Cereal Ads Prologue - Are Cereal Commercials in Hibernation?

Cereals are a permanent part of our culture. When we were kids, our parents would buy some from the store, then in the morning, we would get a big bowl, and pour the cereal with some milk, and chow down. Depending on the kid of the cereal, we would finish off the rest of the flavored milk.

Throughout the daytime, when we were watching TV, cereal commercials would show up every so often. They used many different gimmicks; some would feature people off the street either describing why he/she liked the cereal, or acting out their predilection in a scenario. Others would use cartoon mascots interacting with real people, often children. Many others were all-animated. These commercials used slogans and gimmicks that truly spoke to the audience, and made kids bug their parents the next time they went grocery shopping to buy some cereal.

The lot of you reading this may have had pleasant childhood memories such as this.

Well, along with the tangled web of war chaos and trampy celebs as regular features in media tabloids, things have changed.

Cereal commercials today don't appear to be the special kind of custom in our daily lives anymore.

• Some cereal commercials that exist today have changed their mascots, but they don't connect with the audience (Cookie Crisp).
• Some have diluted their gimmicks to the point where their products no longer garner interest (Cocoa Rice Krispies).
• Many others have given up on commercials altogether (Corn Flakes, Golden Grahams, Smacks, Golden Crisp, Corn Pops, Apple Cinnamon Cherrios).
• Existing commercials no longer feature Christmas editions during the holiday season (Honey Nut Cherrios, Trix, Fruity Pebbles).

If you look at RetroJunk.com, or YouTube (so long as they don't go overboard with their rules), you'll see many old commercials of your favorite cereals. But needless to say, those are only the tip of the iceberg in the products and characters that have enriched our lives over the decades.

But like life itself, this is not to say it's all black-and-white.

• Trix still shows some mildly interesting commercials, and just a few months ago, changed their fruity-shaped cereal back to the rounded pieces of before. Surprisingly, many people have long forgotten that that was how the cereal was originally produced.
• Fruity Cheerios is the most recent in a long line of variations to the original Cheerios. Following the footprints of Trix, Froot Loops and Fruity Pebbles, the cheerios come in an assortment of colors (except blue).
• The original Cheerios have raised more awareness of its health benefits over the years. Oats are a universal necessity in battling heart disease, which is probably why your moms and dads encouraged you to eat a bowl of oatmeal from time to time.

There is a lot more that I would like to go into. However, this topic cannot be covered in just one post.

These are some issues concerning cereal ads that I will be covering in the coming weeks:

• Mascots
• Gimmicks
• Formula changes
• Holiday editions

And you're more than welcome to sound off on how you feel about this unfortunate trend.

The Proud Family = Married...with Children?

In September of 2001, The Disney Channel aired the debut of a new cartoon called The Proud Family. It was created by Disney animator, Bruce W. Smith, and was a regular feature on a schedule that was then classified as "Zoog Disney".

The show was cancelled in 2005, though the actual reason is up for debate. The show can still be seen, but to a limited capacity on The Disney Channel, as well as spin-off network, Toon Disney.

For those who still remember the show (or even want to), you may recall the father figure, Oscar Proud. He was the gawky father/husband, ran an eternally unsuccessful snack company, and was hated by just about everyone. Many of the storylines involved plot points where Oscar got into trouble, either by overprotecting his teenage daughter, Penny (a staple in many family shows), or trying to promote his snacks.

Sound familiar? If so, you're probably right.

In a strange way, Oscar Proud bares a similarity to another father figure. His named was Al Bundy, from Married...with Children.

Now here's a show that permanently broadened the spectrum of the American sitcom. The show was focused on a misanthropic father/husband whose life became stagnant ever since marrying the lazy Peggy Wanker. Together, they raised two children, Kelly and Bud, in a lower-middle class household. Al, through his reluctant but persistent lifestyle, often got in trouble for his warped viewpoints and stinging pessimism.

There wouldn't appear to be a real similarity between Al Bundy and Oscar Proud. TV characters share personality traits all the time. Sitcom dads have always been the fall character, and in many of those cases, not particularly good role models:

Ralph Kramaden (Jackie Gleason) from The Honeymooners was an exasperated bus driver who often made idle threats against his nonchalant wife, Alice ("One of these days...POW! Right in the kisser!")

