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| Breakfast Cereal "Critters" |
At the moment the two
supermarkets that dominate the grocery trade where I live are
competing for customers by offering giveaways of small plastic
objects – lion king oshis in one case (who knew there was even such
a thing as an “ooshi”) or mini groceries. Encouring adults to
buy things by targeting their children is not a new thing, although
in the past it was usually a particular product rather than the shop
from which it came that offered the goodies Back in the late 60s,
and into the 70s, children collected, swapped and nagged their
parents to buy whatever contained the latest giveaways.
Kellogs were
particularly good at targeting the 8 year olds of the day with such
treasures as little plastic space creatures and sea monsters. I seem
to remember that they were separate series but sufficiently abstract
in design so that I can't actually tell you from which these come.
Back in the day there was no putting our creatures away for the
future in special collector's cases – we used them as toys in the
sandpit, made them “swim” in jars of water, or took them
wherever our imagination led. In short we enjoyed playing with them
rather than looking at them, and we couldn't even spell
“collectible/collectable” so its a bit of a miracle that any
survived. It appears from a couple that have (or rather, “had”
survived because they are now in the bin) that we even bit the top
off them from time to time (or allowed our pets to do so). I seem to
recall that even when nothing rattled inside the box, most cereal
packets at the very least featured puzzles or pictures to colour on
the back.
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