freaky Lucky Charms Leprechaun required years of intensive and expensive psychotherapy to get over. Clowns are all fun and games. But when a leprechaun flies out of your cereal box popping pink hearts and purple horseshoes all up in your grille? You know shit just got real...

Posted by: Darth Chipmunk at September 04, 2013 07:47 PM (reJQl)

160 Italics day today?

Posted by: tug at September 04, 2013 07:47 PM (S8FwZ)

161 grain-flavored

Wait, not even real grain?

Posted by: slatz at September 04, 2013 07:47 PM (yuZy4)

162 Kaboom is the kind of cereal that was in late 90s Army MREs, the kind that only starving refugees would eat.

The world's finest cereal, both in my childhood and now as an adult, is Fruity Pebbles. I will suffer no argument to the contrary

Posted by: UGAdawg at September 04, 2013 07:48 PM (e/9tl)

163 Kaboom is bad enough but what if you had to use powdered milk also. Ick

Posted by: t-dubyh-d at September 04, 2013 07:48 PM (u6lBN)

164 I've spent most of today with the uneasy feeling that Archduke Ferdinand was -- somewhere -- rolling his eyes. This on top of the normal rage spiral in which I spend most days.

Which is to say I didn't think it was possible for me to so much as crack a smile today. Until I read this.

A smile, then a chuckle until, finally, tear-streaming laughter.

For the record it was "You know: Like they feed animals." that pushed me all the way into hysterics.

And I thank you.

Posted by: Dumb_Blonde at September 04, 2013 07:48 PM (8GvoM)

165 My mom didn't really give us sugary cereals growing up but when we went to Grandma's, she always had Sugar Pops. I think that was the name....

Posted by: PAgirlinNC at September 04, 2013 07:48 PM (hJ9Lr)

166 Little known fact: Kaboom is the national cereal of Peruvia. Instead of milk, they use the lighter fluid.

Posted by: Chelsea d'afrique, late to the meme as usual at September 04, 2013 07:48 PM (r+7wo)

167 Don't get me started on the costs of recovery from the "Hidden Prize" in every box of cracker Jacks...

Posted by: Darth Chipmunk at September 04, 2013 07:48 PM (reJQl)

168 We had to make due with stray whisps of dandelion fluff.Posted by: AmishDude at September 04, 2013 07:43 PM (T0NGe) We ATE the dandelions with bacon grease and hard boiled eggs. Mom called it 'salad'. We had it every time she weeded the garden. We were told we were special because none of the rich kids got to eat dandelion.

Posted by: Liberty Lover at September 04, 2013 07:48 PM (2DgBs)

169 156
Way to go, akula51.

Hold on a second, what the fuck did I inadvertently do this time?

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 07:48 PM (uQIKb)

170
For the record, Grape Nuts soften up and taste better if you nuke 'em with milk for a minute and put maple syrup on top.

Posted by: jakeman at September 04, 2013 07:42 PM (GXKTh)

Yes, but then you have warm squishy maple covered cat littler.

Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 07:48 PM (qzWDd)

171 My mother bought Kaboom cereal once.

Once.

Posted by: blaster at September 04, 2013 07:49 PM (DWZjc)

172 My dad was an opinionated doctor. Although we could afford any cereal, the best I could have hoped for was Raisin Bran.

The best part of sleepover at friends' houses? Lucky Charms.

Posted by: weew at September 04, 2013 07:49 PM (2yhel)

173 Wait, the General Mills people deserve to drowned in fetid water for the Honey Nut Cheerios bee. The Quaker Oats ones should be drawn and quartered.

Posted by: adams Mikey Syrial porn at September 04, 2013 07:49 PM (gQKHE)

174
Send In The Clown's Cereal.

Isn't it rich?

Isn't it queer?

Posted by: Kaboom-boom at September 04, 2013 07:49 PM (qKpun)

175 Kaboom was made from what they swept off the floors at Quaker Oats and Grandy's. High profit margin. The sugar was worth more.

Posted by: Beto at September 04, 2013 07:49 PM (MhA4j)

176 Posted by: mrscorpio at September 04, 2013 07:47 PM (89QjE)

No sugary cereal for us either. Mainly wheaties, cheerios and rice krispies.

Posted by: slatz at September 04, 2013 07:49 PM (yuZy4)

177 All we got were bran flakes, because even in the mid 60s, my mom was into colon health.

Posted by: RS at September 04, 2013 07:49 PM (YAGV/)

178 What you talkin bout? I loved FRESCA! Still Do when I find it!

--

Fresca and Tab. I hated those when I was a kid. Worst tasting pop (yeah, it's pop, not soda) ever concocted by man. I think I'd rather drink sand.

Posted by: Lady in Black, in a dead thread talking to myself at September 04, 2013 07:49 PM (XB5Ak)

179 I now know where the affinity for hobo hunting developed.

Posted by: no good deed at September 04, 2013 07:49 PM (WmLrU)

180 At least Ace made it out of Kaboomville....not everyone had that power of will.

Posted by: BignJames at September 04, 2013 07:50 PM (HtUkt)

181 > "And this was not a color scheme that was in vogue back in the day, either."

Actually GE had a Lighted Ice bulb (Christmas tree lights) in every one of those colors. Plus lime green. Honest to God, they were mesmerizing on a tree. And at the time I was too young to be strung out on anything myself.

Posted by: Frank Underwood (D-SC) at September 04, 2013 07:50 PM (OpaBw)

182 I mean, there aren't crackers or jacks in there... I'm just sayin'

Posted by: Darth Chipmunk at September 04, 2013 07:50 PM (reJQl)

183 My parents wouldn't buy the fun sugary cereals.

We were all about the Corn Flakes.

Corn Flakes with a bowl of sugar next to it, which we then applied liberally. I never had the nerve to point out this hypocrisy out of fear they'd respond by taking the sugar away.

We got donuts on Sunday though. It almost made up for being deprived a normal childhood of eating Froot Loops. Almost.

Posted by: Hollowpoint at September 04, 2013 07:50 PM (X9Mnx)

184 When was Kaboom around? I've never even heard of it.

By the way, this Kaboom! thread is making the NSA go nuts...

Posted by: t-bird at September 04, 2013 07:50 PM (FcR7P)

185 what the fuck did I inadvertently do this time?

Shit. Do right. Inadvertently do right...sigh

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 07:50 PM (uQIKb)

186 The best part of sleepover at friends' houses? Lucky Charms.

I'll put in a vote for Pop-Tarts, which were forbidden in our household.

Posted by: jakeman at September 04, 2013 07:50 PM (GXKTh)

187 Because we would never have tolerated this Breakfast Of Poors where I grew up, in leafy, tony suburban Maryland.

Posted by: Jeff B.

Let me guess. You were a Mucus household, filled with free-range roots, twigs, and bits of Mrs. Euell Gibbons.

Posted by: pep at September 04, 2013 07:50 PM (6TB1Z)

188 Oh, the cereal DID have lime green. I was looking at the clown's spots. Well, my point stands affirmed all the more.

Posted by: Frank Underwood (D-SC) at September 04, 2013 07:50 PM (OpaBw)

189 Anyone remember Big Mixx cereal, which had a weiird mythological creature as a mascot and Kellogg's created a fake backstory for it? It was basically a random mixture of other cereals.

Posted by: radar at September 04, 2013 07:50 PM (ey6pQ)

190 Never liked sweetened cereals. Even as a kid I liked Grape Nuts, Wheat Chex, Shredded Wheat.

Made me the man I wish I were today.

Posted by: Steve Skubinna at September 04, 2013 07:50 PM (pnUTv)

191 Kaboom was designed to look like the faces of the dead.

Posted by: rdbrewer at September 04, 2013 07:51 PM (Iyg03)

192 God bless you Ace, you picked up where my addled mind left off last fall....

nice writing.

sven
survivor of CampMuselix 957

Posted by: chelsea10077 at September 04, 2013 07:51 PM (9jfyN)

193 I almost didn't read this, in the "stuff to do skip it" sense, but God Damn that was hilarious.

You just out-shined the Institute of Official Cheer, I think I saw Lileks taking notes.

Also, the part where Ace didn't close the italics tag and got the Barrel? CLASSIC!

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at September 04, 2013 07:51 PM (qyfb5)

194 We did the nuked grapenuts too. I used to actually like them, but then I tasted Frosted Flakes.

Posted by: Pretty, Pretty Princess Lauren at September 04, 2013 07:51 PM (Dj9ZM)

195 Lucky Charms is the official gay cereal.

Serious.

Posted by: blaster at September 04, 2013 07:51 PM (DWZjc)

196
You know who else has settled for Kaboom?

Preznint Barky, in Syria's, you guys.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2013 07:51 PM (4hQC8)

197 Oh, the Tears - THEY BURN! THEY BURN!

Posted by: radioactive at September 04, 2013 07:51 PM (rLgYm)

198
I was eating Shredded Wheat this morning, about 11 am, reading the mail.
My son was on the cover of SI, my girlfriend had a 9 page spread in Maxim, and my ex-wife had her picture on the milk carton.
Top that, Ace!1!!1

Posted by: Pooter Hound at September 04, 2013 07:52 PM (Q6w9s)

199
Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs!

A Calvin & Hobbes original!

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2013 07:52 PM (4hQC8)

200
Fresca and Tab. I hated those when I was a kid. Worst tasting pop (yeah, it's pop, not soda) ever concocted by man. I think I'd rather drink sand.

My mom always had a tab in a bottle everything Thursday on the way to the hairdressers to get her gigantic beehive set. She would set it on the console next to her hairpiece on a Styrofoam head.

Posted by: Liberty Lover at September 04, 2013 07:52 PM (2DgBs)

201 I bet that fucker's sitting there mowing down on an industrial-sized bowl, reading this and snickering madly.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 07:52 PM (uQIKb)

202
Maypo. Who remembers that?
If you had a mother who believed in hot wholesome cereals like Farina or Cream of Wheat, you could only envy those kids who got to eat the colorful candy cereals. You felt deprived.

Posted by: The Quaker Oats guy at September 04, 2013 07:52 PM (qKpun)

203 Never heard of Kaboom. It must be yankee cereal.

Posted by: Harrison Bergeron at September 04, 2013 07:52 PM (JQuNB)

204
Fresca and Tab. I hated those when I was a kid. Worst tasting pop (yeah, it's pop, not soda) ever concocted by man. I think I'd rather drink sand.

Posted by: Lady in Black, in a dead thread talking to myself at September 04, 2013 07:49 PM (XB5Ak)

I drank a lot of tab back in those days. My dad was diabetic, and he kept the fridge stocked with tab.

It sucked at first, but eventually I got to liking it.

Fresca is a good pick when it comes to a refreshing diet soda. I've turned a few people on to it who had never heard of it before.

Posted by: Diogenes' Lamp at September 04, 2013 07:53 PM (bb5+k)

205 191 rdbrewer,

they scrimped on sugar b/c of Van Gogh's royalties... Guernica

Posted by: chelsea10077 at September 04, 2013 07:53 PM (9jfyN)

206 The best part of sleepover at friends' houses? Lucky Charms.

*****

My buddy's mom would get the old man drunk til he passed out and walk around in a negligee. Talk about lucky.

Posted by: Beto at September 04, 2013 07:53 PM (MhA4j)

207
Is that a rodeo clown? That looks like a rodeo clown to me.
Last week rodeo clown, this week Syria. It is hard to become more cynical, buy I try

Posted by: Pooter Hound at September 04, 2013 07:53 PM (Q6w9s)

208 >>>
Because we would never have tolerated this Breakfast Of Poors where I grew up, in leafy, tony suburban Maryland.

the prize at the bottom of the box was a welfare voucher

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 07:53 PM (/IWYB)

209 Posted by: Hollowpoint at September 04, 2013 07:50 PM (X9Mnx)

We were not allowed to eat the Corn Flakes. Those were reserved for turning a pound of chop meat into a 2 pound meatloaf.

Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 07:53 PM (qzWDd)

210 "....because they get up in your grill with these stupid jokes that wouldn't
be funny even if you were four years old with their nasty Cigar Breath
and intimidate you at smiling at their stupid props which they can
barely hold straight due to their alcoholic jitters."
.
.That's some fine funny writing.

Posted by: Ranteo at September 04, 2013 07:53 PM (u3N3z)

211 Cinnamon Frosted Sugar Bombs-- for the win!!

Posted by: Calvin at September 04, 2013 07:53 PM (NCc1Z)

212 The best part of sleepover at friends' houses? Lucky Charms.

And one of my neighbors was a sales rep for YooHoo. The kids' basement rumpus room had a whole fridge filled with it.

Posted by: jakeman at September 04, 2013 07:53 PM (GXKTh)

213 I remember in school we'd have one lunchroom table for the Kaboom eaters and the rest for us normal kids.

Sometimes when we were feeling especially puckish, we'd offer to "spruce up" their fare with some Necco Wafers. Oh, how they'd sob!

Posted by: Warden at September 04, 2013 07:53 PM (HzhBE)

214 I just had a bowl of Cap'n Crunch with Crunchberries for dinner. The roof of my mouth is shredded, but I'm happy about it.

Posted by: no good deed at September 04, 2013 07:54 PM (WmLrU)

215

Ha! Jim Carrol

Billy hung himself by his fruit of the loom/
Sally choked to death on bowl of Kaboom /
these are the people who died, died, these are the people who died died..."

Posted by: imp at September 04, 2013 07:54 PM (L9AnB)

216 Tab. Ugh. Yeah. I preferred to just skip the middleman and snort my saccharin directly.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 07:54 PM (uQIKb)

217 Posted by: blaster at September 04, 2013 07:51 PM (DWZjc)

Then Skittles is the gay candy?

Taste the Rainbow?

Gay propaganda?

We've been brainwashed by our CEREAL?

See, now maybe that Russian law starts making some sense.

Posted by: Bitter Clinger and All That (Ecclesiates 9:11) at September 04, 2013 07:54 PM (28TG+)

218 In my house growing up it was primarily Kellog's Corn Flakes. They are awesome for about 14.3 seconds after the milk hits and then it's like eating a bowl of the Sunday newspaper.

To this day, my kryptonite is Peanut Butter Crunch. I haven't eaten a bowl in over twenty years because it's about as healthy for your teeth as a swung crowbar and you can actually hear colors after a whole box but it's totally worth it.

Posted by: B at September 04, 2013 07:54 PM (6iEQd)

219 The best part of sleepover at friends' houses? Lucky Charms.

Yup. My mom NEVER bought soda. The only time I had it when I was a kid was at my friend's house. I spent a lot of time there. And don't get me started on cookies. Mom went to the PX once a month or so, and bought Fig Newtons. We were limited to two per child per day, and we thought we were in heaven when we got them.

The notion of slapping a sleeve of them on the table and chowing down never occurred to us in our wildest dreams.

Posted by: pep at September 04, 2013 07:54 PM (6TB1Z)

220 You think Kaboom was bad then try King Vitamin.The worst were the mush cereals:Raisin Bran,Shredded Wheat,Corn Flakes,Rice Krispies.You had less than 2 minutes to eat the cereal before the gag reflex reared its ugly head.

Posted by: YTown Guy at September 04, 2013 07:54 PM (das+y)

221 Never heard of KABOOM. All I ever got was Post Toasties and puffed rice.

Posted by: Ronster at September 04, 2013 07:54 PM (zIls9)

222 Mmmm... Kaboom Syrial.

Posted by: John McCain at September 04, 2013 07:54 PM (FcR7P)

223
A hot cereal - Red River - from Canuckistan was the bane of my youthful breakfasts.

I have neither forgiven Canuckistan for that, nor will I... ever.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2013 07:54 PM (4hQC8)

224 Ace channeling his inner Slate

Posted by: drunkineastmesa at September 04, 2013 07:54 PM (hF34m)

225 I remember staying with my great grandmother in AL when I was a kid. She would get up and make bacon and eggs and biscuits for me. My uncle Joe would always be running late for work and he would crumble up a biscuit or some cornbread in a glass with some butter milk and drink that.

Oooof. Makes me upchuck a little just thinking about it.

Posted by: the guy that moves pianos for a living... at September 04, 2013 07:55 PM (E3gqr)

226 I especially love the part about how people don't know that some food is regional and think something is made up for TV and not real because it's not in the store, like Hellman's or Clark Bars.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at September 04, 2013 07:55 PM (qyfb5)

227 Corn Pops
Fruity pebbles
Corny snaps
Honeycomb
Trix
Cinnamon toast crunch
Honey nut cheerios
Cocoa puffs
Life
Chex
Lucky charms
Sugar snacks
Cinnamon life
Captain Crunch
Cookie Crisp
Apple Jacks

I'm getting hugry

Posted by: The Jackhole at September 04, 2013 07:55 PM (nTgAI)

228 Wow, Ace. That's pretty hostile.

Please tell us where on the cereal box the kaleidoscope clown touched you.

Posted by: AnonymousFreudDrivel at September 04, 2013 07:55 PM (eHIJJ)

229 Do your parents add bread, onions, and peppers to their "hamburger" patties? You can get 6..sometimes 7 quarter pound burgers out of a pound of ground beef this way, you know.

Sigh...

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 07:55 PM (uQIKb)

230 There's a goldmine's worth of "downscale childhood" memes to be unearthed here, people. For example....

Growing, up, my mother couldn't afford to make us anything for dinner except Hamburger Helper.

No, you don't understand: we couldn't afford ground beef, either. She just served us the Hamburger Helper noodles right out of the box. And since water was at a premium where I lived, we usually had to eat it raw. "Al dente," she euphemistically called it, trying desperately to put a happy face on the lifetime's worth of painful and expensive reconstructive dental surgery she was consigning us to as our young teeth splintered and cracked on the unforgiving dried pasta.

My brother and I would fight bitterly for the right to pour the flavor packets onto our sad, spirit-sapping meals. Mom told us it was supposed to be used "like salt, or more like pepper really -- a little goes a long way." Only years later did I realize that was because she liked to save the unused portions to eat herself, late at night, as she wept about the hopeless lives she had brought us into the world to suffer.

Posted by: Jeff B. at September 04, 2013 07:55 PM (n/+FT)

231 These days I'm interested in a different sort of "Yummy Mummy" IYKWIMAITYD...

New "Yummy Mummy" cereal...goes great with MILF.

-ZR

Posted by: Zionisr Redneck at September 04, 2013 07:55 PM (/4rBF)

232 My mom not only let us eat sweetened cereals, but there was always a bowl of sugar on the breakfast table just in case. Yet, my sister and I were skeletal skinny all through high school, and even skinny through our twenties and early thirties.

*Takes another look at sugary cereals*

Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 07:56 PM (lVPtV)

233 Yeah,, General Mills said it is the official gay cereal. Google it on my phone hard to c and p

Posted by: blaster at September 04, 2013 07:56 PM (DWZjc)

234 Hold on a second, what the fuck did I inadvertently do this time?
Did you not manually put in a [ /i ] in your #11 post to shut down the italics? Unless you've got one of those sockpuppet automatic-italics-shutdown code things embedded in your sockpuppet that you don't have to type up manually as [ /i ] for?

Addendum: Oh. You must have an auto-end-italics in your name because the italics end with your name in #11 but were still being used for the "posted by:" before your name. Okay. It's not your fault; it's Ace's/pixy's.

Posted by: andycanuck at September 04, 2013 07:56 PM (7zANx)

235 Honeycombs with really, really cold milk. Hmmmmm

Posted by: Leo at September 04, 2013 07:56 PM (u3N3z)

236
Do you remember Kaboom cereal?

No, but it had to be better than the dehydrated Army alleged pork chops and dehydrated Army alleged chili con alleged carne that I grew up on.

Posted by: Anachronda at September 04, 2013 07:56 PM (FzhYM)

237 I especially love the part about how people don't know that some food is regional and think something is made up for TV and not real because it's not in the store, like Hellman's or Clark Bars.
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at September 04, 2013 07:55 PM (qyfb5)

Yeah, because we don't have scrapple in California

Posted by: The Jackhole at September 04, 2013 07:56 PM (nTgAI)

238
The closest thing to clowns that I had during my haole childhood was Checkers and Pogo. Now, I look at C and P on youtube and I'm creepified.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at September 04, 2013 07:56 PM (TIIx5)

239 Remember the toys you'd get at the bottom of the box? Ah, good times. Good times.

Posted by: Bosk at September 04, 2013 07:56 PM (n2K+4)

240 You had hands? Well lah-di-dah. My parents would put
our "cereal" in a bowl out in the yard. Well, we called it a yard. It
was really just a patch of dirt that was atop a nuclear waste
repository. And the cereal looked remarkably like grass clippings.

Posted by: pep at September 04, 2013 07:38 PM

You're North Korean?

Posted by: huerfano at September 04, 2013 07:56 PM (bAGA/)

241 I must have gotten MILF in my eye to bogart my own name...

-ZR

Posted by: Zionist Redneck at September 04, 2013 07:56 PM (/4rBF)

242 Lucky Charms is the official gay cereal.

Fruity Pebbles was a little too on the nose.

Posted by: no good deed at September 04, 2013 07:56 PM (WmLrU)

243 My grandmother kept the tab next to the powdered milk.

Posted by: mrscorpio at September 04, 2013 07:56 PM (89QjE)

244 #200 You mentioned Fresca and Tab. That reminds me of Squirt, that soda pop whose logo was an impish looking guy with a blond curled forelockwho wore a bottle cap for a hat. Geezus, I'm old.

Posted by: Pop this at September 04, 2013 07:57 PM (qKpun)

245 Cinnamon Frosted Sugar Bombs-- for the win!!

Posted by: Calvin at September 04, 2013 07:53 PM (NCc1Z)

I miss Cinnabon Cinnamon Crunch cereal, which came in the shape of cinnamon rolls. It really existed.

Posted by: Vendette at September 04, 2013 07:57 PM (gRnt+)

246 From Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Fruity Pebbles of my youth to Apple Cinnamon Cherios of today.....hate getting old

Posted by: The dude at September 04, 2013 07:57 PM (vJdyz)

247 I always thought I had the uncoolest, lamest parents evah. But we had a huge variety of every kind of cereal imaginable and could eat as much as we wanted. (those were the days, I was a skinny little girl, ate like a bird) And we had Ding Dongs and Little Debbies and even those godawful Space Sticks. Dad would get up early and get doughnuts for breakfast every now and then, and take us out for ice cream after dinner. Man, I miss childhood now.

Posted by: Mayday at September 04, 2013 07:57 PM (eHc+1)

248 I was lucky if someone else was home when I woke up.

Posted by: Beto at September 04, 2013 07:57 PM (MhA4j)

249 234 Addendum: Oh. You must have...

Shit, you think I trust myself to close my own tags? Of course, I close S, I and B in my "name"...

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 07:58 PM (uQIKb)

250 Sugar Pops are tops!

Posted by: BignJames at September 04, 2013 07:58 PM (HtUkt)

251 Also wish the relaunch of Quisp in late 90s didn't bomb, shit was good

Posted by: The dude at September 04, 2013 07:58 PM (vJdyz)

252 #200 You mentioned Fresca and Tab. That reminds me of Squirt, that soda pop whose logo was an impish looking guy with a blond curled forelockwho wore a bottle cap for a hat. Geezus, I'm old.