Fred Flintstone from The Flintstones, was a rock quarry worker, initially modeled off of Gleason's characteristics, had a rough edge, before eventually being softened up.

Homer Simpson from The Simpsons, is an incompetent nuclear safety technician , and a well-meaning, but greedy slob, who over the years became much dumber.

Jack Malloy (Geoff Pierson) from Unhappily Ever After (created by a chunk of the original Married...with Children team) was a schizophrenic car salesman who often turned to his younger son's stuffed bunny for advice.

Hank Hill from King of the Hill is a conservative propane salesman who often struggles to maintain old-school values against a spur-of-the-moment society.

Those are just to name a few examples.

But here's the clincher:
One of the executive producers of The Proud Family was Ralph Faraquar. Among the many shows he worked on, he worked as a writer and story editor on Marred...with Children, and as the showrunner of such shows as Moesha and The Parkers. Proud Family co-executive producer, Calvin Brown Jr., worked with Faraquar on many of the same shows, including Married....

It seems, given the experience these two men had up to 2001, when they became part of the original development team of The Proud Family, they decided to add some Married...with Children sensibilities to the show. Aside from the cartoonish style of storytelling, the central family would feature a dad who doesn't know best. (Married... was conceived as an antithesis to The Cosby Show.) Some other similarities include a Season 1 storyline where Oscar, and his pal Felix opt to exterminate a mischievous mouse to an increasingly ridiculous extreme, rather than simply call an exterminator. A very similar storyline was used in a Married... episode 13 years earlier. Some episodes also featured a female newsreporter who often pondered her career choice. Bears a strange resemblance to Miranda Veracruz de la Jolla Cardinal, from Married...with Children's last two seasons.

However, there are reasons why this infusion may be one of the few instances where it was unsuccessful.

Al Bundy was often looked-down upon by his family and the society at large. But this was often because of his inability to hold a successful job (as a shoe salesman), and his pessimistic outlook. He always complained about how bad his life was, but somehow chose to stick with what he had. And seeing as how the whole Bundy family were oddballs in some way, there actually were glimmers of respect towards the dad who, even though wasn't always right, still somehow brought home the bacon.

What made the love-hate relationship between Al and Peggy so successful was the chemistry between the couple. Their sarcastic communication, between each other and to others, embellished their unusual lifestyle, but made it clear that they really cared about each other.

In contrast, there were little to no signs of hope for Oscar Proud. Aside from Oscar's similarly reluctant-but-persistent mindset, there seemed to be no real reason for how he became such a mediocre businessman, or why there was so much hostility against him, which even increased by the show's third season. There were many episodes where it appears that even his own wife, Trudy hated him as a person. But all of those episodes would be executed without the sarcastic charm or scandalous sense of humor that Married...with Children brough us. The winning characteristics for Married..., while supposedly brought to the Proud Family universe, was either sorely mishandled, or completely missing from the show.

The problem is, while families and friends from both shows appeared to "hate" the main family, especially the father figure, the sarcastic charm of Married...with Children was carried out in a way where you couldn't take the characters too seriously, but enough so you can just laugh from any given viewpoint.
Unfortunately, in The Proud Family, there are only occasional peaks of charm and wit, and it's very difficult to relate to any of the characters. The show just felt as if it was driven by an array of pre-determined agendas, ranging from being another generic tween show, to being a hollow effort to express "diversity" on The Disney Channel, rather than becoming a show that could stand on its own two legs, like Nickelodeon's SpongeBob SquarePants, or Cartoon Network's Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.

In spite of the many opinions behind The Proud Family's failure, my personal guess is that the show seriously could've been something original. Something that could've been given such an appropriate label in the midst of the present-day Disney Channel's list of derivative programming. That was the impression I was given when I first tuned in on the show's premiere date. But it seems when Bruce Smith approached the Married...with Children alumni for help developing the show, Ralph Faraquar and Calvin Brown Jr., among others sorta had their own agenda. And given how there is an extreme lack of originality or creative freedom on The Disney Channel, perhaps the bold, hilarious quirks of Al Bundy and his family and friends took a backseat to heavy-handed expectations from Disney Channel executives, and just seemed like a poor match from the start.

So, here it is...the year 2006, and The Proud Family already driven into oblivion, having never achieved the acclaim or success that Married...with Children did a decade or so earlier. One has to wonder if things could've worked out differently...