If you were a viewer of Saturday Morning Cartoons in the 70’s or even most Morning Cartoon blocks on your local television channels, you had to be aware of one of the greatest monster battles in the history of monster battles:  Franken Berry vs. Count Chocula.

The stakes were great as these two terrifying General Mill’s creations battled over which of their respective sugar packed cereals was worthy of the requisite grocery store whining to break down my mothers resistance and win the coveted spot in my morning breakfast bowl.

Now I have to be totally up front here…even though I was young and I had no idea what good nutrition was in any way shape or form, I completely understood that the monster cereals were basically early morning candy that occasionally came with a secret toy surprise (which always looked much better on the box and TV than it ever really was.)  The fact that they touted these sugar coated treats as part of a complete and balanced breakfast, or that they flashed on the commercials that they were packed with vitamins  was not fooling even my kindergarten/elementary school brain, but they were preparing me for a wonderful potential future in (dodgy) sales.

The voices of the characters were also wonderful indoctrination’s into the classic monster world with Franken Berry’s voice an imitation of the horror icon Boris Karlof, and Count Chocula an homage to beloved Dracula actor Bela Lugosi.  So even though I had no idea what those monsters were about when I was that young, there was a sense of continuity when I discovered, and came to love them later in life.

There are also a mythical rumor surrounding the product line that I never experienced but would be interested to hear if it were true (probably because I was too young when the original version of the products came out.)  As I understand it the original pink dye used in Franken Berry, did not break down in the human body.  Creating the modern equivalent of last years “Black Bun Whopper” and causing people to poop pink!?!?!

Here fiercely “fighting it out” for breakfast bowl domination are the  original 1971 Franken Berry and Count Chocula:

Soon the monstrous sales of the two cereals spurred General Mills to add a third delicious flavor Boo Berry (1973) who’s voice imitated the delightfully creepy Peter Lorre (and even looked a little like him too)

with Count Chocula on our TV screens proclaiming “I Vant to EAT your Cereal” did we really have a choice to become horror fans?

Here for your enjoyment are a whole collection of the monster cereal commercials from the 70’s and 80’s complete with examples of some of the coveted super secret toy surprises: (Star Wars stickers in the late 70’s!!!)

Did you enjoy these cereals as a child or eagerly await their return each Halloween for their limited runs?

I don’t know if we can ever be totally certain how we become haunt and horror fans. I know I always liked monsters and fantasy and things that were a little off center when I was growing up, and I have decided to explore some of those things in a series of articles. If you have ideas of things that you think contributed to your early HorrorBuzz please feel free to write and we will try and write about them as well.