Posted by: Pop this at September 04, 2013 07:57 PM (qKpun)

Have fun explaining to people under the age of 30 that Pepsi actually looked like 7UP at one time.

Posted by: Vendette at September 04, 2013 07:58 PM (gRnt+)

253

the prize at the bottom of the box was a welfare voucher

Posted by: ace

Winner of his own thread.

Posted by: imp at September 04, 2013 07:58 PM (L9AnB)

254 Kaboom Folk would be an awesome name for a band.

Posted by: kalel666 at September 04, 2013 07:58 PM (9xbt0)

255
226 I especially love the part about how people don't know that some food is regional and think something is made up for TV and not real because it's not in the store, like Hellman's or Clark Bars.

Yeah, well, I didn't find out that schoolbusses are yellow until 8th grade, when dad retired from the Army.

Posted by: Anachronda at September 04, 2013 07:59 PM (FzhYM)

256 248 I was lucky if someone else was home when I woke up.

Posted by: Beto at September 04, 2013 07:57 PM (MhA4j)

We lived in a hole in the road.

Posted by: BignJames at September 04, 2013 07:59 PM (HtUkt)

257 I hated those oversized orange candy peanuts. Good lord those were nasty!

Posted by: WalrusRex at September 04, 2013 07:59 PM (VlXYw)

258 If you hadn't tried KaBoom drown in a can of Schlitz, well son. You haven't lived.

Posted by: Fritz at September 04, 2013 07:59 PM (KIHQS)

259 O/T Oh no. Jack Nicholson retiring from acting because of memory loss.

Dammit.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 07:59 PM (lVPtV)

260 Yummy Mummy? You had me going for a second there...

Posted by: joncelli at September 04, 2013 07:59 PM (H6iDZ)

261 I grew up middle class and generally ate brand-name type foods. No generics in my house as a kid.

I had a buddy who lived in on-base housing and was poor. He dressed like ... he dressed like Rambo or the good guy from Terminator. Lot of oversized, fading army jackets. He already had a decent collection of knives. And he owned nunchuks. And he'd always bring in Playboys he got out of the garbage when his step-Dad threw them away.

One summer day in 7th grade my buddies and I wanted to go to the local water park. We were all middle class except my buddy. His mom offered to drive us. We said sure.

Now around this time Chicken McNuggets were kind of a new thing. And we all loved them. We asked his Mom if we could stop by McDonald's on the way to the water park.

She said, and I remember this, she said, Screw that. McNuggets are a rip-off. A scam. What she had done instead, knowing all the kids liked this new McNuggets craze, was make homemade McNuggets. So we had a tupperware container of homemade nuggets, with a choice of both chicken and ground beef Nuggets. See, she said, that's way better than that overpriced McDonald's crap.

I'd never heard anybody call McDonald's overpriced before.

And also, and I was unaware there existed before that day, pimento cheese sandwiches. Cause she also made those.

I remember loading their car which reeked of smoke. I remember when she accidentally burned her son's hand with a cigarette closing the trunk and he said goddammit, mom and she said "Move your hand, idiot".

Drive was almost an hour. Their car had something wrong with the muffler and couldn't go higher than 50. And the wipers didn't work. They went back and forth but they didn't really wipe away the rain, just kinda smeared it. And it rained. A lot.

Every time a car roared pass us going 70, along this flat, straight highway, she would jump in her seat, puff out some smoke, and demand to know where the hell that asshole came from.

I honestly thought I was going to die that die. Either a car crash, or poisoned from her nugget monstrosities. But I survived. Didn't hang out at my buddy's place much after that.

Posted by: Flatbush Joe at September 04, 2013 07:59 PM (ZPrif)

262 Is #236 supposed to be "threw up on", Anachronda?

Posted by: andycanuck at September 04, 2013 08:00 PM (7zANx)

263
Fresca and Tab. I hated those when I was a kid. Worst tasting pop (yeah, it's pop, not soda) ever concocted by man. I think I'd rather drink sand.

***

I had a diabetic aunt who always had Tab in the house when I was growing up. That and Diet Rite. God, that shit is vile.

Posted by: B at September 04, 2013 08:00 PM (6iEQd)

264 Cold cereal?! I'd have loved cold cereal as a kid. I got farina from the co-op bins- big plastic produce bags with the twist tie bin number on it. Heaven help you if mom found out you left the twist tie off and moisture got into the bag lumping it up.
Once every two months we got to choose granola or raisin bran as a special treat. RAISIN BRAN was the treat.

Posted by: tms at September 04, 2013 08:00 PM (7ub16)

265 I must be older than Kaboom (but not yet older than dirt!). We had all the good ones before they started censoring cereal names. SUGAR Frosted Flakes, SUGAR Pops, SUGAR Crisp, et al.

Great post Ace. You've been en fuego as of late. You change vodka brands or something?

Posted by: TimB52 at September 04, 2013 08:00 PM (ya630)

266 I had an anti-sugar mother so it was Kix and Cheerios at my house. Until she'd leave town on business then my dad would unleash Lucky, Tony and Sugar Bear. Three meals per day. What a guy.

Posted by: GatorGirl at September 04, 2013 08:00 PM (Ccr9r)

267 One time we had Alpine. It was after we won the lottery.

Posted by: rdbrewer at September 04, 2013 08:00 PM (Iyg03)

268 We lived in a hole in the road.

Posted by: BignJames at September 04, 2013 07:59 PM

HEY NEIGHBOR!! (waving)

Posted by: Beto at September 04, 2013 08:00 PM (MhA4j)

269 I'm old enough to remember those nasty tablets that you'd put in water to make "soda."

My mom would buy them and we'd put them in our mouths to feel the fizz.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 08:01 PM (lVPtV)

270 223
A hot cereal - Red River - from Canuckistan was the bane of my youthful breakfasts.

I have neither forgiven Canuckistan for that, nor will I... ever.
Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2013 07:54 PM (4hQC

--
I import it. Well, Sunny Boy, which is an Alberta version.

Posted by: Gingy at September 04, 2013 08:01 PM (aH+zP)

271
I remwmber my SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN lunch box.

w/thermos, of course

Posted by: soothsayerwing plover at September 04, 2013 08:01 PM (HqenI)

272 OMFGLOF-INGL.

These words.

These words.

In this order.

They are my favorite words ever.

Posted by: Jayne's Hat at September 04, 2013 08:01 PM (a297d)

273 Posted by: WalrusRex at September 04, 2013 07:59 PM (VlXYw)

No one ever ate circus peanuts

Posted by: The dude at September 04, 2013 08:01 PM (vJdyz)

274 This post has me trying to remember the last time I drank milk.

I can't. It's been years.

Posted by: Hollowpoint at September 04, 2013 08:01 PM (X9Mnx)

275 The real Breakfast of Champions:

little chocolate donuts and cigarettes

Posted by: John Belushi's Bloated Corpse at September 04, 2013 08:01 PM (2yPl+)

276 That is a terrible tale. A sad story, indeed. Snot streamed out of my face as I laughed. O breakfast, thy sting is enduring.

I loved Honeycombs. My dad would buy one box every year or so. I'd eat buckets of boiled oatmeal for months for the delight of that one box of wonder.

Haven't had it for .. 20 years now?

Posted by: Inspector Asshole at September 04, 2013 08:02 PM (o2E0P)

277 My real favorite for breakfast as a kid was when my older sister would make me "Rice pudding" for breakfast. Rice pudding which consisted of leftover rice with sugar swimming in a bowl of milk.

Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 08:02 PM (qzWDd)

278 Oh, man, Necco Wafers - The Candy That Isn't Sweet At All, Really.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at September 04, 2013 08:02 PM (qyfb5)

279 My favorite breakfast was fried bologna. We had that for Christmas. Left-over from Thanksgiving.

Posted by: Beto at September 04, 2013 08:02 PM (MhA4j)

280 Thank you, Ace, for a much needed laugh.

Posted by: Ragamuffin at September 04, 2013 08:02 PM (fzFF6)

281 Wow, that's the 1st time I've seen Kaboom cereal, it looks like cereal created by The Onion. I think the Mexican family down the street ate Kaboom cereal, there were 12 of them and only 6 made it to adulthood.

Posted by: Dr Spank at September 04, 2013 08:02 PM (v1mq9)

282 You think you youngsters had it bad? Back in my day we were so poor all we could afford was a bowl of ciccada exoskeletons with a splash of cat milk!

Posted by: Fuster McCranklegripe at September 04, 2013 08:02 PM (HzhBE)

283 Anyone remember Buckwheat Crisp?

Posted by: Barakhenaten I at September 04, 2013 08:02 PM (EmSO+)

284 >>>If you hadn't tried KaBoom drown in a can of Schlitz, well son. You haven't lived.

You had Schlitz? Lucky. Our dad gave us Pearl. Once or twice a week we had MD-20/20 grape juice.

Posted by: rdbrewer at September 04, 2013 08:03 PM (Iyg03)

285 Growing up in my neighborhood all the kids loved to play baseball, but Mom never made enough money working at the textile factory to pay for equipment for me and my brother.

But Mom decided that we weren't going to be left out of the fun. I stole a work glove off the back of my "new dad"'s pickup truck, and Mom took an old handkerchief of his and sewed it in between the thumb and index fingers so it would look right. Which it sort of did, except the webbing of MY baseball glove had paisley highlights and congealed snot stains, and also broke the first time I tried to catch a fly ball.

Posted by: Jeff B. at September 04, 2013 08:03 PM (n/+FT)

286 If you really wanted to torture kids, you'd give 'em Cheerios.

It's like they engineered flavor right out of them. And after a few minutes of soaking in milk? Gruel had better texture. And the box? 'School Bus' Yellow to remind you of the hell you were going to enter in a few minutes.

Cheerios were the bigger insult to humanity.

Posted by: AnonymousDrivel at September 04, 2013 08:03 PM (eHIJJ)

287 Fresca and Tab. I hated those when I was a kid.

I can still taste Tab when you mention it. Dirty battery acid would have been more appealing. But I love Fresca now.

Posted by: t-bird at September 04, 2013 08:03 PM (FcR7P)

288
204 Fresca is a good pick when it comes to a refreshing diet soda.

Fresca *was* good, back when they sweetened it with saccharine. Now it's a pale shadow of its former self.

Posted by: Anachronda at September 04, 2013 08:03 PM (FzhYM)

289 A hot cereal - Red River - from Canuckistan was the bane of my youthful breakfasts.

I have neither forgiven Canuckistan for that, nor will I... ever.
Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2013 07:54 PM (4hQC
--
I import it. Well, Sunny Boy, which is an Alberta version.

Posted by: Gingy at September 04, 2013 08:01 PM (aH+zP)

I haven't heard of either of them. It's likely my problem.

Posted by: Vendette at September 04, 2013 08:03 PM (gRnt+)

290 Stellar Ace.
Don't remember Kaboom but I do remember the Jim Carroll band.
Here's to all my friends that died.
What was that like 1980?

Posted by: Golfman in NC at September 04, 2013 08:03 PM (H0tqi)

291
If you want to freak out over oddly-colored feces, eat a lot - a lot, mind you - of licorice.

One with artificial dyes.

Forest green turds, baby!

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2013 08:04 PM (C26bh)

292 Speaking of oddly colored cereals, the Cheerios commercial now feature an intaracial couple.

During summer sleepovers, we used to break out the Strawberry Krazy Kow cereal until my friend Dan puked up a couple bowlfuls at the foot of our stairs.

Posted by: Big Fat Meanie at September 04, 2013 08:04 PM (lhsx8)

293 School cafeteria lady (dumping bovine balls into a stewpot for student lunches): "More testicles mean more iron!"

Posted by: adams Simpsons Did It! porn at September 04, 2013 08:04 PM (gQKHE)

294 When mom made tacos she'd add potato to the ground hamburger. It'd turn a pound into two. I still do it this way and the kids love it.

Posted by: Bosk at September 04, 2013 08:04 PM (n2K+4)

295 And never heard of Kaboom before today. Was not aware it existed.

Posted by: Flatbush Joe at September 04, 2013 08:04 PM (ZPrif)

296
Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 08:01 PM (lVPtV)

I remember those....what were they called?

Posted by: BignJames at September 04, 2013 08:05 PM (HtUkt)

297 When mom made tacos she'd add potato to the ground hamburger. It'd turn a pound into two. I still do it this way and the kids love it.
Posted by: Bosk at September 04, 2013 08:04 PM (n2K+4)

my mom used oatmeal

Posted by: The Jackhole at September 04, 2013 08:05 PM (nTgAI)

298 Looking at the box, is it a cereal box full of faces? You're supposed to eat?

Posted by: Dr Spank at September 04, 2013 08:05 PM (v1mq9)

299 quaker oatmeal. thick, overcooked quaker oatmeal. every morning.

Posted by: pitchforksandpowder at September 04, 2013 08:05 PM (p501Q)

300 291
Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars

***

We drank a bottle of Blue Curacao when I was Sixteen
I crapped blue for a week

Posted by: Beto at September 04, 2013 08:05 PM (MhA4j)

301 Necco Wafers

--

Now you've done it. My darkest nightmares tonight will surely involve this dreaded candy. The crap that stayed at the bottom of my big, plastic, orange Halloween pumpkin until months later, when Mom finally threw it out.

Posted by: Lady in Black, in a dead thread talking to myself at September 04, 2013 08:05 PM (XB5Ak)

302 gaypharohsockOFF

Posted by: garrett at September 04, 2013 08:05 PM (EmSO+)

303
I always wondered what happened to Mikey from the Life cereal commercials.

Fess up, Ace, we know it's you.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy, who did not vote for this shit at September 04, 2013 08:06 PM (0HooB)

304 We drank Shasta during summer vacations because our parents would get pissed if we wasted them. I always thought we took vacations with our aunts, uncles, and cousins because it was so much fun (and it was). I didn't realize it was because we couldn't afford to rent the beach cabin for a week unless it was group effort.

Posted by: no good deed at September 04, 2013 08:06 PM (WmLrU)

305 I was fed Malto Meal, Cream O' Wheat, Oatmeal....and in between pay days, rice sweetened with a little sugar, cinnamon, and splashed with milk. Some days we had toasted bread, crumbled up, sweetened with sugar, and doused with milk.

On the good days, we had Boxed Cereal, and we used to fight over who got to read the box first, who got the much cherished 'foamy milk', (First milk from a new bottle). Other than corn flakes....there were no generics in those days, everything had 'Sugar' in it's title...Well, there was puffed rice in those days too....it sucked. It was the worst of the boxed cereals.

And then there were the rare boxes of cereal that came with a toy. This naturally led to elevated bouts of fighting, accusing, and crying as we all jockeyed to secure something from the rare treat, be it the box, the toy, or the foamy milk.

I won the toy once, (mom was of course the ultimate arbiter of just who got what), and my little sister was so peeved she clocked me in the head with a rock later that day. I got my revenge later, by constructing an elaborate doll burial ground starring her dolls as the interred corpses. I got the wooden spoon for that stunt.

If there wasn't enough boxed cereal to feed all three of us, it was saved...and eventually mixed with the tag ends of other boxed cereals. We always insisted such mixes be shaken thoroughly to blend the sweetened cereal with the bland puffed rice, and corn flakes. All in the spirit of 'fairness', and the suspicion that one of us might enjoy more sweetened cereal than was his, or her due.

Posted by: Sticky Wicket at September 04, 2013 08:06 PM (0IhFx)

306 Ack. Fizzy drink tablets are back (WHY?):

http://www.fizzies.com/

Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 08:06 PM (lVPtV)

307 That should be wouldn't get pissed.

Posted by: no good deed at September 04, 2013 08:06 PM (WmLrU)

308 We made our own cereal from corn shorts and hen scratch that had grown mold. The hogs wouldn't eat it and you can't let anything go to waste. I confessed to Mom on her deathbed that my brother and I used to sneak snacks out of the slop bucket on the back steps.

Luxury!0

Posted by: Mr. Dave at September 04, 2013 08:07 PM (NCc1Z)

309 Quick Ace of Spade poll: You can only eat Necco Wafers or Circus Peanuts for an entire week. Which do you choose?Death is not an option.

Posted by: Warden at September 04, 2013 08:07 PM (HzhBE)

310
262 Is #236 supposed to be "threw up on", Anachronda?

Well, there was that one glorious day when dad brought home a roadkill deer and we had venison for a while...

Posted by: Anachronda at September 04, 2013 08:07 PM (IrbU4)

311 Whoa, Quisp is back? I loved that cereal when I was a kid!

Posted by: cool arrow at September 04, 2013 08:07 PM (WMsq+)

312 When mom made tacos she'd add potato...

my mom used oatmeal

Too good for sawdust, Your Highnesses?

Posted by: t-bird at September 04, 2013 08:08 PM (FcR7P)

313 Saturday mornings when cartoons started at 8:00 and ended at 12:00 and then going outdoors til dusk...good times.

Posted by: YTown Guy at September 04, 2013 08:08 PM (das+y)

314
Is Black Label beer still on the market?

I remember the jingle:

"Hey, Mabel! Black Label! Carling's Black Label Beer!"

Oh-oh, don't get me started on old time commercial jingles!

Anyone else remember the Schick parrot?

When you think about it, it's amazing all the many popular brands that have disappeared. Admiral TV. Philco. Halo shampoo....

Posted by: Pop this at September 04, 2013 08:08 PM (qKpun)

315 Lucky Charms had their commercials where children attempted to " Catch Lucky!" Kaboom's clown was much less successful in commercials as kids tried to " Avoid Creepy! "

Posted by: Weirddave at September 04, 2013 08:08 PM (aH+zP)

316 Brilliant, Ace, just brilliant. And the clown looks like a Mrs. whose Mr. is either beatin' or cheatin'.

Posted by: Stevie G at September 04, 2013 08:08 PM (kyAWi)

317 Does it say something about me that I kinda liked Kaboom even despite the weird taste?

Posted by: Wes at September 04, 2013 08:08 PM (EXpTx)

318

those ORANGE WAX HARMONICAS at Halloween time were one of my favorite things in the world

Posted by: soothsayerwing plover at September 04, 2013 08:08 PM (HqenI)

319 My sister and I favored the root beer fizzies. They were disgusting, but you foamed at the mouth in brown, which we thought was cool.

*gag reflex kicking in*

Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 08:09 PM (lVPtV)

320 I'm not sure how old Ace is but I think were in the same ballpark (mid 40s). I don't remember Kaboom cereal at all. I used to freebase Captain Crunch though! Good times!!

Posted by: puddleglum at September 04, 2013 08:09 PM (rybKh)

321 Anybody remember sen-sen?

Posted by: Bosk at September 04, 2013 08:09 PM (n2K+4)

322 Warden, I don't know what either of those things are. I'll have to look them up.

Posted by: no good deed at September 04, 2013 08:09 PM (WmLrU)

323 HA ! we used to eat the bread with sugar and milk in between pay days, that or oatmeal with maple syrup, top ramen, rice with sugar and cinnamon, oatmeal with jelly, whatever you could drum up

Posted by: The Jackhole at September 04, 2013 08:09 PM (nTgAI)

324
My mom would buy them and we'd put them in our mouths to feel the fizz.

Fizzies. The Root Beer ones were my favorite.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy, who did not vote for this shit at September 04, 2013 08:09 PM (0HooB)

325 That is one creepy box.

Posted by: Dr Spank at September 04, 2013 08:09 PM (v1mq9)

326 I won the toy once, (mom was of course the ultimate arbiter of just who got what), and my little sister was so peeved she clocked me in the head with a rock later that day. I got my revenge later, by constructing an elaborate doll burial ground starring her dolls as the interred corpses. I got the wooden spoon for that stunt.

Posted by: Sticky Wicket at September 04, 2013 08:06 PM (0IhFx)

As a sister to an older brother and younger brother, I laughed.

Posted by: Vendette at September 04, 2013 08:10 PM (gRnt+)

327 320
I'm not sure how old Ace is but I think were in the same ballpark (mid 40s).

My guess, as well as what is currently showing on my odometer.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 08:10 PM (uQIKb)

328 my guess is that kaboom was sold via coupons so if your mom wasn't clipping coupons this monstrosity would never be foisted upon you.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 08:10 PM (/IWYB)

329 Fizzies. The Root Beer ones were my favorite.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy, who did not vote for this shit at September 04, 2013 08:09 PM (0HooB)

Just posted the same thing. And they're back.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 08:10 PM (lVPtV)

330 317 Does it say something about me that I kinda liked Kaboom even despite the weird taste?
Posted by: Wes at September 04, 2013 08:08 PM (EXpTx)

People like Capt' Crunch, so no

Posted by: The dude at September 04, 2013 08:10 PM (vJdyz)

331
Necco Wafers.
There's something wrong with Circus Peanuts.

Posted by: garrett at September 04, 2013 08:10 PM (EmSO+)

332

you're describing ALKA SELTZER

Posted by: soothsayerwing plover at September 04, 2013 08:10 PM (HqenI)

333 John Wayne Gacy modeled for the box.True story.

Posted by: steevy at September 04, 2013 08:10 PM (9XBK2)

334 After we became poor when I was 10, we had homemade rhubarb cereal served on rhombus shaped plates.

Posted by: Big Fat Meanie at September 04, 2013 08:11 PM (lhsx8)

335 343 pop this,

aye over by the Mickey's� the dark side of poverty... �

Posted by: chelsea10077 at September 04, 2013 08:11 PM (9jfyN)

336 quaker oatmeal. thick, overcooked quaker oatmeal. every morning.
It's not thick; it's al dente!

Posted by: andycanuck at September 04, 2013 08:11 PM (7zANx)

337 >>> If you want to freak out over oddly-colored feces, eat a lot - a lot, mind you - of licorice.

Beets. Eat enough, you can see swirls of purple, leeching off into the bowl.

Posted by: fluffy at September 04, 2013 08:11 PM (X93Wv)

338 Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 07:37 PM (uQIKb)

We lived about 45 miles from base (helluva commute for Dad), so Commissary day was once every other month. Typically 4 carts worth. We'd barely be able to shut the lid on the chest freezer.

As far as cereals, we ate a lot of Cheerios, Kix, Honeycombs, or Alpha Bits. Sometimes we'd get all uppity and have Golden Grahams. The Frosted Mini Wheats were strictly off-limits...those were for Mom's exclusive consumption.

Mom got on to us about putting too much sugar on the Cheerios. One reason I still don't get along well with my brother was his insistence on "conserving sugar" by not letting me put sugar on my Cheerios, then pouring the sugar remaining in the bottom of his bowl after he was done onto mine. That bastard.

Posted by: Country Singer at September 04, 2013 08:11 PM (LGM9b)

339 When I'm angry at the roof of my mouth and want to teach my hard palate a lesson, I eat a couple bowls of Captain Crunch. Then I get to savor the bleeding chunks of mouth meat hanging down from the roof of my mouth. Fuck you, mouth!

Posted by: Flatbush Joe at September 04, 2013 08:11 PM (ZPrif)

340 When I was a kid we couldn't afford food, so we made due on olde clothes and pine combs.

Posted by: Dr Spank at September 04, 2013 08:11 PM (v1mq9)

341 My dad tells be that back during the depression, his dad would buy enormous bags of Cream of Wheat. They ate it 7 days a week until the weevils in the bag outnumbered the farina. Then the chickens got the remainder. Then they ate the chickens for breakfast.

Posted by: Charts and Darts at September 04, 2013 08:11 PM (T8l6a)

342 They did include prizes sometimes.I remember the funny balloon that said "Your mother should have used me" on the side.

Posted by: steevy at September 04, 2013 08:12 PM (9XBK2)

343 Quick Ace of Spade poll: You can only eat Necco Wafers or Circus Peanuts for an entire week. Which do you choose?Death is not an option.

Posted by: Warden

I don't want to be associated with people who eat Circus Peanuts.

Posted by: weft cut-loop at September 04, 2013 08:12 PM (WLpmE)

344 I liked those wax candy (soda, for those from snooty parts of the USA) pop bottles too.

Posted by: Baldy at September 04, 2013 08:12 PM (tyDFN)

345 Speaking of oldie but goodie foods. . . one of my local radio guys what covers political news is giving away buckets of red vines to callers. . . so when we cross the red line they can eat a red vine.

Kinda clever! Now I want licorice, boo.

Posted by: LizLem at September 04, 2013 08:12 PM (8wqqE)

346 I just want a Twinkie

Posted by: Nevergiveup at September 04, 2013 08:12 PM (9Xc5j)

347 Old man had a dairy. Had to eat all my cereal with raw milk. Most god awful liquid in the world. I haven't liked milk since youth.

Posted by: Ronster at September 04, 2013 08:12 PM (zIls9)

348 I hated those oversized orange candy peanuts. Good lord those were nasty!

--

Circus Peanuts! I swear, they traveled from another galaxy, 10 million light years away. They had to have been made with ingredients to survive time travel. It's the only explanation. Orange sponge-like peanuts with banana flavoring. The inventor is Satan. I'm sure of it.

Posted by: Lady in Black, in a dead thread talking to myself at September 04, 2013 08:12 PM (XB5Ak)

349 328 Ace,

it was a plot....

in Peruvia coupon clips YOU

Posted by: chelsea10077 at September 04, 2013 08:12 PM (9jfyN)

350 The old Captain Crunch used to get soft in milk.The new improved one stays rock hard.

Posted by: steevy at September 04, 2013 08:12 PM (9XBK2)

351
Just posted the same thing. And they're back.

Yup. So somebody here posted a link where we can get them online a few months back.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy, who did not vote for this shit at September 04, 2013 08:12 PM (0HooB)

352 Cheerios were the bigger insult to humanity.

Posted by: AnonymousDrivel at September 04, 2013 08:03 PM (eHIJJ)

The sweetened stuff, however, is addictive.

It's rather shameful when you realize you've snacked half the box in a single afternoon.

Posted by: ConservativeMonster at September 04, 2013 08:13 PM (v3pYe)

353 Damn, didn't know I was reading a Poor Person's Blog.

Im out, poories.

Posted by: HoboJerky, now with 56% more DOOM! at September 04, 2013 08:13 PM (CgVEi)

354 Ya buncha poofs, quitcha bitchin. Vegemite.

Posted by: Australia at September 04, 2013 08:13 PM (NCc1Z)

355 I don't remember Kaboom, but I do remember Buc Wheats...good maple flavor.

Posted by: packsoldier at September 04, 2013 08:13 PM (4xnQl)

356 We got served oatmeal or polenta for breakfast or sometimes leftovers from the previous evenings dinner.

The only time I ever ate cereal was when I stayed at a friends house.

Posted by: Kreplach at September 04, 2013 08:13 PM (hmUex)

357 Jack Nicholson retiring from acting because of memory loss.

Dammit.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 07:59 PM (lVPtV)

Now he can run for VP on the Dem ticket.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at September 04, 2013 08:13 PM (60Q+L)

358 I was telling my kids I knew food stamps were a scam because the food stamp kids had take Chinese food and we drank powdered milk.

Posted by: madam ex at September 04, 2013 08:13 PM (islXR)

359 >>>If you want to freak out over oddly-colored feces, eat a lot - a lot, mind you - of licorice.

Oh no, the one that takes the cake here is BERRY BLAST HAWAIIAN PUNCH. I tried it for the first time once, decided I liked it, and bought and downed two more 16 oz bottles' worth.

Have you ever shit blue, my friend? I literally had to throw out my underwear because of blue stains in a very unfortunate place. Lesson learned.

Posted by: Jeff B. at September 04, 2013 08:14 PM (n/+FT)

360 Alright Ace. Fess up. You had Ralphie Parker write this post, didn't cha?

Posted by: maddogg at September 04, 2013 08:14 PM (+SU7n)

361
131 Let's take up a collection and send the Obama girls some sugary cereal.
Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 07:43 PM (lVPtV)

H88888888888888 Krime!

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2013 08:14 PM (4hQC8)

362 In Greenville, SC there's a candy store that sells all the oldies: candy cigarettes, wax lips, etc.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 08:14 PM (lVPtV)

363 321 Anybody remember sen-sen?
Posted by: Bosk at September 04, 2013 08:09 PM (n2K+4)
---
I bought some for my sister this summer. WALL DRUG. Of course it was Wall Drug. She loves that stuff. And Black Jack gum, and Thrills gum. Bleah.

Posted by: Gingy at September 04, 2013 08:14 PM (aH+zP)

364 350 Steevy,

How you doing?

Posted by: Vitamin Viagra at September 04, 2013 08:14 PM (9jfyN)

365 Sigh. I am not surprised or amused by this.

I think I will go find a site which is interested in the collapse of our foreign policy.

Back later when there is a new thread.

...

Also we were Ka-boom people and this cuts me like a fuckin knife.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at September 04, 2013 08:15 PM (pUqSw)

366 Do your parents add bread, onions, and peppers to their "hamburger" patties? You can get 6..sometimes 7 quarter pound burgers out of a pound of ground beef this way, you know.

***

Eddie Murphy, is that you?!

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at September 04, 2013 08:15 PM (DmNpO)

367 Mmm. Venison.

And, yes, Black Label still is on the market in Canada. It was "old man's beer" in the '80s but the hipsters started drinking it to be different. I don't know its status today.

Posted by: andycanuck at September 04, 2013 08:15 PM (7zANx)

368 Remember when you went trick-or-treating, and the absolute best thing you got was a homemade candy apple or other treat? I mean, all this bite sized good candy bar shit didn't happen until somewhere mid-way through my childhood it seems. One can only go so far on sweet tarts and pixy sticks.

Yeah, that's how old we are.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 08:15 PM (uQIKb)

369 Posted by: steevy at September 04, 2013 08:12 PM (9XBK2)

You're Welcome!

Posted by: Clark Griswold at September 04, 2013 08:16 PM (LGM9b)

370
126 For the record, Grape Nuts soften up and taste better if you nuke 'em with milk for a minute and put maple syrup on top.

A college roommate of mine would put milk on his grape nuts, then take his morning shower. When he got out of the shower, the grape nuts were nearly edible. At least, that's what he claimed.

Posted by: Anachronda at September 04, 2013 08:16 PM (xGZ+b)

371 There was a point where I drank a lot of Black Label or Milwaukee's Best, mainly because one of those two were almost always on sale and you could get a shopping cart full for like ten bucks.

Posted by: the guy that moves pianos for a living... at September 04, 2013 08:16 PM (E3gqr)

372 Posted by: Nevergiveup at September 04, 2013 08:12 PM (9Xc5j) I came real close to snapping a photo of the 8' Twinkie Tower in the local Safeway, last night. Just to post it here, for you.

Posted by: garrett at September 04, 2013 08:16 PM (EmSO+)

373 Have you ever shit blue, my friend? I literally had to throw out my underwear because of blue stains in a very unfortunate place. Lesson learned.

Posted by: Jeff B. at September 04, 2013 08:14 PM (n/+FT)

See #28, 50, 118, and 300

Posted by: Vendette at September 04, 2013 08:16 PM (gRnt+)

374 Posted by: Jeff B. at September 04, 2013 08:14 PM (n/+FT)

In other words you don't know how to wipe your ass

Posted by: The dude at September 04, 2013 08:16 PM (vJdyz)

375
So. It isn't just my imagination. Frankenberry's head does look like a butt.

Posted by: Arbalest at September 04, 2013 08:16 PM (FlRtG)

376 Anybody remember Pebbles cereal?

Posted by: BackwardsBoy, who did not vote for this shit at September 04, 2013 08:17 PM (0HooB)

377 People like Capt' Crunch, so no

Come to think of it, what was that taste? I sure liked it, and Crunchberries were like Christmas in a box.

Posted by: t-bird at September 04, 2013 08:17 PM (FcR7P)

378 YTown Guy: "...outdoors til dusk...good times."

Outdoors? Is that a province somewhere?

Posted by: Kids These Days at September 04, 2013 08:17 PM (eHIJJ)

379 Beets. Eat enough, you can see swirls of purple, leeching off into the bowl.

****

Still better than asparagus pee.

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at September 04, 2013 08:17 PM (DmNpO)

380 368
Remember when you went trick-or-treating, and the absolute best thing
you got was a homemade candy apple or other treat? I mean, all this bite
sized good candy bar shit didn't happen until somewhere mid-way through
my childhood it seems. One can only go so far on sweet tarts and pixy
sticks.

Well, there were assholes putting razor blades in candy apples and such. I remember checking our kid's treats when he came home, just in case.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 08:17 PM (lVPtV)

381 Oh and to be on topic. . . as a kid my mom was very strict on not letting us have sugary cereals in the house; we could have regular cheerios, kix, quaker oats, sometimes raisin bran. BUT, when we went on road trips or camping we got to have those little travel sized boxes, and thus the sugary ones like froot loops and frosted flakes! Made the trips extra special. You can turn the boxes into a disposable bowl but I always inevitably messed up the plastic somehow. Mmmm sugar. . .

Posted by: LizLem at September 04, 2013 08:17 PM (8wqqE)

382
I am the guy who buys Grape Nuts.
Love that stuff.

Posted by: garrett at September 04, 2013 08:17 PM (EmSO+)

383 >>>See #28, 50, 118, and 300

My defense is that I'm bizarro Breitbart -- I read the posts, not the comments.

Posted by: Jeff B. at September 04, 2013 08:17 PM (n/+FT)

384 You and your fancy-ass cereal...probably even had a spoon to eat it with, Richie Rich...

Posted by: model_1066 at September 04, 2013 08:18 PM (QMWjL)

385 The old Captain Crunch used to get soft in milk.The new improved one stays rock hard.
Posted by: steevy at September 04, 2013 08:12 PM (9XBK2)

Breaks teeth I hope?

Posted by: Nevergiveup at September 04, 2013 08:18 PM (9Xc5j)

386 My dear departed mother thought she was bleeding out one day.Until I ,a little kid,reminded her she ate fresh Beets at my aunt's the day before.

Posted by: steevy at September 04, 2013 08:18 PM (9XBK2)

387
anyone remember the doll THUMBALINA?

Posted by: soothsayerwing plover at September 04, 2013 08:18 PM (HqenI)

388 My mother never bought Kool-Aid or cold cereals. She was both health conscious and too poor. We still got cavities, though, and back then people I knew only went to the dentist to have a tooth pulled. So as a child I suffered several times from toothaches. You'd melt an aspirin on the cavity till you got to the dentist or stuck a clove in it.

Posted by: BubbaLou at September 04, 2013 08:18 PM (qKpun)

389 382 garrett,

my brother from another mother comrade...I ate with the geezers

Posted by: Vitamin Viagra at September 04, 2013 08:19 PM (9jfyN)

390 >People like Capt' Crunch, so no

Come to think of it, what was that taste? I sure liked it, and Crunchberries were like Christmas in a box.

Posted by: t-bird

Just corn/oat puffs with brown sugar.

Posted by: weft cut-loop at September 04, 2013 08:19 PM (WLpmE)

391
We always insisted such mixes be shaken thoroughly
to blend the sweetened cereal with the bland puffed rice, and corn
flakes. All in the spirit of 'fairness', and the suspicion that one of
us might enjoy more sweetened cereal than was his, or her due.

Posted by: Sticky Wicket at September 04, 2013 08:06 PM (0IhFx)

Ja.

Mutter would mix ze breakfast strudel wit leftover braunschweiger. I never forgot zat.

It became ze basis for ze greatest economic und political philosophy in ze history of man. Mine.

Posted by: Zombie Karl Marx at September 04, 2013 08:19 PM (TIIx5)

392
who else had a sister who had a RAGGEDY ANN doll?

Posted by: soothsayerwing plover at September 04, 2013 08:19 PM (HqenI)

393 That clown seems to be what Nancy Pelosi aspires to look like.

Posted by: model_1066 at September 04, 2013 08:19 PM (QMWjL)

394 366 Eddie Murphy, is that you?!

I've acquired a pretty odd pigment deficiency if it is...

My dad still makes their burgers this way (remember, son - you have to wet the bread, just a little...sigh)...mom and the dogs have never seemed to mind, idk.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 08:19 PM (uQIKb)

395 Come to think of it, what was that taste? I sure liked it, and Crunchberries were like Christmas in a box.
Posted by: t-bird at September 04, 2013 08:17 PM (FcR7P)

They are pretty much a crappier version of Corn Pops

Posted by: The dude at September 04, 2013 08:19 PM (vJdyz)

396 Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 08:01 PM (lVPtV)

I remember those....what were they called?

Posted by: BignJames at September 04, 2013 08:05 PM (HtUkt)

Fizzies. The TV ads said, "Have a happy Fizzies party."

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at September 04, 2013 08:19 PM (60Q+L)

397 >>>Also we were Ka-boom people and this cuts me like a fuckin knife. Posted by: Dave in Texas at September 04, 2013 08:15

Ha! I know, the shame.

Posted by: rdbrewer at September 04, 2013 08:19 PM (Iyg03)

398 who else had a sister who had a RAGGEDY ANN doll?

Posted by: soothsayerwing plover at September 04, 2013 08:19 PM (HqenI)

My sister is a Raggedy Liberal. Does that count?

Posted by: Nevergiveup at September 04, 2013 08:19 PM (9Xc5j)

399 Well, there were assholes putting razor blades in candy apples and such.
I remember checking our kid's treats when he came home, just in case.

*********

Nope. That happened like once. And I think the guy did it to his own kids. The rest was a media generated scare. There's a chapter on this in Freakonomics.

This happened in the 70's and we're still x-raying candy today. Can you believe that?

Posted by: Warden at September 04, 2013 08:19 PM (HzhBE)

400 Someone mentioned fig newtons above. There is a "How It's Made" episode in the newton factory.

I want the 25 foot fig log.

Posted by: the guy that moves pianos for a living... at September 04, 2013 08:20 PM (E3gqr)

401 376
Anybody remember Pebbles cereal?

Posted by: BackwardsBoy, who did not vote for this shit at September 04, 2013 08:17 PM (0HooB)

I do. I also remember my mom letting me fill up on Twix (for breakfast) when I was ten before going to ride my horse on Saturday morning.

No wonder I was so strict about serving sugary crap to my own child.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 08:20 PM (lVPtV)

402 Smurf Berry Crunch
Oh my God
Smurf Berry Crunch

Posted by: Chris R at September 04, 2013 08:20 PM (hFMAp)

403 I liked Captain Crunch but Froot Loops were my favorite.I probably tried every new one that came out and sometimes got a brand just because it had the coolest prize.

Posted by: steevy at September 04, 2013 08:20 PM (9XBK2)

404 I remember Thumbalina. I didn't have her, but had a Crissy doll. The one where you'd pull her hair out through a hole in the top of her head.

Posted by: Lady in Black, in a dead thread talking to myself at September 04, 2013 08:20 PM (XB5Ak)

405 I did a more real Open Thread above this one if you like.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 08:20 PM (/IWYB)

406 >>>In other words you don't know how to wipe your ass

Dude, there was nothing you could do to stop it. It fucking dyed me blue back there. It was like being a porn star from the Avatar homeworld, where instead of bleaching your asshole you just drink a bunch of Berry Blast to acquire the desired permanent coloration.

Posted by: Jeff B. at September 04, 2013 08:20 PM (n/+FT)

407
Fizzies. The TV ads said, "Have a happy Fizzies party."
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at September 04, 2013 08:19 PM (60Q+L)

I used to suck on frizzies

Posted by: Nevergiveup at September 04, 2013 08:20 PM (9Xc5j)

408 Dood.
American Civilization began its decline when they in Minneapolis-- yes, Minneapolis-- were able to convince the American housewife that they could put a better cake in a box than she could make at home.
With her own hen's eggs.
Pillsbury. General Mills. What difference does it make?

Posted by: Cretin, high-grade moron material at September 04, 2013 08:20 PM (jYZuY)

409 #387 Yes! She had knob on her back and when you turned it, she'd writhe like a real baby. I think that was the doll.

Posted by: BubbaLou at September 04, 2013 08:20 PM (qKpun)

410 After we became poor when I was 10, we had homemade rhubarb cereal served on rhombus shaped plates.

Posted by: Big Fat Meanie at September 04, 2013 08:11 PM (lhsx

True story. A friend of my Dad's was having some land cleared out to put aa large addition on his shop. The land was covered in rhubarb and my DAD LOVED rhubarb. So, on a 90 degree summer day I spent 4 hours stuffing 6 garbage bags full of rhubarb. My buddy was doing me a favor picking me and the bags up with his van. It hadn't been 5 minutes after I had loaded the van and hit the road before my friend started going into anaphylactic shock. My friend was hyper sensitive to poison ivy and apparently I could roll in it with no ill effects. We went straight to the hospital and while my friend was being treated I took all those bags back to the property and burned them in a dumpster then spent the rest of the day sanitizing the van. My father had the nerve to complain. I bought him a strawberry rhubarb pie and told him never mention that word to me again.

Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 08:20 PM (qzWDd)

411 who else had a sister who had a RAGGEDY ANN doll?

Posted by: soothsayerwing plover at September 04, 2013 08:19 PM (HqenI)

I still own mine, although it's in a trunk at Chez Parents. I have my Cabbage Patch Kid with me, though.

Posted by: Vendette at September 04, 2013 08:20 PM (gRnt+)

412
soothie, this is for you and all the other Curmudgeon Kids here.

Toy commercials from the '60's -
http://tinyurl.com/cgrx5v

Posted by: BackwardsBoy, who did not vote for this shit at September 04, 2013 08:21 PM (0HooB)

413 I ate Kaboom, and what's more, I loved it. How low rent am I? Sigh...

Posted by: Hobbitopoly at September 04, 2013 08:21 PM (080XV)

414 Kaboom is the kind of cereal that was in late 90s Army MREs, the kind that only starving refugees would eat.
Posted by: UGAdawg at September 04, 2013 07:48 PM (e/9tl)

Heh, you should have seen some of the MREs that came out in the 1980s when they replaced C-Rations.One of those culinary gems was the dehydrated pork patty which pretty much looked and tasted like corrugated cardboard; you never had enough time to dick-around trying rehydrate the damned things. Oh, and the two chocolate cookies that invariably had fused together around the waxed paper that was supposed to separate them -- that way you had to eat the paper, too!

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop at September 04, 2013 08:21 PM (FSdxF)

415

NOOD

Posted by: soothsayerwing plover at September 04, 2013 08:21 PM (HqenI)

416 Who remembers Aspen soda ?

Posted by: The Jackhole at September 04, 2013 08:21 PM (nTgAI)

417 One more time, here's the Fizzies link:

http://www.fizzies.com/

Posted by: Jane D'oh at September 04, 2013 08:21 PM (lVPtV)

418 This is the funniest thing I have read in a while. I was worried when things seemed dramatic last week but Ace, you are the finest blogger on the Internet.

Posted by: Gadsden Q Galt at September 04, 2013 08:21 PM (lY5Qx)

419 You guys want shitty cerial? Beat that damn tasteless mini hay bales they used to sell. What was it called? Shreaded Wheat? Jebus.

Posted by: maddogg at September 04, 2013 08:22 PM (+SU7n)

420 Even in the 'hood, we didn't have this Kaboom stuff. I don't remember seeing it in stores.

I was a weird kid. No one could ever get me to eat blue-, green-, pink-, etc, colored cereals. I seemed wrong somehow.

Best: any and all flakes with brown sugar settled on the bottom.

Posted by: baldilocks at September 04, 2013 08:22 PM (Tnlh/)

421 23
SEE!!!! SEE!!!!

THIS is how CEREAL KILLERS get started !!!!!11!!!!

Posted by: Adriane... at September 04, 2013 07:31 PM (j/FJV)

*giggles maniacally*

Posted by: W.L. Gazzy at September 04, 2013 08:22 PM (fM4kr)

422 Who's surprised DiT was a Kaboom kid? Yeah, no one.

Posted by: Dr Spank at September 04, 2013 08:22 PM (v1mq9)

423
My sister had a Raggedy Anne.

Until she lost it to the toilet in a game of 'Stuffed Animal Hide and Seek'.

Posted by: garrett at September 04, 2013 08:22 PM (EmSO+)

424 who else had a sister who had a RAGGEDY ANN doll?

I still have the Raggedy Ann and Andy my great grandmother made for me.

Posted by: no good deed at September 04, 2013 08:22 PM (WmLrU)

425 Shit, my mom had life-sized (well, when I was 7 or

ANN *and* ANDY. They sat in the peacock chairs, iirc. Damn, I have those chairs in storage come to think of it.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 08:22 PM (uQIKb)

426
Beets. Eat enough, you can see swirls of purple, leeching off into the bowl.

Pickled beets....pee red.

I had way to much fun as a kid with that.

Posted by: Sticky Wicket at September 04, 2013 08:23 PM (0IhFx)

427 I'm practically browning my shorts. This is the funniest goddamned thing I have read in months.

Posted by: spongeworthy at September 04, 2013 08:23 PM (r5w1L)

428 My uncle would sometimes put Grape Nuts in his homemade icecream. I don't know why.

Posted by: Ronster at September 04, 2013 08:23 PM (zIls9)

429 The funniest cereal I ate as a 'kid' was this promo-run for the Muppets of generic Cinnamon cereal call Cr�onchy Stars.

The gag is that it's the Swedish Chef's cereal and all of the text is written in Swedish Chef-ese. My brother and I would be cackling for hours reading the box. The reverse had St�opid Games that were genius like a maze with no solution.

Posted by: weft cut-loop at September 04, 2013 08:24 PM (WLpmE)

430 313 Saturday mornings when cartoons started at 8:00 and ended at 12:00 and then going outdoors til dusk...good times.Posted by: YTown Guy at September 04, 2013 08:08 PM (das+y) This +1000This was life back in the day

Posted by: guy at September 04, 2013 08:24 PM (piOfL)

431 I eat tons of blueberries and beets and I've never had that problem

Posted by: The dude at September 04, 2013 08:24 PM (vJdyz)

432 My sister had a Raggedy Anne.

Until she lost it to the toilet in a game of 'Stuffed Animal Hide and Seek'.

Posted by: garrett at September 04, 2013 08:22 PM (EmSO+)

That's mean.

Posted by: Vendette at September 04, 2013 08:24 PM (gRnt+)

433 405
I did a more real Open Thread above this one if you like.

Just one more reason to hate the 405. Argh.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 08:24 PM (uQIKb)

434 Quisp.

Pink Panther Flakes (yeah - that was real, and no it didn't make you gay).

But Fruity Pebbles owns the zone.

Posted by: Grand Master Bright Flash at September 04, 2013 08:24 PM (p5eeG)

435 Grape nuts are good in yogurt too. I like Grape Nuts.

Posted by: maddogg at September 04, 2013 08:25 PM (+SU7n)

436
What about Cream of Wheat? Petit bourgeois?

Funny, btw. I don't remember that crap at all.

Posted by: Beagle at September 04, 2013 08:25 PM (sOtz/)

437 Malt 'o'meal?

Posted by: maddogg at September 04, 2013 08:26 PM (+SU7n)

438 O/t, h/t to Drudge
http://preview.tinyurl.com/mxfycbr

Posted by: Cretin, with no sympathy for that devil at September 04, 2013 08:26 PM (jYZuY)

439 That's mean.

Posted by: Vendette at September 04, 2013 08:24 PM (gRnt+)

Not as mean as turning your sister's Barbie African American with a black magic marker.

Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 08:26 PM (qzWDd)

440 /delurk

The next time one 'a you fucks complain about the writing on this here blog I'ma hammerpunch you so hard your fucking soul will fall out.

THIS is why I read Ace.

/lurk

Posted by: Smaulz at September 04, 2013 08:27 PM (yu0ZU)

441 I remember my mother/mother's family making rice for breakfast and polluting it with raisins. A little cinnamon and imitation butter was okay, but the fucking raisins were blasphemy. And cream of wheat. Like a brick.

Posted by: Fritz at September 04, 2013 08:27 PM (KIHQS)

442 And Choco-Crunch
Oh my God
Choco Crunch

Posted by: Chris R at September 04, 2013 08:27 PM (hFMAp)

443 Kaboom! Bitchiz!

Posted by: David Sirota at September 04, 2013 08:28 PM (dvRYt)

444 one morning when I was kid, we were out of my favorite cereal and I said "Oh, Mother please be so good as to dash down to themarket and fetch me my cereal"

I ate mush that day and never again said a word about whatcereal Mom bought.

Posted by: Shoey at September 04, 2013 08:28 PM (m6OUa)

445 All that hate is going to burn you up kid...

Dammit, you made me remeber I was a Honey Comb kid...oh the pain.

F-you Ace (but in a good way).

Posted by: Chairman Mow at September 04, 2013 08:28 PM (EcrUs)

446 Frankenberry's head does look like a butt.
Posted by: Arbalest

Or Peyton Manning.

Posted by: Hobbitopoly at September 04, 2013 08:28 PM (080XV)

447
I was like 6.
Didn't even have my mean, yet.

Posted by: garrett at September 04, 2013 08:29 PM (EmSO+)

448 419
You guys want shitty cerial? Beat that damn tasteless mini hay bales
they used to sell. What was it called? Shreaded Wheat? Jebus.

Posted by: maddogg at September 04, 2013 08:22 PM (+SU7n)

I loved Shredded Wheat growing up. Of course I put a double dose of sugar on it, and drank the milk. Kept me going until lunch.
Tried that mini shreded wheat with sugar frosting, it is the horrible.

Rice Chex? I love that stuff.

Posted by: jem at September 04, 2013 08:29 PM (fM4kr)

449 Not as mean as turning your sister's Barbie African American with a black magic marker.
Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 08:26 PM (qzWDd)

Then marrying her off to a Chewbacca action figure (which, in retrospect, I shouldn't have taken out of the box)>

Posted by: Big Fat Meanie at September 04, 2013 08:30 PM (lhsx8)

450 Posted by: Chairman Mow at September 04, 2013 08:28 PM (EcrUs)

Honey Comb was awesome though

Posted by: The dude at September 04, 2013 08:30 PM (vJdyz)

451 Frosted mini wheats are aeesome.Keep you regular too.

Posted by: steevy at September 04, 2013 08:30 PM (9XBK2)

452 Bo gettin his ass handed to him on Syria..... "are you saying john McCain is lying"...

Posted by: ET at September 04, 2013 08:30 PM (YpjaN)

453 Trolling a Blog of One's own.

Let us speak of raising that $100,000 for our Buckley Project post haste.

This, yes, in fact yes indeed, is still America. We are free to raise for Ace money with/through/by Buckley by God.

Posted by: Twoslaps at September 04, 2013 08:30 PM (N36ZX)

454 I didn't have her, but had a Crissy doll. The one where you'd pull her hair out through a hole in the top of her head.

Posted by: Lady in Black

AHHH!! I had her, Velvet, and Brandi, who all did the same thing. Brandi was my favorite.

Posted by: Hobbitopoly at September 04, 2013 08:30 PM (080XV)

455 I have never heard of Kaboom. Never ever. And I ate off-brand cereals like Sugar Loops when teh folks decided to go off Froot Loops. (Unless Mom went on an anti-sugar kick, as she did from time to time.)

I just remember hearing about King Vitaman from a grad school classmate, and thinking it was hilarious. Then I saw the box, and I understood.

So I can't tell if Ace is pulling my leg, or if this a brilliant piece of pop sociology. If the latter, then fuck David Brooks, Ace needs a book like Bohemian Bourgeois and it will fucking kick the Times bestseller list in the nuts.

Posted by: JohnMilton'sGhost at September 04, 2013 08:31 PM (CGlSP)

456 I'd say to mom 'make me two poached eggs, bacon, wheat toast and orange juice'...then go to school after eating half a gumball and some ice from a frozen mud puddle.

Posted by: model_1066 at September 04, 2013 08:31 PM (QMWjL)

457 Ace, this was an awesome posting. Truly a free flow of ideas and associations. It is beautiful and full of fantastic psychoanalytical materils. Yes, I too remember the horrible cereals of childhood.

Keep up your good work. "Bravo Zulu" from a Navy shrink addicted to your site.

V/R,

Shadow722

Posted by: Shadow722 at September 04, 2013 08:31 PM (O8Th3)

458 446 Hobbitopoly,

I would have gottenaway with it too had it not been for you kids

Posted by: Peyton Manning at September 04, 2013 08:32 PM (9jfyN)

459 Shocked at the lack of love given for Cap'n Crunch in this thread. Not with the ghey-ass crunch berries or peanut butter, just the original.

Posted by: Pete at September 04, 2013 08:32 PM (2N4Ot)

460 My mom would save up all the dried up bread and make bread pudding w/ raisons. I liked the damn stuff.

Posted by: Ronster at September 04, 2013 08:32 PM (zIls9)

461
Then marrying her off to a Chewbacca action figure (which, in retrospect, I shouldn't have taken out of the box)>

Posted by: Big Fat Meanie at September 04, 2013 08:30 PM (lhsx

That gives me a great idea for a particularly evil stop-motion video for youtube......

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at September 04, 2013 08:32 PM (TIIx5)

462 I came real close to snapping a photo of the 8' Twinkie Tower in the local Safeway, last night. Just to post it here, for you.
Posted by: garrett

That's some Twinky!

Posted by: Winston Zedemore at September 04, 2013 08:33 PM (v6hyJ)

463 So when I got a job with the mob parking cars at the tender age of 8, I never had to eat that shit again, schmucks.

Posted by: Fritz at September 04, 2013 08:33 PM (KIHQS)

464 That stuff must be an East Coast delight cause I have no memory of it from my poor white childhood. Unless Mr. Cohagen Chancellor of Mars had my memory erased and implanted another. Hmmm mm.

Posted by: Wonkish Rogue at September 04, 2013 08:33 PM (dvRYt)

465 Oh, MY GOSH!

The old Krinkles commercial

With more Clownmongering!

Cower....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2vBJt1iG60

Posted by: radioactive at September 04, 2013 08:34 PM (rLgYm)

466 Barbecued C-ration pork slices: Open (with P-3

one can of crackers and one can of pork slices. Place two slices in each can add half a can of cheese to each. Replace tops, and put back in box. Add one heat-tab and set the box on fire. Smoke a cigarette. After the fire goes out, fish the cans out with your Kabar, and enjoy!

Posted by: Charts and Darts at September 04, 2013 08:34 PM (T8l6a)

467 I actually feel ashamed I was an apple jacks kid now

This should wind up on the side bar

Posted by: Navycopjoe at September 04, 2013 08:34 PM (XruKb)

468 We ate a ton of cereal. I remember seeing the box, but I don't think we ever bought it. Because, as noted, that box is hideous. And scary.

Posted by: Dave S. at September 04, 2013 08:34 PM (UvR6d)

469 I am crying over most of these posts, but Flatbush Joe, yours is the threadwinner. I loved Capn Crunch when I was little, but my parents never bought it, unless I had friends coming over for a sleepover. But my dad secretly loved Apple Jacks, and would get those for every day when he did the shopping, rather than mom. Man, those were the days. Now my kids want organic granola or muesli, since they grew up overseas, and that's what was on the local market. Cheap there, expensive as hell here.

Posted by: moki at September 04, 2013 08:35 PM (EvHC8)

470 The comments are almost as good as the post on this one.

Posted by: Dave S. at September 04, 2013 08:36 PM (UvR6d)

471 The thread has suddenly centered.

Posted by: Vendette at September 04, 2013 08:37 PM (gRnt+)

472 You want shame? One summer, Nesbitt soda had a commercial where one character would look at the other and say "Nesbitt. DUMB!."

That whole summer my dad called me Nesbitt.

The shameful part is that I always answered. Which he always got a laugh out of.

/but under Obamacare, I'm sure I'll be eligible for lots of free psychotherapy!

Posted by: shibumi at September 04, 2013 08:38 PM (25HWz)

473 moki, if you're close to a Trader Joe's, they have some good Euroweenie cereals. And cheap wine.

Posted by: Big Fat Meanie at September 04, 2013 08:38 PM (lhsx8)

474 Cereal? You guys had cereal? My mom never could afford the oats. So I just ate the Quaker. He didn't fight much.

Posted by: J. Dahmer at September 04, 2013 08:38 PM (MnSla)

475 Rice Krinkles,
A free Ford Mustang in every box.

Posted by: Idano12 at September 04, 2013 08:38 PM (9/QVE)

476 Alpha Bits--underrated or overrated?

Posted by: Warden at September 04, 2013 08:39 PM (HzhBE)

477 Thanks BFMeanie! We are close to one, but its lib central, so I have to prepare (read, take a xanax) to go there. But it sounds like it might be worth it!

Posted by: moki at September 04, 2013 08:39 PM (EvHC8)

478 Boxed cereal? You spoiled children.

We ate the breakfast cereal of champions. Graham crackers (broke into bite-size squares) with milk and sugar. To die for. Best cereal ever. Makes you grow tall.

I'm here to tell you though, Reverend Graham was totally wrong about what he thought were the "benefits" of his crackers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_cracker

Posted by: Bimbo Baggins at September 04, 2013 08:39 PM (JNUY4)

479 if anyone liked it enough to read it a second time, I've thrown a bunch of new jokes in and corrected some rough patches.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 08:41 PM (/IWYB)

480 You ever see an entire box of Orange Quangaroos regurgitated by a pair of sick boys. Mom didn't let us get our own breakfast for 3 years.

Posted by: DaveA at September 04, 2013 08:41 PM (DL2i+)

481 I ate Alpha -bits every day as a little kid, and drank Tang.

Tang, when I could have had real Orange juice. I used to love Tang. Sometimes I would get a little spoonful of the powder and eat it DRY.

Somewhere along the line, I started eating Frosted Flakes.

I had Cheerios once. Once. That stuff is awful. My son eats it. He's weird. But he doesn't drink Tang. So maybe he might turn out alright eventually.

Posted by: Reader C.J. Burch writes more nonsense ...... at September 04, 2013 08:41 PM (v6hyJ)

482 476
Alpha Bits--underrated or overrated?
xxx

Loved it. It was "edumacational."

Apple Jacks were "healthy."

Ah. The good old days.

Also... Mom would not buy me Lucky Charms because I picked out the marshmallows and would not eat the actual cereal.

Posted by: shibumi at September 04, 2013 08:42 PM (25HWz)

483 That time my mom presented me with an entire bowl of wheat germ, I knew she was just mailing it in ...

Posted by: Joe at September 04, 2013 08:42 PM (WjS9o)

484
Alpha-Bits weren't actually bad, but definitely overrated.

Posted by: garrett at September 04, 2013 08:42 PM (EmSO+)

485 Thanks BFMeanie! We are close to one, but its lib
central, so I have to prepare (read, take a xanax) to go there. But it
sounds like it might be worth it!

Posted by: moki at September 04, 2013 08:39 PM (EvHC

Trader Joes lib central but it's worth it. Make sure you buy the Chocolate Cat Cookies. They're fat free! Not that I care about fat but they are great. They taste like what you hoped Animal Crackers would taste like before you found out they were stamped cardboard.

Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 08:42 PM (qzWDd)

486 Tang was good for washing down Space Food Sticks.

Posted by: Pete at September 04, 2013 08:43 PM (2N4Ot)

487 Quisp or Quake?

discuss. Show your work.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at September 04, 2013 08:43 PM (pUqSw)

488
I liked Kix with Strawberry Quick Mix sprinkled over them.
Also good on ice cream.

Posted by: garrett at September 04, 2013 08:44 PM (EmSO+)

489 Quisp was kind of effeminate, with a lisp.

Quake was unshakeable.

I never ate either. Just saw the adds.

Posted by: Reader C.J. Burch writes more nonsense ...... at September 04, 2013 08:45 PM (v6hyJ)

490 ace

Since I've only just got here, I must've gotten the revised edition already. Kind of reminds me of my childhood. Brought a tear to my eye even. I should have ran away from home sooner.

Posted by: Joethefatman� (@joethefatman1) at September 04, 2013 08:45 PM (MnSla)

491 The only cereal I ever liked was Sugar Frosted Flakes. But the current incarnation of Tony the Tiger sucks balls.

My little brother loved Quisp and Quake.

Oh, and I started drinking coffee (really half coffee half milk) when I was around 6 or 7. Mmmmm, coffee....

Posted by: Tex Lovera at September 04, 2013 08:46 PM (6ERL7)

492 >>>> Mmmmm, coffee..

If you ever get to Louisiana try some of that there chicory coffee.

Posted by: Joethefatman� (@joethefatman1) at September 04, 2013 08:48 PM (MnSla)

493 My Dad loved coffee. He couldn't live without it. He was a difficult person in the morning until he had his first cup. Always drank a couple of cups of coffee in the evening.

He tried to get me to drink coffee as a kid. Beer too.

Never took to the coffee. But I do drink beer now. I wonder if he would think I was a failure as man?

Posted by: Reader C.J. Burch writes more nonsense ...... at September 04, 2013 08:48 PM (v6hyJ)

494 That's it, I'm bringing a Moka Pot back to Detroit next week. Cafe Cubano is definitely what this place needs.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 08:48 PM (uQIKb)

495 Friggin hilarious. Outdid yourself Ace!

Posted by: Not that Gabe at September 04, 2013 08:49 PM (CyRZp)

496 I'm an asshole, and taught Little to like oatmeal and porridge and raisin bran. Seriously, he asks for them.

Posted by: Gingy at September 04, 2013 08:49 PM (aH+zP)

497 Oh frak me but that was funny!

Here's my overshare: My Mom thought the "Halloween Cereals" (seriously, Fruit Brute? FRUIT BRUTE!?!) were evil. No, really. In a world where she was convinced all sugary cereals were evil, Count Chocula and Frankenberry were somehow EXTRA evil.

"Why not just make a demon cereal?" I will never forget her saying that.

So all sugary cereals were banned.

So were all brand name cereals because "Cheerios is three dollars for a box, but here is a massive bag of 'Oaty-O's' for a buck-fifty and it's the EXACT SAME THING!"

It wasn't. It was basically 'O'-shaped bits of cardboard that you let sit in your milk for a half hour so it would at least get to the point where you weren't going to chip a tooth when taking a bite.

Again, my Mom refused to buy us sugary cereals...but there was the sugar bowl, right next to the coffee maker. I swear I would have ingested less sugar if my Mom had just bought Trix or Lucky Charms because we always put enough sugar in the 'Oaty-O's' to drop a world class athlete smack in the middle of Adult Onset Diabetes.

One of the first things I did when I went to college was buy and eat - in one sitting - a family-sized box of Lucky Charms. I peed out of my butt for three days (seriously, better than any 'cleansing' solution...whole box of Lucky Charms).

One more thing about childhood:

Living in the Pacific Time Zone meant we barely sat down on Saturday Mornings with out sugar frosted 'Oaty-O's' before our cartoons were rudely interrupted by #^%@ College Football. Or worse...golf.

Pretty sure it's why I've never liked football.

Posted by: SGT. York at September 04, 2013 08:50 PM (BhnV9)

498 My grandma wouldn't let me drink coffee, instead she served me Postum.

Posted by: Ronster at September 04, 2013 08:50 PM (zIls9)

499 485-ooooo, I am all about cookies. I'll have to give it a try.

Wegman's is my favorite place to shop, as long as I don't get carried away in their bakery and cheese department. Their store brand cereals are pretty good, too.

Posted by: moki at September 04, 2013 08:50 PM (EvHC8)

500

Nesbitt's Orange

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlo_Kdscw_A

Soda pop. Soda pop. Soda pop.

Posted by: Arbalest at September 04, 2013 08:51 PM (FlRtG)

501 >>>
I actually feel ashamed I was an apple jacks kid now

i hated apple jacks kids. I wanted to be an apple jacks kid.

Apple Jacks kids had so much fun in the commercials. And the cereal was awesome too. I had it once in a Snack-Pack.

There were no commercials for Kaboom.

It was just a dirty little secret, like pornography.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 08:51 PM (/IWYB)

502 AlphaBits with the marshmallows FTW

Posted by: CAC at September 04, 2013 08:51 PM (vve5O)

503 I was an Apple Jacks fanatic. Once my mother tried to save a few pennies by bringing home the store brand (Apple Circles or somesuch). And the rage. Oh the roaring and flinging and crashing rage. She didn't do that twice.

Posted by: Al at September 04, 2013 08:53 PM (3MNCs)

504 Kaboom ads should have said "first one's free"

Posted by: Dave in Texas at September 04, 2013 08:53 PM (pUqSw)

505 Ace,
This was great, Strangely disturbing, but great!
Thank you!

Posted by: ChrisP at September 04, 2013 08:54 PM (jdPps)

506 Oh, man. Funniest blog post I've read in a long, long time. Bravo! We were Kaboom Folk, too, but only when mom had a little extra in her paycheck and we could splurge. On those special days, it was Kaboom, Sunny Delight, and name-brand American cheese, baby! Bitches today don't know what "livin' large" really is.

Posted by: df at September 04, 2013 08:54 PM (bRMI8)

507 Freaky's was the best cereal ever!!! Little monsters that lived in the freaky tree. Don't know whatever became of it.

Posted by: Stuper Genius at September 04, 2013 08:56 PM (CyQ4M)

508
I'm 48 and I never heard of Kaboom. I usually ate Cap'n (or Commodore) Crunch Peanut Butter, Apple Jacks, Trix, Sugar Smacks, or Raisin Bran (usually only until I had hunted all the raisins out of box, leaving the bran for the rest of the family). It got to the point my mom started buying those little red boxes of Sunmaid Raisins to add to my cereal, except I'd put 3 or 4 boxes on it at a time, then she bought the giant quaker oat size container of raisins, but that would only last a week or two. She finally stopped buying Raisin Bran altogether.

Never was a fan of Count Chocula, or Gooseberry Crunch, and I hated Lucky Charms. I don't know what the hell those "marshmallow" things were but they weren't marshmallow.

Posted by: Jon in TX at September 04, 2013 08:56 PM (PKRPm)

509
It was just a dirty little secret, like pornography.

So, your first exposure to Kaboom was when you found a box of it in the woods?

Posted by: garrett at September 04, 2013 08:56 PM (EmSO+)

510 Space Food Sticks, Tang, Tab and Fresca. And you wonder why they didn't spend money on processing waste water from chemical plants before roughly 1980?

Posted by: Steve in Greensboro at September 04, 2013 08:57 PM (ZG3Fa)

511 I miss Sunny D. Crystal lite does a good job with their Classic Orange packs but its just slightly different

Posted by: The dude at September 04, 2013 08:57 PM (vJdyz)

512 Kaboom kids know.

Kaboom kids *understand.*

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 08:58 PM (/IWYB)

513 Some guy sometime said "Yeah your comedy sucks" so I said yeah I am drunk.

HA!

Posted by: Twoslaps at September 04, 2013 08:58 PM (N36ZX)

514 Every time I reload this post, it improves. God love ya, Ace.

Posted by: Jeff B., overworking a meme at September 04, 2013 08:58 PM (n/+FT)

515 What about the Freakies?

Posted by: Boss Moss at September 04, 2013 08:59 PM (0axsw)

516 Oh My Gosh-SPACE FOOD STICKS!!!!!!!

All the cool kids had them in their lunch boxes (I grew up in a General Dynamics town, full of engineers that did work for NASA) so we choked those nasty ass things down, like we thought they were good. Tang was okay, and the freeze dried ice cream was a fun snack, but those space food sticks were really nuclear waste. At least they tasted like it.

Posted by: moki at September 04, 2013 09:00 PM (EvHC8)

517 Kaboom is one of my strongest childhood memories. Specifically, when it made me vomit. I looked in the toilet afterwards -- it looked the same as it had in the bowl.

Posted by: Average Joe at September 04, 2013 09:00 PM (KJ843)

518
You know you're watching too much porn when you have a wet dream about beating it to porn.

Not that this has ever happened to me.

Posted by: Warden at September 04, 2013 09:00 PM (HzhBE)

519 I'm a little disappointed that people didn't take up my idea of creating Downscale Childhood stories, however. Thought my two were a decent jump-off point. Funnier than I usually am, which "not very much at all."

Posted by: Jeff B., overworking a meme at September 04, 2013 09:01 PM (n/+FT)

520 They were all my friends /
and they died.

Posted by: Kensington at September 04, 2013 09:01 PM (uaEZS)

521 My mom would give us coffee milk. My brother loved it, but every time he drank it he would puke. Never stopped him though. That boy wasn't right.

Posted by: no good deed at September 04, 2013 09:01 PM (WmLrU)

522 I didn't see anything about Syria in this post. What kind of cereal do little Syrian kids eat for breakfast? Allah's Oats? Hell, Kaboom would be a fitting cereal for the future terrorist martyr's amongst them.

Posted by: Jon in TX at September 04, 2013 09:01 PM (PKRPm)

523 "Booberry?" BOOBerry? Is that what I think it is? and where the fuck can I get it!

Posted by: Guido 'Pussy is Art' at September 04, 2013 09:02 PM (JvtXj)

524 The Dept of Ag should come to this thread and see how poor kids rise up when they do without. Really giving people everything kills the soul.

Posted by: Madamex at September 04, 2013 09:02 PM (islXR)

525 Does anybody remember EctoCooler?

Posted by: CAC at September 04, 2013 09:02 PM (vve5O)

526
523 "Booberry?" BOOBerry? Is that what I think it is? and where the fuck can I get it!

***

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF_Dhgisbys

Posted by: Jon in TX at September 04, 2013 09:03 PM (PKRPm)

527 They have been bringing back the Monster cereals seasonally for years. I know because a little after Halloween they clearance them and that's where I come in.

Posted by: Cheap Basted at September 04, 2013 09:05 PM (0axsw)

528

Here's the tricky part ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyI3IL46yq4

Is it good? Darn tootin'.

- Big Fig

Posted by: Arbalest at September 04, 2013 09:05 PM (FlRtG)

529 116 Ace of Spades--it's full of old people!!!!

O.L.D? You don't know old, rookie! I'll give you OLD!

My favorite cereal was Pep

Posted by: soggybottom at September 04, 2013 09:06 PM (wF+rY)

530 We liked cap'n crunch and one time tried the peanut butter version -- shudder. I bet that box was in the cupboards for years because mom would have saved it for if we ran out of all other cereal until it was spoiled.

Posted by: palerider at September 04, 2013 09:06 PM (dkExz)

531 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF_Dhgisbys
Posted by: Jon in TX at September 04, 2013 09:03 PM (PKRPm)

And where are the BOOB's-erry was my point....wrong cereal. I had a dream.

Posted by: Guido 'Pussy is Art' at September 04, 2013 09:06 PM (JvtXj)

532 They had a cereal just like that when I was a kid, only they tried to use Sunday comic characters to convince you how funny it was.

It's funny, because Beetle Bailey and The Family Circus! There were probably comics printed on the box.

Posted by: Shoot Me at September 04, 2013 09:06 PM (qiXMt)

533 Ace, Corn Pops had Batman on the box, my boys had to have it and eat it while wearing their towel capes.

Posted by: Madamex at September 04, 2013 09:06 PM (islXR)

534 Those little Kaboom cereal faces, floating in a lake of milk...

Are the grinning with delight or grimacing in horror at their impending grisly fate?

It's the stuff of nightmares.

Posted by: Pakimon at September 04, 2013 09:06 PM (+MwZM)

535
530 We liked cap'n crunch and one time tried the peanut butter version -- shudder. I bet that box was in the cupboards for years because mom would have saved it for if we ran out of all other cereal until it was spoiled.

****

Heathen...CnC PB was the bomb. Way better than the regular or Gooseberry shit they made.

Posted by: Jon in TX at September 04, 2013 09:07 PM (PKRPm)

536 525
Does anybody remember EctoCooler?

No, you know what's really fun though? Asking people if they remember something you just made up...lol

EctoWTF?

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 09:07 PM (uQIKb)

537 Freakies Video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be77gKd55q4

Posted by: Boss Moss at September 04, 2013 09:07 PM (0axsw)

538 Or that awful "astronaut Ice Cream" my parents decided to buy from an Edmunds catalogue. I can't imagine anything dryer, not even Helen Thomas' unmentionable bits.

Posted by: CAC at September 04, 2013 09:08 PM (vve5O)

539 I'm ashamed to admit I *actually* know about Pep. Never had it though.

Posted by: Joethefatman� (@joethefatman1) at September 04, 2013 09:08 PM (MnSla)

540 @529

My Mom and Dad are with us tonight and was sharing this thread; my Dad was just mentioning Pep! Used to have it with warm milk.

Posted by: Pete at September 04, 2013 09:08 PM (2N4Ot)

541 Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 09:07 PM (uQIKb)

Neon green juice boxes that tied into Ghostbusters with slimer slapped onto the side. It wasn't bad as I remember it

Posted by: The dude at September 04, 2013 09:09 PM (vJdyz)

542 Kaboom kids know.

Kaboom kids *understand.*

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 08:58 PM (/IWYB)

This is true and really it was tolerable being a Kaboom kid. At least it was till you met your friend at the bus stop and he had a Pop tart. Then your heart truly sank.

Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 09:09 PM (qzWDd)

543 Or that awful "astronaut Ice Cream" my parents decided to buy from an Edmunds catalogue. I can't imagine anything dryer, not even Helen Thomas' unmentionable bits.

Posted by: CAC at September 04, 2013 09:08 PM (vve5O)

You can still get "Astronaut food" at the Air and Space Museum, both DC-area locations.

Posted by: Vendette at September 04, 2013 09:09 PM (gRnt+)

544 >>>And the cereal was awesome too. I had it once in a Snack-Pack that fell off a truck.

Oh, my. My face is going to get stuck with a Joker smile.

Posted by: rdbrewer at September 04, 2013 09:10 PM (Iyg03)

545 EctoCooler
http://tinyurl.com/86waqyl

Posted by: Guido 'Pussy is Art' at September 04, 2013 09:11 PM (JvtXj)

546 Yeah,had the chocolate space food sticks.I seem to remember liking them.

Posted by: steevy at September 04, 2013 09:11 PM (9XBK2)

547 >>>This is true and really it was tolerable being a Kaboom kid. At
least it was till you met your friend at the bus stop and he had a Pop
tart. Then your heart truly sank.

but in a way we were free. We had no expectations of life or of ourselves.

We were Kaboom Kids. We were unafraid of monsters in the closet. We knew the greatest monster came in a box.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 09:12 PM (/IWYB)

548
Sadly enough, I used to read Beetle Baily and The Family Circus. I don't know how many Family Circus cartoons I read over the years, but I can tell you there was exactly one that I busted a nut on. The rest were just those damn kids wandering around on some stupid arrow path through 8 panels of Sunday comics.
I don't know why in the hell I read that shit, along with Snuffy Smith, Marmaduke, Garfield, the Lockhorns, Hagar the Horrible, and so on. The first comic I ever read that was really outstanding was Bloom County. I don't care that Berke Breathed was on the lib side, he wrote some great stuff. I have most if not all of the books.

Posted by: Jon in TX at September 04, 2013 09:12 PM (PKRPm)

549 Ecto cooler an 80's drink in a box based off of The Ghost Busters floating ghost called slimer. That Ecto cooler?

Posted by: Joethefatman� (@joethefatman1) at September 04, 2013 09:12 PM (MnSla)

550 Ahem. EctoCooler was certainly real, and the only delicious green "juice" ever: http://youtu.be/JKuDqn2MYOc

Posted by: CAC at September 04, 2013 09:12 PM (vve5O)

551 Heathen...CnC PB was the bomb. Way better than the regular or Gooseberry shit they made.

Nope that CnC PB was nasty and we weren't picky. On the poor kids or more like far from strores kids end we tried to create our own pixy sticks with kool-aid powder and sugar in a plastic straw --yeah that worked as dismally as you'd think.

Posted by: palerider at September 04, 2013 09:13 PM (dkExz)

552 The USAF Museum as well....that sawdust convinced me diaper wearing psychos or no the Infantry was safer w/better food

Posted by: Buzz Aldrin's Pimp Slap at September 04, 2013 09:14 PM (9jfyN)

553 Anyone growing up in the late 80s/early 90s remembers Slimer's HI C. It kicked Sunny Ds ass.

Posted by: CAC at September 04, 2013 09:14 PM (vve5O)

554 >> Used to have it with warm milk.

You had cereal with milk??

LUXURY.

We had Kaboom with dirt and we were lucky to have it.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at September 04, 2013 09:15 PM (pUqSw)

555 Posted by: Porkkky
***************
Awwww.... look at who's a big crankypants! What's the matter, tear a hole in your gimp suit again today?

Posted by: Warden at September 04, 2013 09:16 PM (HzhBE)

556 We couldn't afford Sunny D. We couldn't afford Tang. But I did occasionally get some Chilly Willy fruit punch. Goes great with Vodka, up to a point.

Posted by: Jon in TX at September 04, 2013 09:17 PM (PKRPm)

557 lololol...that was about 5 years after my time I guess.

We had CapriSun towards the end of my formative years...that one I remember.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 09:17 PM (uQIKb)

558 Most tasteless cereal: Kix

One of my favorites. It wouldn't stay in the bowl though, no milk wave damping.

Posted by: DaveA at September 04, 2013 09:18 PM (DL2i+)

559 there's nothing quite like a stinging rebuke from a critic calling himself "PorKKKy" (three K's, nice).

Except Kaboom. Kaboom is like that.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 09:18 PM (/IWYB)

560 548 We were Kaboom Kids. We were unafraid of monsters in the closet. We knew the greatest monster came in a box.

Yeah, someone swapped ace's sativa for an indica when he wasn't looking. Definitely.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 09:19 PM (uQIKb)

561 Jackie End the creator of the Freakies died last year.

Posted by: Boss Moss at September 04, 2013 09:19 PM (0axsw)

562 Cry me a river. We had wheaties or raisin bran. We dreamed up real, actual artificial colors and sugar.

Posted by: sexypig at September 04, 2013 09:19 PM (dZQh7)

563 I think Kaboom was e gineered at General Mills Tuskeegee Field Office......

Posted by: Sven10077 at September 04, 2013 09:19 PM (9jfyN)

564 I always resented the smug little shitheads that got fruit rollups in their lunch boxes. All i ever got was a peanut butter and jelly sammich and a mushy apple.

Posted by: Warden at September 04, 2013 09:19 PM (HzhBE)

565 >>>who else had a sister who had a RAGGEDY ANN doll?

I did, and mom made it herself due to poorness at the time. Also made Raggedy Andy.

Posted by: StPatrick_TN at September 04, 2013 09:20 PM (un8zR)

566 PorKKKY is one K removed from Kaboom Kid. And yet he still got fat and sad.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at September 04, 2013 09:20 PM (pUqSw)

567 We were Kaboom Kids. We were unafraid of monsters in the closet. We knew the greatest monster came in a box.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 09:12 PM (/IWYB)
Yes, it was easy to tell your older sister to go pound sand when she said there were monsters under the bed. Kaboom kids knew the monster lived in the Cereal Cabinet.

Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 09:20 PM (qzWDd)

568
563 I think Kaboom was e gineered at General Mills Tuskeegee Field Office......

****

More likely Monsanto. They are behind every Big Ag conspiracy around. Probably used GM oats that made your DNA unravel.

Posted by: Jon in TX at September 04, 2013 09:21 PM (PKRPm)

569 I banned PorKKKY (three K's for... gee who knows what) but I wanted to post his comment so people understand why I'm tired of this:

>>>What a huge fucking fail this rant was.... Kaboom was an OK cereal,
nothing special, but for fuck's sake, to waste 500 words on it?

Ka-Fucking-Boom.

You're getting fucking lazy, man.

...

See what I mean? There are people who are really, really dumb, and they're also really, really loud and really, really angry.

You put those three things together -- like three K's -- and you've got a problem.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 09:21 PM (/IWYB)

570 565 St Patrick TN,

Patrick...I think dad helped.....

ah the 70s.....

a poorer time, a desperate time

Posted by: Sven10077 at September 04, 2013 09:22 PM (9jfyN)

571 "I had it once in a Snack-Pack that fell off a truck."

You mean the Soviet supply truck? I'd send Jennifer Grey down to investigate. She can smell a trap.

Posted by: Big Fat Meanie at September 04, 2013 09:22 PM (lhsx8)

572 564 in their lunch boxes...

Damn...you didn't have to carry yours to school in a paper sack? And the plastic bags your soggy bread came in - you probably got to use a new one each day, right?

Rich people...

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 09:23 PM (uQIKb)

573 So, Kaboom is basically like Trix but with marshmallows mixed in? Hmmmm...

Posted by: Crazy Bald Guy at September 04, 2013 09:23 PM (fUROf)

574 I AM ANGRY WE AREN'T SPENDING MORE TIME BEING ANGRY!

Posted by: Warden at September 04, 2013 09:23 PM (HzhBE)

575 89
>>>64

Who was the guy that promoted a cereal by eating pine nuts?<<<

Euell Gibbons.

"I am going to eat this pine tree to demonstrate a healthy way to start the day...."

Tim Conway did a great Euell Gibbons imitation; "And now I am going out back to eat your picnic table."

Posted by: algore at September 04, 2013 09:23 PM (ALrLs)

576 568 Jon in TX,

Monsanto never did master Marketing....

Chupacabra Flakes never got good Q ratings outside Roswell, and Art Bell's AirStream

Posted by: Sven10077 at September 04, 2013 09:24 PM (9jfyN)

577 See what I mean? There are people who are really, really dumb, and they're also really, really loud and really, really angry.

You put those three things together -- like three K's -- and you've got a problem.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 09:21 PM (/IWYB)

Was he friggin serious? This post was like a jazz symphony of misery comedy. Just endlessly riffable.

Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 09:24 PM (qzWDd)

578 I enjoyed Kids Cuisine. But the one with the brownie. The fruit desert one was bullshit.

Posted by: CAC at September 04, 2013 09:25 PM (vve5O)

579 I remember Kaboom. I also vaguely recall there was short lived commercial for it back in the early 60s. Something about that clown getting shot out of a cannon.

Posted by: Noah Bawdy at September 04, 2013 09:25 PM (dCjum)

580 YES! SPACE FOOD STICKS!
Loved 'em. Memories started flooding back as soon as I read that. I wonder if anything is ever truly forgotten or if it just takes a poke to have something yanked out of the deep recesses of the brain.

Posted by: Al at September 04, 2013 09:25 PM (3MNCs)

581 I had sweet Star Wars lunch box at one timelWish I still had it.I guess by junior high we thought lunchboxes were lame and I used paper bags.Though I did hot lunch a lot.

Posted by: steevy at September 04, 2013 09:25 PM (9XBK2)

582 I've read some funny shit on this website.
This is one of my favorites.
Classic stuff, right up there with Paul Anka.

Posted by: Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame at September 04, 2013 09:25 PM (YTWOp)

583 Damn...you didn't have to carry yours to school in a paper sack?
************

Yeah, whatever, Life of Luxury

I had to carry my milk to school IN MY HANDS. The best I could hope for is that Mom bought the expired stuff that was a little chunky, so it wouldn't leak so much.

Posted by: Warden at September 04, 2013 09:25 PM (HzhBE)

584 I incur attributes toward those inclined to vomiting sometimes when I read old Kathy S.

Ha ha; jokes on me and I won't�as indeed it's not possible-ever get it.

Posted by: Twoslaps at September 04, 2013 09:26 PM (N36ZX)

585 I mean I just want people to understand this:

PorKKKy thought this was a *rant.* A *rant.* And he thinks it's dumb because Kaboom really wasn't all that bad.

He doesn't understand... it was a joke.

He doesn't get it.

And when I tell him it's a joke -- he's banned now so I guess he can't react, but if he were here to react -- he'd get angrier because now he feels humiliated.

And this all begins as his problem, but now it's MY problem, as I have a humiliated, seething, loud angry KKK imbecile on my case now.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 09:26 PM (/IWYB)

586 My father wouldn't allow any of that crap in the house. We weren't allowed milk or sugar either (we had some holiday exceptions). We ate the prototype granolas mail-ordered from Walnut Acres and something called Bircher-Muesli, which was available in health food stores. Both were delicious. This was the 60s and 70s. He was a corporate CEO who'd been raised by a mother who was an early health food exponent. I had no problem with this. We'd cheat of course (and he'd look the other way sometimes) but I developed good eating habits which continue to this day and have him to thank.

Posted by: rrpjr at September 04, 2013 09:27 PM (YWDCE)

587 578 When I was a kid we had one frozen dinner for kids,I remember the brownie always wound up getting into the other stuff.I used to eat the regular Swanson frozen dinners.I think everything tasted better before they took trans fats out!

Posted by: steevy at September 04, 2013 09:27 PM (9XBK2)

588 Ralston Purina made the Freakies. Yum.

Posted by: Boss Moss at September 04, 2013 09:27 PM (0axsw)

589 Life of Luxury
dot dot dot

Sheeeeee-it, I carried milk powder in my pocket, and had to piss in it to rehydrate since we had no running water at my school.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 09:27 PM (uQIKb)

590 Pretty sure "Porkkky" was a troll.Don't recall ever seeing him here before.

Posted by: steevy at September 04, 2013 09:28 PM (9XBK2)

591 EPIC.

Posted by: simplemind at September 04, 2013 09:28 PM (BmWNr)

592 Incidentally, he liked Kaboom. So apparently he thought Kaboom was the cereal for normal people.

Among us Kaboom Kids, we knew that sort of Kaboom Kid to be the saddest Kaboom kid of all.

Even among the Kaboom Kids, there was a hierarchy of shame.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 09:28 PM (/IWYB)

593 I ate cock and I loved it....

Posted by: ERG at September 04, 2013 09:29 PM (g9Osd)

594 585 Ace,

Well a not very smart imbecile Chief.......

send him for prop wash you have a week's head start....

Posted by: Sven10077 at September 04, 2013 09:29 PM (9jfyN)

595 585 I have a humiliated, seething, loud angry KKK imbecile on my case now.

I'm reasonably positive that Mr. Holder is already on it, having received an instantaneous update from NSA via encrypted SMS message.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 09:29 PM (uQIKb)

596 We were so poor, Mom would just spit in our mouths on the way out the door to school. That was breakfast AND lunch.

Posted by: Warden at September 04, 2013 09:29 PM (HzhBE)

597 And yeah,I think everything that ever happened to you is stored away in your memory.Accessing it is not always easy though.

Posted by: steevy at September 04, 2013 09:29 PM (9XBK2)

598 >>>590
Pretty sure "Porkkky" was a troll.Don't recall ever seeing him here before.

not really, he's always trying to get my attention on Twitter. he doesn't understand that people don't respond to people with "KKK" in their names.

I once thought I would explain this to him, so that my ignoring of him would at least be explained, but it always seemed such an awkward conversation to have, and i imagined he would just get angry about it.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 09:30 PM (/IWYB)

599 I think banned trolls should get some sort of parting gift. Some Chinese handcuffs or something. Maybe a refrigerator magnet.

Posted by: Warden at September 04, 2013 09:30 PM (HzhBE)

600 There's a reason Kaboom kids started smoking when we were 12.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at September 04, 2013 09:31 PM (pUqSw)

601 I had to walk to school, uphill both ways.

Posted by: BossMoss at September 04, 2013 09:31 PM (0axsw)

602
I enjoyed Kids Cuisine. But the one with the brownie. The fruit desert one was bullshit.Posted by: CAC You 80's kids are so cute. Adorable really. You just don't have any idea.Ask Dave in Texas, I bet his mom bought his cereal with war ration stamps.

Posted by: Liberty Lover at September 04, 2013 09:31 PM (2DgBs)

603 he's always trying to get my attention on Twitter.

I used to do that too. Thankfully that phase passes quickly and some sense of normalcy eventually descends.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 09:31 PM (uQIKb)

604 I loved the deals you could get on cereal boxes. I once spent 25 cents and 2 box tops to get a submarine that you put baking soda in so it would rise in thebathroom sink then submerge again. Fantastic.

Posted by: Ronster at September 04, 2013 09:31 PM (5/oJl)

605 Is it good? Darn tootin'.

- Big Fig

We denounce ourselves...

You betcha!!!

Posted by: The State of Minnesota at September 04, 2013 09:32 PM (g9Osd)

606 Kaboom tried to go upscale just before they killed the brand:
http://tinyurl.com/lf7wxwd

Posted by: rdbrewer at September 04, 2013 09:33 PM (Iyg03)

607 600 Dave in Texas,

and turning tricks...or shudder taking Cenus interviews by 13.....

a hard life for hard people bereft of luxuries like health insurance...or EPA regs

Posted by: Sven10077 at September 04, 2013 09:33 PM (9jfyN)

608 Oh, those submarines were the fucking bomb. All just a subliminal game to get me in the tub, but screw it. Those were good times.

>pop<

'scuse me.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 09:33 PM (uQIKb)

609 You can't do upscale with Kaboom, General Mills.

Posted by: rdbrewer at September 04, 2013 09:33 PM (Iyg03)

610 416 Who remembers Aspen soda

Yup. I also remember Slice soda (especially their cherry cola), Spoon Candy, Tuna Twist, and Slender Diet Drinks. I *looooved* Slender Chocolate Drink in the can.

Also, I think I'm the only person alive who still remembers Frito-Lay's first foray into salsa: their Tostitos Picante Sauce, which was sold in a can shaped like today's cans of bean dip. It was horrible to look at, an ugly brown color (hence the can) but tasted about five times better than any of the Tostitos salsas being sold today.

Posted by: qdpsteve at September 04, 2013 09:33 PM (7B7jB)

611
And this all begins as his problem, but now it's MY problem, as I have a humiliated, seething, loud angry KKK imbecile on my case now.

Is he a blue one, Ace? ... Flush. Problem solved ... and don't tell anyone he was blue.

Posted by: Arbalest at September 04, 2013 09:33 PM (FlRtG)

612 We were so poor, we had to make our own shoes out of pine cones and used dental floss that we'd stolen from the neighbor kids during sleepovers.

Posted by: Warden at September 04, 2013 09:33 PM (HzhBE)

613 One of my biggest disappointments in life was Cookie Crisp cereal. I bugged my mom for weeks thinking it was going to be just like eating Nestle Toll House cookies with milk poured over it. Talk about false advertising. It tasted like the regular old crap - just shaped like little cookies.

Posted by: sluggo at September 04, 2013 09:34 PM (vVv3V)

614 I want the 25 foot fig log.
Posted by: the guy that moves pianos for a living... at September 04, 2013 08:20 PM (E3gqr)

How YOU DOIN'?

Posted by: The City of San Francisco at September 04, 2013 09:34 PM (g9Osd)

615 Even among the Kaboom Kids, there was a hierarchy of shame.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 09:28 PM (/IWYB)

But we didn't talk to those kids. Ever. Unless they were willing to trade their Choco Chip cookies for Kaboom at lunch.
http://www.famousfoods.com/pelachco12oz.html

Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 09:34 PM (qzWDd)

616 I loved the tub as a kid.Never took showers.I'd play for hours in the tub.An older friend of the family gave me that GI Joe Seawolf submarine with the giant squid.When I was younger I had a Weeble Wobbles submarine.

Posted by: steevy at September 04, 2013 09:35 PM (9XBK2)

617 D in T

You waited until you were 12? I was mooching cigar buts at 7.

Posted by: Joethefatman� (@joethefatman1) at September 04, 2013 09:35 PM (MnSla)

618 >>>One of my biggest disappointments in life was Cookie Crisp cereal.

how I dreamed of one day being disappointed by Cookie Crisp cereal.

But I Kaboom.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 09:36 PM (/IWYB)

619 My high school football coach asked us all "which one of you homos had Kaboom?"

I never raised my hand. My shame.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at September 04, 2013 09:37 PM (pUqSw)

620
See that clown? He's a cereal killer. The individual morsels are the severed, but fortified heads of his victims. All children who refused to eat their otherwise bland Cheerios, before the days of tasty and sweetened-with-honeyHoney Nut Cherios.
The horrors I have seen. THE HORRORS!

Posted by: Rich, Certified Clown H8ter at September 04, 2013 09:37 PM (rLXsW)

621 Ebay used to have a whole section with cereal and cracker jack prizes.Like a trip down memory lane.Also like to go look through the old toys.

Posted by: steevy at September 04, 2013 09:37 PM (9XBK2)

622 I think rich kids should be force fed Kaboom. For social justice.......

Serial you guys!

Posted by: Matt "one of you" Yglesias at September 04, 2013 09:38 PM (9jfyN)

623 Count Chockula was a Rino. True story.

Posted by: Boss Moss at September 04, 2013 09:38 PM (0axsw)

624 Kaboom Kids had to walk up ten flights of stairs to get to and from the Breakfast Table.

Posted by: garrett at September 04, 2013 09:38 PM (f6IO4)

625 Also, the clown is obviously coked up. Look at those eyes.

Posted by: Dave S. at September 04, 2013 09:39 PM (UvR6d)

626 THIS is why you have the best blog on the internet. This is also probably the smartest cereal blog on the conservative side of the internet. (Although Lileks will give you a run for your money.) In fact, how about a Lileks-Ace podcast about the consumer goods your mom fed you as a child! You're the best Ace.

Posted by: GreggTex at September 04, 2013 09:39 PM (YEDer)

627 My mom, God love her, used to shove Space Food sticks on us constantly....slightly hardened spackle with a marvelous quasi chocolate flavor. Brilliant marketing to stupid people...you're just like an astronaut!

Posted by: jjshaka at September 04, 2013 09:41 PM (RNAsF)

628 GreggTex: Lileks would be a great guest poster here. Having said that, Lileks seems to specialize in unearthing the cereals that were SO obscure, bad and sad, they would have made Kaboom look, sound and taste like heaven.

Posted by: qdpsteve at September 04, 2013 09:41 PM (7B7jB)

629 Nostalgia is a powerful thing.Especially since I lost my mother.

Posted by: steevy at September 04, 2013 09:42 PM (9XBK2)

630 All just a subliminal game to get me in the tub, but screw it. Those were good times.

Lucky bastard. No bathtub for me, just a wash tub.

Posted by: Ronster at September 04, 2013 09:42 PM (5/oJl)

631 I'm gonna invent a new cereal. It's called Carlos Danger Crisps. It will be slightly salty with a faint wiff of vaseline mixed with bitter tears of shame.

Posted by: Rich, Certified Clown H8ter at September 04, 2013 09:42 PM (rLXsW)

632 Sometimes a man is standing in line or waiting for a train and he sees another man and their eyes meet.

Yeah, I'm a Kaboom kid too.

They don't say anything to each other.

After all, what else is there to say.

Posted by: eman at September 04, 2013 09:43 PM (YRazD)

633 Kaboom? Luxury. We ate oatmeal, plain. And we were grateful.

Posted by: toby928 at September 04, 2013 09:44 PM (QDzkJ)

634 630 No bathtub for me, just a wash tub.

Now that's just sad. No childhood is complete without farting in the tub.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 09:44 PM (uQIKb)

635 629 Steevy,

I miss her nagging to drink the damn milk....

it never gets easier to bear Steevy but it will hurt less one day

Posted by: Matt at September 04, 2013 09:44 PM (9jfyN)

636 sock fail Steevy

Posted by: Sven10077 at September 04, 2013 09:45 PM (9jfyN)

637 Never had to get nagged to drink milk though.Always loved milk.

Posted by: steevy at September 04, 2013 09:46 PM (9XBK2)

638 19That, Ace, is one of the funniest posts ever. Forget whatizzname Thick. This is the one.

What he said.

Posted by: Barbara at September 04, 2013 09:46 PM (Tj0L4)

639 There was no getting out of being a Kaboom kid either. Your Mom was sold on the idea this made her a cool mom on the cheap because it had sugar in it. You could try to eat the box up real fast so your Mom would have to buy something cheaper like store brand Corn Flakes but it was no good. Mom always had 50% off coupons for Kaboom. They were always left right there on the store shelf by Mothers who were actually cool or caved in when their kids whined for Apple Jacks in the cereal aisle.

Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 09:46 PM (qzWDd)

640 >>>> 624
Kaboom Kids had to walk up ten flights of stairs to get to and from the Breakfast Table.

Posted by: garrett at September 04, 2013 09:38 PM (f6IO4)

Dear lord, they had to WALK places? What level of villainy did they exist in that their manservants didn't carry them up stairs when they proved bothersome? Though compassion at times compels me to empathize with the lower classes, I must admit I find it most tiresome. Procure good help and a good horse, man, and cease shuffling here and there like some beast, I say!

Posted by: StPatrick_TN XIV at September 04, 2013 09:47 PM (un8zR)

641 Another good use for Grape Nuts is to mix them with the topping for apple crisp before baking.

Posted by: Leigh at September 04, 2013 09:48 PM (reepm)

642 I can't eat those sweetened cereals anymore. I'd weigh 900 pounds.

Posted by: Boss Moss at September 04, 2013 09:50 PM (0axsw)

643 Who remembers ICE CREAM CONES CEREAL? I mean, you had Honey Smacks, you had BooBerry, you had your molester eyed Sugar Crisp...

But the serial with serious swag - Ice Cream Cones!

Posted by: radioactive at September 04, 2013 09:51 PM (rLgYm)

644 You will notice the Grape Nuts lovers all say "Grape Nuts are good if you do this..." or "Another good use for them is...". Never, "Boy those Grape Nuts sure are good right out of the box and are not remotely like clumping cat litter."

Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 09:53 PM (qzWDd)

645 Grape Nuts decent #4 shot if you runout of lead.

Posted by: steevy at September 04, 2013 09:54 PM (9XBK2)

646 >>>Who remembers ICE CREAM CONES CEREAL? I mean, you had Honey Smacks, you had BooBerry, you had your molester eyed Sugar Crisp...

I remember hearing stories of such things from my Gran-Gran.

She said that when I died, which would probably be soon, I could have Ice Cream Cone cereal in Heaven.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 09:55 PM (/IWYB)

647 Not a big fan of Grape Nuts, however I like Grape Nuts Flakes.

Posted by: Ronster at September 04, 2013 09:55 PM (5/oJl)

648 Anyone ever figure out the 'grape' reference there? I can see where they got nut from, but 'grape'...?

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 09:56 PM (uQIKb)

649 Ace: king of the incredibly long, unfunny post. You should have run it about 20 more paragraphs, it might have become funny eventually, who knows?

Posted by: docweasel at September 04, 2013 09:56 PM (hlFA8)

650 @cicero, every damn thing you post is making me laugh my butt off!! No, I am not high.

In my house we only got the "healthy" stuff like generic Rice Krispies or Chex. No sugary stuff unless you got to spend the night a rich friend's house. My mom was known for packing celery sticks in our lunches. Couldn't trade up for anything.

Posted by: ChelieinTX at September 04, 2013 09:56 PM (ztDp5)

651 And I opt out because I'M weird. Yeesh.

Posted by: Madtom at September 04, 2013 09:57 PM (IyxzF)

652 >>>Ace: king of the incredibly long, unfunny post. You should have run it
about 20 more paragraphs, it might have become funny eventually, who
knows?

weirdest thing, Porn Emporium, I've got someone urging me to sell it as a Single on Kindle.

Gee, wow, so many people think it's funny. But I guess you with your "Blogger Collective" must be right, as usual.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 09:57 PM (/IWYB)

653 >>>638
19That, Ace, is one of the funniest posts ever. Forget whatizzname Thick. This is the one.

>>>What he said.

thanks guys!

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 09:58 PM (/IWYB)

654 Much is now clear.

I at least got Cheerios

Posted by: meep at September 04, 2013 09:58 PM (Y2x0b)

655 what a weird, stalky, stalker weirdo you are docweasel.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 09:59 PM (/IWYB)

656 Any other East Coasters remember OJ's cereal? Basically orange-flavored Kix.

Memories of Andover Massachusetts, watching morning cartoons, eating OJ's and waiting for hair-dryer-thawed artificial crab stick salad on a toasted hot dog bun for lunch (no microwave). Damn.

Posted by: cato the elder at September 04, 2013 09:59 PM (sZwqG)

657 It's hilarious ace and I'm not saying that to be a kiss ass,

Posted by: steevy at September 04, 2013 09:59 PM (9XBK2)

658 Saying this post isn't funny is right up there with calling WJC 'honest'.

Don't fuel their reality disconnect. You don't need the fucking validation, man - and THEY certainly don't.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 10:00 PM (uQIKb)

659 644
You will notice the Grape Nuts lovers all say "Grape Nuts are good if
you do this..." or "Another good use for them is...". Never, "Boy those
Grape Nuts sure are good right out of the box and are not remotely like
clumping cat litter."

Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 09:53 PM (qzWDd)

-----All true. They'd just sink to the bottom like little rocks. Someone noted they were good for scraping the plaque off your teeth. I imagine this is true, much like the milk bones and rawhides I feed my dog.

Posted by: Dave S. at September 04, 2013 10:00 PM (UvR6d)

660 thanks steevy.

docweasel just has Internet Inadequacy Expressiveness issues.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 10:01 PM (/IWYB)

661 ace, I found the post very funny. dickweasel can eat a dick.

Posted by: Ronster at September 04, 2013 10:01 PM (5/oJl)

662 Whenever I think Comedy Gold Standard, I think "guy who runs creepy porn site with other weirdos all posting under the same handle."

Posted by: Warden at September 04, 2013 10:01 PM (HzhBE)

663 >>>You don't need the fucking validation, man

of course I do! And thank you.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 10:01 PM (/IWYB)

664 Ever notice that the people quickest to judge something as "not funny" have never posted anything even remotely funny?

Posted by: Warden at September 04, 2013 10:02 PM (HzhBE)

665 If they still sold Kaboom the scanner would Wah-Wah sadly.

Recyclers wouldn't take the boxes.

Posted by: DaveA at September 04, 2013 10:03 PM (DL2i+)

666 >>>Whenever I think Comedy Gold Standard, I think "guy who runs creepy porn
site with other weirdos all posting under the same handle."

there was one time this idiot tried to explain his/her/whatever polymorphously perverse SexBorg collective, and I remember just wondering, "Who do you think cares about this?"

I half expected him/her to start talking about when he/she started cutting.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 10:03 PM (/IWYB)

667 I loved Kaboom. Well, I guess because I ate it, I was unable to love. Still am.

I first was exposed to Kaboom because it was the only "sugary" cereal approved under the State of Kansas for the WIC program. I loved sugary cereals, saw the constant, effervescent commercials and pestered my mom for some Fruity Pebbles...Cocoa Puffs...Quisp...anything. She brought home...Kaboom. Be careful when you wish for anything.

Posted by: A Black Hat Caught in a High Treetop at September 04, 2013 10:04 PM (qT3hA)

668 I almost wish ace would give talentless, unoriginal and exceptionally unexceptional "critics" like this docweasel a crack at writing a funny post.

Posted by: Warden at September 04, 2013 10:04 PM (HzhBE)

669 663 And thank you.

lol...fucking humans.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 10:04 PM (uQIKb)

670 >>>Ever notice that the people quickest to judge something as "not funny" have never posted anything even remotely funny?

I have in fact noticed that.

I've also noticed that funny people tell other funny people that something isn't funny in a different way. They just say, "Didn't work for me, man."

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 10:04 PM (/IWYB)

671
113 Rice Krispies treats.

I've never eaten such an addicting cereal as Rice Krispies Treats...And that was when I was in my late 30's...I damn near cried when I couldn't them anymore.

Posted by: Tony253 at September 04, 2013 10:05 PM (3yMFT)

672 Since he's posting just to use the pron link in his nic and say "dumbshiTM@" ban him and charge him per post to come back.

Posted by: DaveA at September 04, 2013 10:05 PM (DL2i+)

673 >>>I loved Kaboom. Well, I guess because I ate it, I was unable to love. Still am.

also unable to trust, if you're anything like me.

They should put a warning on the box: Kaboom may steal the heart out of you. Also may contain nuts.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 10:06 PM (/IWYB)

674 When I worked as a stocker at the grocery store in 1982-83 we were under strict orders to place the Kaboom on the second shelf.

Fat, lazy cereal trash can't be bothered to reach up for the higher end cereals and low enough that it was right in the sight line of their three 6-7 yr old kids.

KA-CHING!

Posted by: phat at September 04, 2013 10:08 PM (bnx38)

675 >>>They should put a warning on the box: Kaboom may steal the heart out of you. Also may contain nuts.

And processed on equipment used for extracting innocence and joy.

Posted by: A Black Hat Caught in a High Treetop at September 04, 2013 10:09 PM (qT3hA)

676
My Dad worked (his 3rd job every day) sweeping out the pizza place after hours and used to bring home the pizzas people would call in and not pick up.
We had pizza for breakfast a lot of mornings. In school, we did a class on nutrition (food pyramid ya know?) and the teacher called my mom to tell her she didn't think pizza was a good choice for breakfast. Mom explained that pizza has everything in the food pyramid so shut up.

Posted by: alamogordo at September 04, 2013 10:09 PM (HUTO5)

677 This post is fkucing funny.

I actually laughed out loud, and it made me smile for several minutes, even though I've just had the worst 48 hours in my life (excluding deaths/funerals).

Thanks ace.

Posted by: wooga at September 04, 2013 10:09 PM (wCMfX)

678 You can no rag on Quisp and Quake to complete your trilogy.

Posted by: Mose at September 04, 2013 10:10 PM (cAbOm)

679 >>>You can no rag on Quisp and Quake to complete your trilogy.

some of you Richie Rich's don't understand: You can name lame cereals, sure.

But Kaboom was not a lame cereal.

Kaboom was a *lifestyle.* And a dark one.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 10:11 PM (/IWYB)

680 When I was a boy, there were two events I used to go out of my mind crazy for--Halloween and Punch A Kaboom Kid Day.

Man those were good times. Our pastor always emphasized the fun AND the judgement so it's like you didn't even know you were learning important life lessons.

Posted by: Warden at September 04, 2013 10:11 PM (HzhBE)

681 You people are weird.

Posted by: The Freakies Tree at September 04, 2013 10:11 PM (Hx2XA)

682 Damn, as I recall, Kaboom was sugary as heck. I always thought of it in retrospect as the cereal for REAL hard core sugar junkie kids. My memory could be faulty though.

I do remember my dad fixing himself a bowl of it, because there was nothing else in the house, and I wanted to say, "Hey man, you don't wanna go there."

Posted by: dabhidh at September 04, 2013 10:11 PM (7XBiP)

683 thanks wooga.

always appreciated.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 10:12 PM (/IWYB)

684 670 They just say, "Didn't work for me, man."

At least 9 or 10 of these fuckers will now slip this into every conversation they ever have...just because they think they're funny.

That's priceless.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 10:12 PM (uQIKb)

685 When my grandmother would keep us kids when my parents traveled she would feed us pork brains and scrambled eggs for breakfast. We loved it and her.

Posted by: tmitsss at September 04, 2013 10:14 PM (Pa9vP)

686 The Sugar Crisp bear was uber cool. The King Vit-a-min guy looked like a perv.

Posted by: Mose at September 04, 2013 10:14 PM (cAbOm)

687 I remember making a wisecrack in one of the threads once and one commenter who I didn't even know was like, "Eh. 3/10. Not really that funny."
Who does that? Even if it wasn't funny ... for real?

Posted by: Warden at September 04, 2013 10:14 PM (HzhBE)

688 The original post is/was great.

But the real gold is in the comments. The comments on this one (not just from Ace, but also Rocks and a bunch of others) are DYNAMITE.

Posted by: Jeff B., overworking a meme at September 04, 2013 10:16 PM (n/+FT)

689 687
I remember making a wisecrack in one of the threads once and one
commenter who I didn't even know was like, "Eh. 3/10. Not really that
funny."

Who does that? Even if it wasn't funny ... for real?

Posted by: Warden at September 04, 2013 10:14 PM (HzhBE)

-----A curmudgeon

Posted by: Dave S. at September 04, 2013 10:16 PM (UvR6d)

690 Who does that? Even if it wasn't funny ... for real?

Carrot Top.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 10:17 PM (uQIKb)

691 Another bad thing about having a Mom who bought Kaboom? You never got bacon, always Spam. But at least Spam was good. Not bacon, but good. Plus it fit right on a egg sandwich.

Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 10:18 PM (qzWDd)

692 I haven't read the comments yet, so maybe this has been mentioned, but a favorite of mine was Bigg Mixx...loved that cereal. I still hold out hope they'll make it again, someday.

Posted by: Chris at September 04, 2013 10:18 PM (LD6tU)

693 Apple Jacks were one of those cereals that tasted good, but tore up the roof of your mouth. They should have called it Apple Jack the Ripper.

Posted by: Ostral B Heretic at September 04, 2013 10:18 PM (2vl2+)

694
This killed me--THANK YOU, because I needed to just helplessly laugh.

(we were that generational Catholic vibe--Irish and Hungarian--with two parents who were born in 1920 so were kids during the Depression. We had oatmeal. Every day. Because it was filling. And lasted. Except for Dad, who had eggs, because he was the provider/King, and that is not flippant because he WAS the provider/King and I loved him and miss him. And every day of first grade I ate my oatmeal, and threw it up when the bus came because my teacher was an Irish farm girl nun who once beat Roger Parker with a pointer and I was terrified of her. And the next day (every day!) my mother made a big pot of oatmeal. Because it was filling. And good for you. And lasted. We were *those* kind of people.

Thank you again for a wonderful good time of a laughing read.)

Posted by: barbarausa at September 04, 2013 10:21 PM (WWeoI)

695 I actually am really glad docweasel's posts are still around.

He doesn't seem to get it: his/her/their/its posts are comedy in and of themselves. It's self-refuting. This is a guy/girl/cis-gendered trans-collective that posts titty pics behind a paywall and calls it "writing." And then has the temerity to pull a Jacqueline Mackey Paisley-Passy on us about "humor."

Oh, and the funniest thing of all is that he/she/whatever is banking on us not having long memories. I remember well back in the way when docweasel was clinging to Ace's balls and begging for the privilege of giving them a lick. This whole new hate-schtick is straight-up the Anger of The Scorned.

Posted by: Jeff B., overworking a meme at September 04, 2013 10:21 PM (n/+FT)

696 Wait, I wasn't overworking a meme above, I just forgot to off-sock.

Posted by: Jeff B. at September 04, 2013 10:22 PM (n/+FT)

697 As a guy who had to write comedy, on stage, all alone, (for semi-decent bare-as-you-dare competitions), where I was decidedly NOT THE STAR...

I've got to say that this is the tone and tenor that cracks me up. It has all the feel of a rant with the sarcastically "almost true" tone behind it. It was a visceral romp with angry, flattened adjectives of silly-ass joy.

I laughed HARD, man. Comedy ain't easy and it is few-and-far-between when I get a bug up my ass to write anything approaching this. When I do, it certainly doesn't have the length. Nor the 'travel' for that matter.

I relegated myself to "Top 10 Lists", mainly. Blatant idea ripoff that got me off the stage before I was shredded by drunken cooze-hounds waiting for the next half-naked chick.

It was rough at times, but I did better when nothing was written down. "Crowd commentary" seemed the best way to both endear the crowd and get into a fight at the end of the night.

...this was restaurant quality lemonade, ace. Brilliant.

Posted by: Slapweasel at September 04, 2013 10:23 PM (lq3Ak)

698 I never had Kaboom, and we were pretty poor toward the end. My mother skimped more on clothes. Who needs more than two changes of clothes anyways? We had the good cereal and the good toys. I never make hot dogs, TV dinners, or pot pies though. I had way too much of that growing up.

Posted by: Boss Moss at September 04, 2013 10:23 PM (0axsw)

699 Thanks Slapweasel.

>>>I've got to say that this is the tone and tenor that cracks me up. It
has all the feel of a rant with the sarcastically "almost true" tone
behind it.

it is "almost true." I really did despise this cereal and consider it beneath me. But there it lurked in the cupboard, just the same.

I'm not making that part up.

It was not an Aspirational Cereal.

It was a cereal for The Defeated.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 10:29 PM (/IWYB)

700 I gotta believe that abject depression caused by world events is actually fueling Ace's majestic flights of comedy. Thank God for the HQ

Posted by: simplemind at September 04, 2013 10:29 PM (BmWNr)

701 This is actually the first Ace post I've put up on the facebook.

Posted by: Crispian at September 04, 2013 10:31 PM (+qU9V)

702 Epic cereal post,there were 5 of us between 13-7 years old and the free for all when there was a prize in the box made the current MMA shit look like a bunch of posers.You would think she would have just bought Corn Flakes.

Posted by: YTown Guy at September 04, 2013 10:33 PM (das+y)

703 Yeah, I think I have enough comments still in here to reblog this one...lol

Simply classic...and it was so needed while I was avoiding turning the television on tonight. I fly to and from work again these days, I really can't do too much more 9/11 commemoration without overthinking myself to some really bad and unnecessary places.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 10:35 PM (uQIKb)

704 You're trolling the banhammer here, Ace.

Most. Irrelevant. Post. Evar.

Posted by: someguy at September 04, 2013 10:38 PM (xlCX2)

705 Tell me someguy, do you think Ace is "punching down" to Kaboom cereal?

I tend to think he's aiming above his station, myself.

Posted by: Jeff B. at September 04, 2013 10:39 PM (n/+FT)

706 When I put on my older brother's hand-me-down bell bottom pants and polyester disco shirts on my way to junior high in the late 70s, I was damn glad to have a bowl of Kaboom first thing in the morning.

Posted by: Fritz at September 04, 2013 10:40 PM (KIHQS)

707 I see all you rich kids have gotten together and shared your beautiful stories of eating unopened, undamaged, rat-free boxes of Kaboom cereal, sometimes with milk or even dirt. I wish I lived in a dream world like that full of rainbows and unicorns.
We dug our boxes of Kaboom cereal out of the dumpster behind the grocery store fighting off rats anf hobos the whole time. Would we sometimes get raped by the hobos? Of course, but that was apart of a healthy breakfast in my part of town and we were happy to have it.

Posted by: Dr Spank at September 04, 2013 10:42 PM (qRasw)

708 699 Ace,

it had Chris Matthews as a spokesperson Ace........

Chris.....

Matthews......

it's like mom handed me a pre-made suicide note with a side of grapes.....

grapes of wrath

Posted by: Sven10077 at September 04, 2013 10:42 PM (9jfyN)

709 Absolutely brilliant! Thanks, Ace!

Posted by: Apb at September 04, 2013 10:44 PM (Cfr0d)

710
Ace,

One can only surmise that having Kaboom cereal imbued you with the wry, biting, hardscrabble wit that we've come to know and love, and frankly, I think I'm the poorer for not having experienced it. While I frequently reside on the defeated side of life, I'm missing out on a certain, je ne sais quoi, that just makes me miserable instead of miserable with a side of wit.
You should count your blessings.

Posted by: Jon in TX at September 04, 2013 10:48 PM (PKRPm)

711 Extremely late but I have to tell you -- this is one of the funniest things I've ever read on the internet.
I never heard of Kaboom cereal before this thread (don't hate me for being an Apple Jacks kid) but with the vivid picture you paint I can almost taste the awfulness.

Posted by: Dancing Queen at September 04, 2013 10:48 PM (FDGeg)

712 >>>While I frequently reside on the defeated side of life, I'm missing out
on a certain, je ne sais quoi, that just makes me miserable instead of
miserable with a side of wit.

kaboom teaches you to make a joy of pain.

So there is that.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 10:49 PM (/IWYB)

713 >>>Extremely late but I have to tell you -- this is one of the funniest things I've ever read on the internet.

thank you.

>>>I never heard of Kaboom cereal before this thread (don't hate me for being an Apple Jacks kid)

yeah too late.

I really did love Apple Jacks. It looked so good behind the reinforced safety glass of the high-end Cereal Boutiques I was permitted to briefly pause at before being chased off by a burly security guard.

I wanted to be an Apple Jacks kid.

But I'm not.

I'm Kaboom to the core.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 10:51 PM (/IWYB)

714 Tarantino must have been a Kaboom Kid too.

Kaboom on the counter and... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mk_f75TS1A

Posted by: rdbrewer at September 04, 2013 10:56 PM (Iyg03)

715
713>>> Extremely late but I have to tell you -- this is one of the funniest things I've ever read on the internet.

thank you.

>>>I never heard of Kaboom cereal before this thread (don't hate me for being an Apple Jacks kid)

yeah too late.

I really did love Apple Jacks. It looked so good behind the reinforced safety glass of the high-end Cereal Boutiques I was permitted to briefly pause at before being chased off by a burly security guard.

***

Heartless bastard. Who doesn't love a dirty little street urchin, longing, nay yearning for just the briefest taste of the high life. I hope Karma brought him back as a Kaboom kid too.

Posted by: Jon in TX at September 04, 2013 10:56 PM (PKRPm)

716 Ace, did you change/update the post or do I need to take my meds? That is some creepy cereal.

Posted by: Dr Spank at September 04, 2013 10:57 PM (qRasw)

717 >>>
Ace, did you change/update the post or do I need to take my meds? That is some creepy cereal.

yeah I keep playing with it. There's not enough hate in the post.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 10:58 PM (/IWYB)

718 The individual cereal pieces look like the masks from Halloween III. I'm sorry any kid had to stare into a bowl full of terror every morning, except the Irish.

Posted by: Dr Spank at September 04, 2013 11:02 PM (qRasw)

719
You all missed the point.
When the first nutritional rating of cereals came out Kaboom was # 1. Wheaties and special K were in in the low 50s.

Posted by: eddiebon at September 04, 2013 11:04 PM (4+QGR)

720 Every kid should be forced to eat Kaboom. I did! I'm pretty sure feeding every kid this "misery in a box" might mess things up for a while, but it'll probably turn out ok eventually.

Posted by: Allison Benedickt at September 04, 2013 11:06 PM (UvR6d)

721
yeah I keep playing with it. There's not enough hate in the post.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 10:58 PM (/IWYB)

Yes, hate, especially towards people like the school counselor. She would be oh so solicitous at first when she thought you were depressed and maybe suicidal. Then you mentioned Kaboom and she would say "Oh, one of those." and send you off with some Grape Nuts.

Posted by: Rocks at September 04, 2013 11:08 PM (qzWDd)

722
Excellent essay Ace. The hidden literary devices stay hidden, the imagery is excellent (and colorful), plenty of appeal to guilt, and even a couple of confessions: everyone knows blue dukes weren't due to anything other than eating edible blue finger paint, with a paste chaser.

Posted by: Arbalest at September 04, 2013 11:08 PM (FlRtG)

723 Yeah, great post, ace, funny and rich.

Posted by: Dr Spank at September 04, 2013 11:11 PM (qRasw)

724 55
I LOVED Kaboom!

Kaboom had an odd effect on me. For years I had steadily developed
stomach/intestinal problems (Turned out I had gradually developed
lactose intolerance) but all my symptoms would disappear when I ate
Kaboom.

I don't know what they put in it, but it sure worked well on my
stomach issues. I would very much like to get some more of it but I
haven't seen it for decades.

Nothing else ever had the same effect.
Posted by: Diogenes' Lamp at September 04, 2013 07:34 PM (bb5+k)

That was the chemotheraputic waste used in the coloring process. It killed the cells in your stomach lining.

Posted by: elliot at September 04, 2013 11:12 PM (8zGOf)

725 I died in Viet Nam in the same battle as the Beaver.

True fact. Look it up.

Posted by: Zombie Mikey from the Life Cereal commercials at September 04, 2013 11:13 PM (U13jb)

726 I feel your pain.

Posted by: Slick Willy at September 04, 2013 11:19 PM (0axsw)

727 BRILLIANT post.

EPIC.

Seriously, I can't breathe. Teh gut, it hurts from laughter.

My entire neighborhood grew up on cereal in the morning. Many households had more than 6 kids per. Wanna talk about food wars? Try having 6 or more kids (plus the sleep-overs) jonesing for a now-empty cereal box. That you bought YESTERDAY.

And who mentioned prizes in the BOTTOM of the box? Someone couldn't learn which end to open FIRST...

Posted by: Mr Wolf at September 04, 2013 11:21 PM (UIAT6)

728 thanks, everyone.

not that your validation matters.

i am all dead inside due to Kaboom

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 11:24 PM (/IWYB)

729 That was an excellent post. Very funny, with fresh insights.

Posted by: ARC4419 at September 04, 2013 11:26 PM (z7//4)

730 717

No need for hate when you realize what a dystopian nightmarish "The Postman" post-apocalyptic wateland the Northeast had to have been back then. This cereal is the perfect representation.

Not bright, optimistic, and sunny like the South was, inspiring people to dream, instead of figuring out how to fuck a buddy for that union job.

The North of the 70s: Kaboom-land, all across the desolated Mordor landscape, a land of no hoe and no future.
The Rising South: perpetual fountains of Apple Jacks and Captain Crunch in all public spaces, under sunny skies...

Posted by: "A little biased" at September 04, 2013 11:27 PM (6eG7O)

731 Yeah, I fucking know who you are now.

You're Kaboom.

Posted by: akula51 at September 04, 2013 11:28 PM (uQIKb)

732 "And then you see it...white shores. And beyond, a box of Captain Crunch, and a mint julip, under a swift sunrise."

Posted by: A little biased at September 04, 2013 11:35 PM (6eG7O)

733 Kaboom Memorial Video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmj4seQu63I

Posted by: Boss Moss at September 04, 2013 11:36 PM (0axsw)

734 Thanks ace. Laughing is a good way to end the day. Night all.

Posted by: Joethefatman� (@joethefatman1) at September 04, 2013 11:42 PM (MnSla)

735 So, did Kaboom come with a toy switchblade in every box?

Posted by: A little biased at September 04, 2013 11:42 PM (6eG7O)

736 Kaboom--the official cereal of "West Side Story"

Posted by: A little biased at September 04, 2013 11:44 PM (6eG7O)

737 if they served Kaboom in "Oliver!" they'd have one less song

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 11:47 PM (/IWYB)

738 Tarintino put Fruit Brute in Pulp Fiction. Check the scenes where they are at the drug dealer's house.

Posted by: wodun at September 04, 2013 11:48 PM (fbqZE)

739 Each bowl, with the mournful faces, seems like good analogy for one's eventual fate as part of the Well of Lost Souls...pre-destination and all...

Posted by: A little biased at September 04, 2013 11:52 PM (6eG7O)

740 Kaboom--Vanity and vanity, all is vanity!

Unless you were a blessed pop-tart house,that is, as mine was. Yumm, blueberry.

Posted by: A little biased at September 04, 2013 11:54 PM (6eG7O)

741 I never had the Generic Cereal. I have never even heard of this stuff.

Posted by: Boss Moss at September 05, 2013 12:10 AM (0axsw)

742 grapenuts. all. the. way. down.

Posted by: thunderb at September 05, 2013 12:14 AM (zOTsN)

743 I never ate Kaboom, but I remember the commercials. The clown had a scary voice, it sounded like he smoked twelve packs of cigarettes a day. His claim that the cereal had "vitamins" sounded like "step into my van."

Posted by: Null at September 05, 2013 12:15 AM (xjpRj)

744 You could eat a bowl of Puffins with arugula and wheatgrass and I'm guessing it would be a more fulfilling experience than this "Kaboom".

Posted by: CAC at September 05, 2013 12:15 AM (vve5O)

745 Black Sabbath's name was originally Kaboom but they changed it to lighten the mood.

Posted by: Rocks at September 05, 2013 12:16 AM (qzWDd)

746 OMG, this HYSTERICAL.

Posted by: Diz at September 05, 2013 12:18 AM (8S+r3)

747 Ace,

<<What a huge fucking fail this rant was.... Kaboom was an OK cereal,

nothing special, but for fuck's sake, to waste 500 words on it?>>

I know the 'person' who made the above remarks is long gone but I'm going to answer his question anyway:

Anything I read aloud to my wife that has her in tears (of laughter) before the halfway point of the post is never, ever a waste of 500 words.

I wrote my own semi-lengthy post above because that's how I pay a compliment. I don't like kissing ass, or even remotely sounding like I'm kissing ass...I prefer to make my own contribution as a way of saying "This is excellent and I wish to join the conversation."

If my comment is anything more than a couple of lines, it means I thoroughly enjoyed the post.

Also: I rescind my earlier statement on the thread a few days ago that banning for criticisms like Porkkky's above is somehow a little too far. The rules have been firmly established since the weekend, and if the assholes still insist on making such comments...

...fuck 'em.

Posted by: SGT. York at September 05, 2013 12:23 AM (BhnV9)

748 If you've never seen a coven of Kaboom cereal gang rape variety pack size boxes of Cap'n Crunch, you're lucky.

Posted by: Dr Spank at September 05, 2013 12:26 AM (v1mq9)

749 amish dude asked about the non-existent connection between the clown theme and the explosion theme, which has long gnawed at my soul.

I added this:

You might wonder at this point, What possible connection is there between the clown theme and explosions, as suggested by the name "Kaboom"? Well, don't bother thinking about it too hard. They sure didn't. This product was slapped together more or less randomly by People Who Didn't Even Care, intended for sale to those who Care Just a Bit Less Than That.

Kaboom is not really a product designed for those who enjoy the life of the mind. Quite the opposite. It's a product designed for those whose IQs place them in the brutish twilight existence that divides, hazily, the crude human from the clever animal.

The cereal is essentially designed with an eye towards the inevitable devolution of the species. Future-proof, if you will.

Posted by: ace at September 05, 2013 12:26 AM (/IWYB)

750 >>>
Anything I read aloud to my wife that has her in tears (of laughter)
before the halfway point of the post is never, ever a waste of 500
words.

thanks Sgt. York.

Posted by: ace at September 05, 2013 12:27 AM (/IWYB)

751 The individual pieces of Kaboom cereal, or "psychos" as they were called, came in 4 flavors : rape, murder, hate, banana.

Posted by: Dr Spank at September 05, 2013 12:33 AM (v1mq9)

752 By the time I heard that breakfast was "The Most Important Meal of the Day", I'd given up on Life. Not only was I One of Those Kids, but I had been neglected, nay punished by the Nurturing. Force. in. my. Life.

To find that your own Mother was responsible for Smothering Your Very Soul allows you to leave for school with an unwanted feeling. In the first class of the day, you don't know that you deserve friends. Your scowl enforces and reinforces thoughts that you Simply Cannot Repress.

I didn't deserve a carpet-square, let alone the Chocolate Milk. "Story Time" for me was an escape to Another Land. ...a land with Froot Loops. Possibly Apple Jacks. ...but not probably. Never Probably. Probably Never, as I realized.

My reality was a mix of non-hope, undermined by no dreams. The "Gray-Illness", as I came to call it was a numb, dumbed-down version of others' Hell. I prayed for The Palsy. People Did Things for Kids with The Palsy.

...I mowed the lawn. With a non-powered push-mower. Unaided by a nutritious breakfast. While The Apple-Jack Kids played games and had shit called "Joy". Heh. It took me Sixteen Hard-Earned Years before I thought "Joy" was something more than The Girl Who Didn't Like Me Because of Stunted Growth.

When other kids made fun of Apple-Jacks Kids, they said something "snappy" in return. I just sat there and took it because Kaboom had taken every ounce of fight a child could build.

...there were no "snappy retorts". You were an Outcast before you even spoke a word. 'Dead To The World is the best way to start your morning', Mom must have said, privately. She didn't care and everyone knew it.

Most of all? I Knew It.

Posted by: Slapweasel at September 05, 2013 12:33 AM (lq3Ak)

753 The individual pieces of Kaboom cereal, or "psychos" as they were called, came in 4 flavors : rape, murder, hate, banana.

Posted by: Dr Spank at September 05, 2013 12:33 AM (v1mq9)

HAHahaha! ...quality. Damn. That makes the little soliloquy I wrote worthy of another bowl of Kaboom.

Posted by: Slapweasel at September 05, 2013 12:40 AM (lq3Ak)

754 Kaboom! Another fine product from Toxico! Producer of Agent Orange.

(Remember the movie Parents?)

Okay, yeah. Why do I even try? I bow to the master. The Kaboom post is an instant internet classic. Well done, sir. Well done.

Posted by: Brad at September 05, 2013 12:40 AM (FVMxC)

755 lmao

Holy shit they should probably outlaw this shit called--
Kaboom!

Posted by: tasker at September 05, 2013 12:42 AM (r2PLg)

756 And Kaboom goes the dynamite.

Posted by: The Mega Independent at September 05, 2013 12:58 AM (4/o9U)

757 What, no Quisp?

Posted by: Mary at September 05, 2013 01:00 AM (GTzWH)

758 "What, no Quisp?"

Posted by: Mary

Ma'am? The little pink guy with the twirly-beanie has been mentioned time-and-again throughout this post. Should you browse the seven-and-one-half hundred individual paragraphs, you would have known this.

Since you took not the time to individually peruse the Multiples of Obvious?

...I'll assume you were raised on Kaboom.

-My Condolences.

Posted by: Slapweasel at September 05, 2013 01:23 AM (lq3Ak)

759 I can only imagine the lighthearted Ace of Hearts/Diamonds site this must be in the dimension where Ace got his Apple Jacks.

I don't remember ever seeing Kaboom. I lived for Cuckoo Bird commercials during my early years in the playpen. Since then I've been a lifelong Cap'n Crunch fan, and would sail away with him on a cruise of peanut-buttery goodness in a heartbeat.

Posted by: venus velvet at September 05, 2013 01:24 AM (g94P/)

760 Quisp taught me to believe in aliens.
King Vitamin got me hooked on PED's.
The 70's sucked.

Posted by: Mr_Fastbucks at September 05, 2013 01:38 AM (b67KU)

761 "Kaboom was the cereal of The Defeated"

I laughed so hard my ribs hurt.

Posted by: Blacque Jacques Shellacque at September 05, 2013 01:39 AM (ItfcE)

762 Kaboom cereal was involved in the creation of the real-life "Toxic Avenger," whose tale was told so vividly in that series of Troma films, about the New Jersey man who survived (barely) a dunking in a huge vat of toxic waste and turned into a gross hero-environmentalist. The cereal was what toughened him up, so he could handle the glowing toxicity. Not too many people know this was a true story. "Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation Of Toxie" is now considered to be on a par with the greatest literature about Man Vs. Satan, and yet it was all true. They sold it as fictional, because most people are too weak to handle such strong liquor. They weren't raised on Kaboom. The next epidemic of swine flu will cull them.

Posted by: Octopus at September 05, 2013 01:43 AM (ry/38)

763

not so much a criticism, ace, but it was a bit better in places before you tinkered with it.

Children most of all, because clowns get up in your grill with these stupid jokes that wouldn't be funny even if you were four years old and breathing into your mouth with their diseased Degenerate Breath and then intimidating you into smiling at their moronic props which they hold in trembling hands due to their alcoholic jitters.

I really liked the part about the cigar breath in the first draft.

But nevertheless, Epic, and insanely funny.

YOu might think about adding the comment from Blakc cat above who said "processed on equipment used for extracting innocence and joy." THat was a clever bit of funny there, too.

Top notch. I guess the old ace was just getting smothered by the Political Outrage Ace.

Nice to have you back

Posted by: imp at September 05, 2013 01:48 AM (5ycju)

764 This is very late, but--awesome piece, Ace. It ranks up there with the funniest things I've ever read. Your ability to take such an oblique angle on something so far with such success is prima facie evidence of significant talent.

In this household, it became an Instant Classic the moment I finished reading it.

Moar, please.

Posted by: Otis Criblecoblis at September 05, 2013 01:52 AM (IlZPo)

765 To be more specific, this is the paragraph that completely knocked me out:

We were unloved, uneducated, unshoed Kaboom Folk, running petty schemes
at the carnival, stealing copper piping from homes, and then coming home
to enjoy a big distasteful bowl of weirdly-colored animal feed and
shame.

I write a blog, and I write a lot in general, and so I give a great deal of thought to the craft. The combination of terseness and vividness in this paragraph is breathtaking.

You often chide yourself for an inability to be succinct, but this paragraph proves that you can do it with seeming effortlessness. This one little paragraph not only says a lot, but it is also wildly hilarious.

Posted by: Otis Criblecoblis at September 05, 2013 02:05 AM (IlZPo)

766 thanks man.

Although... while you're praising me for terseness, I couldn't stop myself from expanding it. I turned the whole ending into a horror story.

You might wonder at this point, What possible connection is there
between the clown theme and explosions, as suggested by the name
"Kaboom"? Well, don't bother thinking about it too hard. They sure
didn't. This product was slapped together more or less randomly by
People Who Didn't Even Care At All, intended for sale to People Who Care
Just a Little Bit Less Than That.

Kaboom is not really a product designed for those who enjoy the life of
the mind. Quite the opposite. It's a product designed for those whose
subnormal IQs locate them in the brutish twilight existence that
divides, hazily, the crude human from the clever animal.

The cereal is essentially designed with an eye towards the inevitable devolution of the species. Future-proof, if you will.

If the Morlocks had a cereal it would be Kaboom. But they'd insist on more sugar.

....

We strove to endure.

We were fighters.

But the cereal did drag the family down. It very nearly ruined us all.

I don't like to talk about this part, but -- in the end we gave in to Kaboom.

Ultimately, our sin wasn't in consuming Kaboom. Our sin was in letting Kaboom consume us.

We Descended.

We became unloved, uneducated, unshoed Kaboom Folk, running petty scams
at the carnival, stealing newspapers out of boxes and selling them for a
nickel, eking out a rough existence at the shabby margins of society
and decency.

Half-feral urban nomads living in communion with packs of wild dogs.
For six months I wore nothing but a a fur jerkin and a genital sock.

And each night we came back from our scavengings to our shelterpit to
enjoy a distasteful bowl of weirdly-colored animal feed and shame. But we no longer cared. We were free, but it was not true freedom.

It was only the dark, oatey freedom of Kaboom. A freedom I would not
wish upon my worst enemy, or even the urban dogs who would fight us for
pigeon carcasses.

Posted by: ace at September 05, 2013 02:10 AM (/IWYB)

767 thanks, Imp.

I didn't like Cigar breath from the moment I wrote it. It's one of those first-things-that-pops-into-your head things. It just never seemed funny to me, nor especially loathsome. Cigars might be smelly but they're not repulsive.

i wanted something biological. It's biological stuff that skeeves people out.

Posted by: ace at September 05, 2013 02:14 AM (/IWYB)

768 For six months I wore nothing but a a fur jerkin and a genital sock.

Regular Saturday night eh.

I didn't like Cigar breath from the moment I wrote it. ...

i wanted something biological.

Emphysemiac Cigar Breath.

I searched youtube but couldn't find Micheal Strahan's Subway Kaboom.

So I've flogged this enough.

Posted by: DaveA at September 05, 2013 02:22 AM (DL2i+)

769 "You often chide yourself for an inability to be
succinct, but this paragraph proves that you can do it with seeming
effortlessness. This one little paragraph not only says a lot, but it is
also wildly hilarious."

Posted by: Otis Criblecoblis

The guy thinks he's smothering us with mayonnaise, but he's laying peanut-butter on thick. The bread? Toasted. The jelly? implied.

The adjectives and punctuation are the fruitiness of the finest jellies.

He's gone from Smuckers to "Polaner's All-Fruit".

...Smuckers is also a staple, however.

The damn thing kept getting better, had you read it from its inception. It built upon an almost creepy introduction and just f***ing "flowered" from that point forward.

He built the house and insulated it thoroughly. H.V.A.C. -supplemented.

Mike Holmes would have asked him about the basement and ace would point to Kaboom.

...Mike would not only understand, but move his crew in to help.

Posted by: Slapweasel at September 05, 2013 02:27 AM (lq3Ak)

770 "Half-feral urban nomads living in communion with packs of wild dogs.

For six months I wore nothing but a a fur jerkin and a genital sock."

THAT HURT! HAhaha!

Posted by: Slapweasel at September 05, 2013 02:31 AM (lq3Ak)

771 Oh my god. I'd forgotten this. Those smiling faces looking up at me from dead grey milk. But I still don't remember the clown. What does that mean?

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!?!?

Posted by: Anomie at September 05, 2013 03:06 AM (SrWki)

772 Tomorrow morning I'm going to quit my job, buy some guns, and stalk the mad circus that devoured my dreams.

I can't stop sweating.

Posted by: Anomie at September 05, 2013 03:22 AM (SrWki)

773 I couldn't come up with that in all my oddest bullshittery! People ask me, when I'm "holding court", at parties... where do you come up with this shit?

I've got nothing on you, man. ...Nothing.

I enjoy a bloated lexicon and a misdirected idealism. When I'm around conservatives, I'm libertarian and vice versa. Explaining how much I despise government is easy. Coming up with euphemisms and analogies is simple.

Running what you run out there is never to be duplicated.

If you could stand in front of a crowd? You're a cross between Denis Leary, Ralphie May and Sam Kinison.

I'd give One Ball to have what you have. One. Of. My. Balls.

Posted by: Slapweasel at September 05, 2013 03:23 AM (lq3Ak)

774
Oh my.

This is not the post to read at 3 a.m. when there are others in the house. Suffice it to say, I laughed so hard and I tried to stifle it and that just made it louder and the tears started running down my face.

My own childhood cereal trauma: My mom was big on cereals that sounded almost like the ones you wanted to eat -- you know, "Toasted Oats", "Crispy Rice."

Thanks for this, Ace

Posted by: BethinPA at September 05, 2013 03:28 AM (gAB9M)

775 "I'd give One Ball to have what you have. One. Of. My. Balls.
Posted by: Slapweasel at September 05, 2013 03:23 AM (lq3Ak)

I'd donate it to my Brother, however. He has none.

Posted by: Slapweasel at September 05, 2013 04:17 AM (lq3Ak)

776 What the hell is that prize? It looks like a kid's version of a Medici poison ring.

Posted by: Taro Tsujimoto at September 05, 2013 04:26 AM (celt+)

777 I believe the toy, when assembled, is some sort of crude abortion device.

Posted by: Dr Spank at September 05, 2013 04:54 AM (qRasw)

778 Oh my god. Favorite post ever.

Posted by: Tari at September 05, 2013 05:47 AM (gr5vn)

779
Cap'n: "-Vasily. One Ball Only."

Posted by: Slapweasel at September 05, 2013 06:18 AM (lq3Ak)

780 Who runs Bartertown? Who knows. But they all eat Kaboom.

Posted by: Beau Jest at September 05, 2013 06:49 AM (6eG7O)

781 At the end of "Time Bandits", right after Kevin's parents touch evil and die, and the firemen leave, leaving him all alone in the cruel world, what do you think he had for breakfast?

You got it. Kaboom.

Posted by: Beau Jest at September 05, 2013 06:54 AM (6eG7O)

782 Funny as hell Ace.
And brings me back to riding on the back of the shopping cart, trying to decipher life.

Posted by: NYC Parent at September 05, 2013 07:06 AM (hALmG)

783 I ate Kaboom as a child. The only thing more "off" than the colors was the flavor. I swear there was chemical waste used to flavor this cereal. I credit eating Kaboom with my development of a drive to work hard and succeed in life so that I would never be exposed to it again! I had completely forgotten about Kaboom. Now the horrid memories have come flooding in. I may have to send you a bill for therapy.

Posted by: Charles at September 05, 2013 07:07 AM (81njp)

784 Man, this tl;dr crap has nothing to do with politics at all. Give me my Syria fix!

...

Sorry, but after reading the comments the last few days, I couldn't resist a joke. Please don't ban me. I read and loved every word, Mokh-Mokh.

Posted by: Demosthenes at September 05, 2013 08:16 AM (c5AtG)

785 Keep it coming. If I get nothing out of an Obama presidency other than teh funnay back from Ace, well, it still sucks but it's something.

Posted by: nadavegan at September 05, 2013 08:25 AM (g84Si)

786 I was reading this and shaking with laughter in front of my kids last night, gosh it makes me wish they carried it in our grocery stores so I could try it out on them and witness their response.

Posted by: Average Jen at September 05, 2013 08:54 AM (1WdJ6)

787

Oh, Ace.
Best post, ever.

It's like pancakes smothered in wads of butter and buckets of syrup.
It's like pizza sized sticky buns.
It's like cereal hammered with sugar.

/hugs

Posted by: artisanal 'ette at September 05, 2013 09:05 AM (+Wuvu)

788 Can't find where anyone mentioned the epic fail trifecta of Kaboom for breakfast, deviled ham (still not sure what that was - maybe the ground up leftovers from trimming Spam to fit in those cans) on saltines for lunch, and tuna casserole for dinner which we kids hated because, in an attempt to make it "healthy", the main ingredient was canned peas. As my Dad would say when Mom complained we weren't eating (starving kids in China, etc - nothing like a big heaping serving of shame with your meal) "What do you expect - Scott pees in it.

Posted by: randall peterson at September 05, 2013 09:27 AM (FLFli)

789
I lurk. I love your site and your postings (and those of your fellow Morons). But this post deserves extra-special mention!! Hi-fricking-larious!

I remember Kaboom. It was too expensive for us. I am a settler who managed to break the Kaboom barrier on my way up (must have been the helium I inhaled). Anyway, I am now able to buy any damn-blasted-frick-a-frack cereal I want. I am fond of Cap'n Crunch. And Grape Nuts is darn good if you nuke it in the microwave (with the milk in it) for a minute.

Thanks for thelaughs this morning, Ace!

Posted by: M's the Lurker at September 05, 2013 09:29 AM (a8aVK)

790 Was gonna include pigs-in-a blanket make with Vie-eenie sausages but, hey, whomp biscuits (so named for the sound made when Mom smacked them against the side of the counter to pop the can open.

Posted by: randall peterson at September 05, 2013 09:30 AM (FLFli)

791
Maybe your best post ever. Maybe. My co-workers now think I'm insane due to the laughter. And...the tears of a clown.
General Mills thought about "Carney Time" cereal but they couldn't make the marshmellows look like severed fingers, sackcloth and ashes, and shattered dreams. + including a free Lucky Strike in each container cost too much.

Posted by: Cap'n Crunch at September 05, 2013 10:07 AM (Wz1KE)

792 Ace, once again, you are a superb writer. When, when, when will the collection of your essays come out??? I'd buy it!!!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 05, 2013 10:15 AM (BDU/a)

793 21
BTW, if you put enough sugar on pencil shavings it's just like Frosted
Flakes. Really. As long as you don't get too much of the black bits in.
Then it's more like Raisin Bran.
*
*
Never liked Raisin Bran, or raisins either. They remind me of dead wingless flies.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 05, 2013 10:17 AM (BDU/a)

794 Incidentally, he liked Kaboom. So apparently he thought Kaboom was the cereal for normal people.

Among us Kaboom Kids, we knew that sort of Kaboom Kid to be the saddest Kaboom kid of all.

Even among the Kaboom Kids, there was a hierarchy of shame.

Posted by: ace at September 04, 2013 09:28 PM (/IWYB)

A vivid example of "that sort of Kaboom kid". The kind that actually convinced themselves they liked Kaboom out of desperation.A memorial to Kaboom on youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmj4seQu63I
The most telling thing about this is that the user has this and 1 other video. What's the other video about? My Little Pony. That's right. That sort of Kabbom kid, the kind that liked Kaboom, they grew up into Bronies. Defeat and shame

Posted by: Rocks at September 05, 2013 10:53 AM (qzWDd)

795 Your keyboard to God's Ears Ace. My mom thought this shit was healthy because it said "VITAMINE & IRON" real big on the front. After we finished our coffee and cigarettes, my little sister and I would just pour the Kaboom into the dog bowl. You couldn't even salvage the milk after it had been tainted with whatever weird-assed flavor agents Kaboom used. Poor dog.

NB: I actually like Marmite.

Posted by: SnakeFarm at September 05, 2013 10:59 AM (nyZqh)

796 They still have some kind of graham cracker-flavored cereal, but I remember one when I was in high school called "Clackers." Stooopid name, but it tasted pretty good. Is it gone?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 05, 2013 11:13 AM (BDU/a)

797 I'm pretty sure Canada banned this crap and sold it down under on the black market--where your mother bought it.

Posted by: tasker at September 05, 2013 11:15 AM (r2PLg)

798 and the little girl knew...."yes she did....fuck that cereal"

Posted by: P Krugman Reel Geen E Yuss Honk if you need to lose 17 trillion dollars! at September 05, 2013 11:21 AM (9jfyN)

799 I didn't see any reference to Turkey Loaf from any of you pikers. Delicious, served floatingin asteaming bath of it's own lipids in a convienient aluminum tub that when set out the back door thefreaking starving curs wouldn'teven touch. Chow down on that epicurean delight while you take in Little House on the Prarie. Teaches you all sorts of gritty life lessons and most importantly that there will be no further miracles because the goddamn Ingles family squandered them all 100 years ago. Now it's 8:00 o'clock, off to bed! No Buck Rodgers for you, it comes on at 9:00 young man. I don't want to hear about Erin Gray in a soft hued bodysuit and knee boots, with all her curves cleverly delineated by that luckiest of fabrics, touching her supple, warm skin. You've got school tomorrow!

Posted by: Todd Bridges first to go bad last to go down at September 05, 2013 11:47 AM (HWgnC)

800 I think it's totally cool that Kaboom boxes included IUDs as prizes.

Young children should not have to fumble around with rubbers. They endure too much already.

Posted by: J. Moses Browning at September 05, 2013 12:06 PM (v93pf)

801 My dad made sure I ate Wheaties. AND it worked! Just sayin'.

(even though I did talk my mom into getting Captain Crunch, or better still, Quisp or Quake once in a while)

Posted by: Tom Servo at September 05, 2013 12:29 PM (8Fa5Z)

802 Really? An article about an old cereal at times like this?

You know what I call that?

100% AWESOME!!!eleventy1!!1!!1

So good, I read it aloud to my wife, who marveled at the prose, then revealed the true dark secret that she was a Kaboom kid. It was on sale at the base PX when she was a kid, and her mom didn't understand the sociological/psychological horrors so eloquently described herein...

I don't think I need a divorce...yet. But then again, I eat kibble for breakfast (Cracklin' Oat Bran)...

Seriously, this is the funniest thing I've read on the internet in years, and reaffirms my faith in a man's ability to focus ridiculous amounts of time, effort, and brainpower on what should be a triviality, and make it enormously entertaining.

This makes my list of Posts To Read If I'm Ever Tempted To Chuck It All In Despair Of Humanity.

Sheer brilliance from start to finish.

Posted by: CerealKiller at September 05, 2013 12:40 PM (Z/6xc)

803 I grew up in the 70s, but in our house it was plain Cheerios (no sugar allowed, ever). That stuff is made of 100% bland. It was an eternity until they invented the slightly less bland 'Honey-nut Cheerios'. But then, it just taunted me in the grocery aisle, because mom wouldn't buy it, no matter how I attempted to convince her. Eventually I bought some of my own with money I made mowing lawns, just to try it...just once. It was ... ok.

For lunch, while other kids got peanut-butter and jelly, I got either:
a) Egg salad
b) Olive loaf
c) Pimento loaf

By the way, Egg salad doesn't hold up well for long in Florida. I still can't stand it. I won't even be in the same room as egg salad. It's like a crucifix to a vampire for me.

Posted by: Sean at September 05, 2013 01:03 PM (hKyl0)

804
803
I like olive loaf! Pimiento loaf isn't bad, either. With cheese and lots of mustard.

Posted by: M's the Lurker at September 05, 2013 01:28 PM (a8aVK)

805 Only fuckin' peasants eat cereal for breakfast before heading out to work on their sharecrops. All civilized people eat a single boiled egg in an eggcup for the day.

Posted by: oleo at September 05, 2013 02:01 PM (Kxz3Y)

806 This Kaboom essay is the best metaphor I've seen for our Syria policy to date.

Posted by: Aaron at September 05, 2013 02:18 PM (QpXw0)

807 The Ravens have to win today. (They're my hometeam, so cram it. #ballsohard #repeat)

Otherwise, the highlight of my day is an essay lampooning a discontinued children's breakfast cereal.

Which is both sad and surreal.

Much like Kaboom cereal.

Posted by: shillelagh at September 05, 2013 02:42 PM (hRzu2)

808 This piece definitely damaged my calm.

I suggest that you now go watch Serenity on NetFlix

Posted by: Jared Loughner at September 05, 2013 03:11 PM (e8kgV)

809 I was drunk and an asshole and wrote an unwarranted dick post- the price for that is banning and I accept it. I just want to make clear that you're wrong about me being "angry", and absolutely wrong when you capitalize the 3 k's (which I never do) and then make inferences from the very change you made. I won't bother anyone with the real explanation, I'm sure no one is interested, just wanted to make sure I at least got a chance to tell you you're wrong about that.

Posted by: Porky at September 05, 2013 03:39 PM (jjaLl)

810 Brilliantly hilarious, Ace.

Thank you for exposing how generations ofpeople have been damaged by this Evil Clown cereal.

Posted by: wheatie at September 05, 2013 04:11 PM (Hy+VQ)

811 Just for the record, I worked for the Clyde Beatty Cole Bros. Circus. We had a hippo.

So there.

Posted by: West at September 05, 2013 04:34 PM (1Rgee)

812 Ah, memories of getting hopped up on Tang and Cap'n Crunch Peanut Butter Cereal, with a chaser of Pixie Sticks and Faygo Red Pop just to make the Keebler Elvescrawl out of the wallpaper. It's as close as a kid could get to dropping acid in the desert with the Doors.

I was also a big, big fan of Quisp and saved up my boxtops for a pink Quisp helmet with motorized propeller. Just picture a nascent Nerdette tearing around in hermidget Batmobile with beanie buzzing and teeth rotting from too much awesome. This is why God gives us a set of baby teeth.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at September 05, 2013 04:36 PM (G93ZW)

813 >>>I was drunk and an asshole and wrote an unwarranted dick post- the price
for that is banning and I accept it. I just want to make clear that
you're wrong about me being "angry", and absolutely wrong when you
capitalize the 3 k's (which I never do) and then make inferences from
the very change you made. I won't bother anyone with the real
explanation, I'm sure no one is interested, just wanted to make sure I
at least got a chance to tell you you're wrong about that.

do you not know how the KKK's will be taken, whatever your reason for them might be?

As for "angry," well you tell me: What compels you to warp in and drop a terse nastygram?

Posted by: ace at September 05, 2013 04:50 PM (/IWYB)

814 and thank you all for the support in my struggles.

I will always be a Kaboom Kid, but I aspire to be an Apple Jacks kid.

one day at a time. One day at a time.

Posted by: ace at September 05, 2013 04:51 PM (/IWYB)

815 BZ, Ace!!!

Posted by: fu52 at September 05, 2013 05:58 PM (NYXC6)

816
I didn't read any of the comments, but I read the post (because Will Brimley's Mustache said the other night that you guys just aren't funny).

Anyways, I think that today, KABOOM cereal could have a whole new marketing strategy:

"KABOOM, now with more Allah Akbar!"

Posted by: runningrn at September 05, 2013 07:47 PM (PLOz8)

817 BTW, Ace, I don't feel sorry for you. At least you got some sugar. We were a Total household. As in Total grossness, Total cardboard taste, and Total fiber that went right through you. You guys were rich compared to us. I bet your mom didn't water down your milk either. My mom use to mix powdered skim milk with water and add it to our whole milk in a 1:1 ratio. It was totally a crime against humanity, and if I wasn't so attached to the little woman, I would have reported her to CPS, the Geneva Conventions, Amnesty International, etc. We are talking real child abuse here, Ace. While Kaboom was bad, it wasn't Total/half whole milk half powdered skim milk bad!

Posted by: runningrn at September 05, 2013 07:51 PM (PLOz8)

818 5
If that clown goes after my lucky charms again I'll clock him.

Homey dont play dat!!!!

Posted by: Vikings fan at September 05, 2013 08:00 PM (yhYu/)

819 So you have to eat like2 1/2bowls of Kaboom to get 100% of the minimum daily requirments of vitamins and iron. The first box lable qualifies the hype by adding "in one ounce." The whole box only contains 7 oz of cereal. Also,the 100% of the minimumisafter you ADD the MILK. If you just drank the milk it'd be the same.
Then they changed it on the boxto "45% of 7 essential vitamins . . ." Soone bowl gets you Again, after you ADD the Milk.
It was nothing but sawdust and food dye.
Its a wonder you didn't get rickets.

Posted by: simplemind at September 05, 2013 08:11 PM (BmWNr)

820 In Canada Puffed Wheat. That airless cereal in big plastic bags, was our Kaboom.
Just being so weightless, showed us how empty life would be.
Only the penniless, or losers slurped up that sloop

Posted by: Revnant Dream at September 05, 2013 08:12 PM (OgJ5j)

821 try growing up on this http://www.flickr.com/photos/plateoftheday/202958566

and not even with milk, cuz we had "milk allergies", if we wanted cereal it was this with either orange juice or apple juice (grape juice had too much sugar)

yes i overcompensated in later life...

Posted by: Vikings fan at September 05, 2013 08:20 PM (yhYu/)

822 That Kill Bill scene is a perfect metaphor for your whole post. The Kaboom shot was only 45% on target and what did Black Mamba have that helped her win the day, did you see that arm in the air even after she had thrown, that's right, unlike Kaboom people, she has follow through.

Posted by: asteocles at September 05, 2013 08:58 PM (XJ5y1)

823
Re: 157, Yes, I remember ZAREX!
178: Fresca... In Vietnam we could always count on being at the very end of the supply line and receiving onlyFresca. Coke, Pepsi, Orange soda were all gone by the time stuff made it to us.Nothing like it, after sitting on a container ship all the way over and then baking in the tropical heat. Wow. When you attempted to drink it a clot of acidic, citrus phlem lodged in your throat like a broken chicken bone, defying all attempts @extraction. Then, there was cool aid (with no sugar) and pancakes (dry, no butter, no syrup.) I hated the cooks worse then the North Vietnamese. After a while, when the death threats against the "spoons" grew to increasingly creditable levels,they justfed us C-rations three times a day.

Posted by: Vn Redleg at September 05, 2013 09:38 PM (z7bz/)

824 Dear Mr. Ace,

We regret your earlier experience with our product. To compensate you for your trouble, pain and suffering, please find an enclosed gift certificate for a large box of Betty Crocker Bran Muffin Mix.

We thank you for your continued loyalty and support.

Posted by: Current CEO of General Mills at September 05, 2013 09:46 PM (n8LUb)

825 What the hell, let's just embracing our pathetic-ness.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/37810113/kaboom-vintage-cereal-adult-t-shirt

Posted by: SnakeFarm at September 05, 2013 09:59 PM (nyZqh)

826 I laughed until I cried. Then after I calmed down I just cried.

Posted by: Emperor of Icecream at September 05, 2013 10:27 PM (ywVGN)

827 My mom, after discovering the horrific color of the milk when poured on Kaboom, bought us Kix cereal for about 3 years straight. Kix is for kids with moms on a health kick.

Posted by: Amanda at September 05, 2013 11:01 PM (TY913)

828 Totally off topic, but I once used Kaboom bath Cleaner as hair spray instead of my Aussie Firm Hold, what can I say, I was impaired, now back to my classified briefing

Posted by: Blue-eyed Injun at September 05, 2013 11:13 PM (Z8BWe)

829
I eat Kashi cereals.

Posted by: Dr. Spank's Hellmate'ette at September 05, 2013 11:35 PM (+Wuvu)

830
Thank you, Mr. Spade. This wasbrilliant.Iwonder if there was an Indonesian version of Kaboom that gave wimpy kids delusions of grandeur and a catastrophic sense of entitlement.

Posted by: AllwegotwasstaleSoylentGreen at September 06, 2013 12:15 AM (/KeTB)

831 Total was sooo bad that my 3 siblings and I fought over who got to eat the much tastier empty box...

Posted by: runningrn at September 06, 2013 12:22 AM (PLOz8)

832 You haven't had Kaboom until you've eaten it with powdered milk.

Oh yeah.

Posted by: Picky at September 06, 2013 12:35 AM (YkW3i)

833 The closeup of that Kaboom cereal looks like a prototype for the "Scream" mask.

Posted by: SamIam at September 06, 2013 01:04 AM (HMI9a)

834
Best bit I've read since the script to "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers."

Organ Leroy @Hisorganagain

Posted by: Organ Leroy at September 06, 2013 01:23 AM (/yRW5)

835 KABOOM IS PEOPLE!!!!

Posted by: Beth at September 06, 2013 01:28 AM (kBxk7)

836 Once when playing a game of Taboo the phrase was Cap'n Crunch. My husband says "cereal that tears up the roof of your mouth". Boom! Great clue

Posted by: Sunny at September 06, 2013 02:20 AM (JbKQn)

837 Haha! So glad I now have a comment on an Epic Ace post.

Ace you should gather all these awesome post (and comments) and publish a book.

How do we get a Kickstarter going to get it self published? But I think given to an editor it would happen.

Posted by: Sunny at September 06, 2013 02:23 AM (JbKQn)

838 Sounds better than the daily disappointment of Grape Nuts where a child never finds a grape or a nut and has to soak it in milk for a half hour before he can chew it.

Posted by: J.P. Travis at September 06, 2013 11:48 AM (JWJrM)

839 There was a TV commercial for Kaboom. The clown lacked pupils in his eyes, making him appear mor soulless than clowns are. The voice was a flat W.C. Fields. I want to say the clown exploded at the end.

Posted by: Keith Craddock at September 06, 2013 01:03 PM (pmN1W)

840 From Mrbreakfast.com, The last review of Kanoom is from 8/13/13. Cry of the KABOOM folk:

"...Bring it back! I used to buy it by 5 to 10 boxes at a time.... I'll do without cereal altogether before I waste my money on crap I don't like or need. I got this org. on WIC and got hooked as did my kids - all 9 loved this cereal!"

Posted by: Sarahw at September 06, 2013 07:23 PM (LYwCh)

841 829

I eat Kashi cereals.

Posted by: Dr. Spank's Hellmate'ette at September 05, 2013 11:35 PM (+Wuvu)

Why do you hate America?

Posted by: radioactive at September 06, 2013 10:10 PM (rLgYm)

842 I keep coming back to this post. Just phenomenal.

Posted by: BetaPhi at September 07, 2013 01:51 AM (1WdJ6)

843 You know what it takes to eat Kaboom? [He pulls something out of his brief case. He is holding two brass balls on string] It takes brass balls to eat Kaboom. [He puts them away after a pause.]
Go and do likewise, gents. The Kaboom's out there, you pick it up, it's
yours. You don't, I got no sympathy for you. You wanna go to the breakfast table and eat, eat, it's yours. If not, you're gonna be
shining my shoes. And you know what you'll be saying, bunch of losers,
sitting around in a bar. [in a mocking weak voice] "Oh yeah, I used to be a Kaboom Kid, it's a tough racket." [He takes out a box of Kaboom from his briefcase.]
This is the new Kaboom. And to you,
it's gold. And you don't get it. Why? Because to give Kaboom to you
is just throwing it away. Kaboom is for closers. I'd wish you good luck, but you wouldn't know what to do with it if you got it.

I loved Kaboom. Especially the dark green ones.

Posted by: The Ghost of Blake at September 07, 2013 02:35 AM (koLQG)

844 #777

Nah. That toy looks like handcuffs to me.

Posted by: Helen at September 07, 2013 04:56 AM (93bH6)

845 Thispost on kaboommade me shoot milk out of my nose and I wasn't even drinking milk.

Posted by: gary at September 08, 2013 12:06 AM (Jz6MD)

846 I loved Kabooms...I also loved 'King Vitamin' cereal...cheaper rip off of Capn' Crunch but the cereal was shaped as little crowns....

Posted by: flixx at September 09, 2013 09:33 AM (sDou0)

847 Trantosaurus Rex has linked

http://tinyurl.com/pm58c2e

Posted by: tmitsss at September 09, 2013 04:46 PM (yuTiW)

848 Oh, boo-fricking hoo. As a kid, we weren't allowed any fun cereal. It was shredded wheat, raisin bran, corn flakes or go hungry. I would have been ecstatic if mom had brought home a box of Kaboom.

Posted by: Sarah at September 09, 2013 10:36 PM (tRDWn)

849 Hey, at least you got real toys! Nowadays kids get tons of sugar, and great tasting candy-like cereal, but no toys!

Posted by: adult toys at October 02, 2013 07:42 PM (HsR+J)

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