Today, March 7, is National Cereal Day. I’m not sure why cereal gets its very own national day of recognition, but it got me thinking a lot about the spooky cereals of the past. While Count Chocula, Franken Berry, and Boo Berry have become the faces of Halloween morning eats there have been a number of Halloween and
Gremlins
You aren’t supposed to get a Mogwai wet, but that didn’t stop kids from the 80’s from dousing a bowl of Gizmo shaped cereal with milk when Gremlins cereal was released in 1984.
Ghostbusters
The Ghostbusters franchise spawned a number of breakfast cereals in the
Each cereal was basically the same with “O’s and ghosts” as the commercial jingle would sing, as the cereal’s base. The original Ghostbusters cereal featured only white ghost marshmallows, but all future versions of the cereal included Slimer marshmallows and purple ghost marshmallows in addition to the plain white ghosts.
The Addams Family
Released as a tie-in for the 1991 film The Addams Family, The Addams Family cereal featured cereal pieces shaped like skulls, headless dolls, and Thing. The box described the cereal as “The creepy, crunchy cereal with the great taste you’ll scream for,” but MrBreakfast.com describes the cereal as “tasting like a mixture of Honeycomb, Kix and Cheereos…but with less flavor.”
Rice Krispies
Outside of themed cereals like those above and the classic monsters cereals, Rice Krispies appears to be one of the first cereals to get the true Halloween treatment. In 1995 Kellogg’s released Halloween Rice Krispies, which was promoted as having “fun Halloween colors” without affecting the taste.
Another version of Halloween Rice Krispies would be released in 1999 and instead of changing the cereal’s color, Kellogg’s added colorful marshmallows to the mix. The second iteration of Halloween Rice Krispies included white ghost and orange Halloween pumpkin marshmallows.
In 2001, Kellogg’s released Kreepy Rice Krispies, which added “spooky marshmallow shapes” that included bones, skulls, and ghosts.
In 2002, their cocoa counterparts would get a similar treatment with the release of Creepy Cocoa Rice Krispies that featured marshmallow ghosts and masks. The cereal was released again in 2003 as Kooky Cocoa Rice Krispies.
In 2004 Cocoa Rice Krispies was one of the three
In 2005, the cereal would join Froot Loops with a special Halloween release that included marshmallow monster parts, that included a green finger shaped marshmallow and an eyeball shaped marshmallow.
Froot Loops
Froot Loops has seen a number of spooky iterations over the years, with my research uncovering the earliest iteration in 1996 with Spooky Froot Loops. The limited edition Halloween-themed cereal introduced ghost-shaped marshmallows to the fruity breakfast cereal.
In 2000 the Halloween-themed cereal would get a revamp and become Frightening Froot Loops, which consisted of green and purple Froot Loops pieces with the addition of orange pumpkin-shaped pieces.
In 2002 Kellogg’s introduced Spooky Marshmallow Froot Loops as the Halloween-themed cereal and included fruit-flavored marshmallows shaped like bones, masks, and ghosts. The cereal was re-released in 2003 under the name Freaky Froot Loops. From that point forward Halloween-themed Froot Loops remained fairly consistent, simply shifting the marshmallow theme from time to time.
In 2004 Kellogg’s swapped the bones and masks marshmallows for bats and eyeballs for their “Haunted Manor” edition of Froot Loops. In 2005, like Cocoa Rice Krispies, they got monster parts marshmallows and that would be the last major Halloween release until 2015. In 2015 Kellogg’s introduced the “build your own skeleton” marshmallows to both Froot Loops and Apple Jacks, which would be released regularly until last year when they were replaced with new spooky marshmallows.
Apple Jacks
Second to Froot Loops in terms of total spooky variety’s Apple Jacks has seen nearly half a dozen different Halloween-themed editions over the years.
In 2001 Kellogg’s released Jack’O’Lantern Apple Jacks, which swapped out the traditional orange Apple Jacks loops with orange jack o’ lantern shaped pieces. The cereal would be re-released in 2003 as Howlin’ Apple Jacks, but beyond the name and
In 2004, Apple Jacks joined Froot Loops and Cocoa Rice Krispies as one of the three “Haunted Manor” cereals. Like the other two cereals Apple Jacks received its own unique mix of spooky Halloween marshmallows, which included bones, ghosts, and masks.
2005 saw one of the more bizarre releases of Halloween themed Apple Jacks with the introduction of Cinnascary Apple Jacks. While Froot Loops and Cocoa Rice Krispies got monster parts marshmallows, Apple Jacks simply got a marshmallow based on their cinnamon stick character identified as “CinnaMon.” The only thing scary about this release
Like Froot Loops Apple Jacks didn’t see another major Halloween-themed release until 2015 when it too saw the inclusion of the “build your own skeleton” marshmallows, which were then changed to the new spooky shapes last year.
Corn Pops
From what I can tell Corn Pops cereal has only gotten the spooky treatment twice in
Monster Pops simply added red colored pieces of the traditional cereal to make it “Monster” themed. Candy Corn Pops added orange pieces of the Pops cereal and flavored it with “a special candy corn flavor.”
Halloween Crunch
A regular in the cereal aisle at Halloween for over a decade now is the Halloween-themed version of Cap’n Crunch. Introduced in 2007 Halloween Crunch features your traditional Cap’n Crunch shaped pieces paired with speckled ghost shape pieces that magically turn your milk green. Halloween Crunch has been the most consistent spooky Halloween cereal to be released in recent memory.
Candy Corn Pebbles
Another cereal to get the candy corn treatment was the 2014 release from Post, Candy Corn Pebbles. The cereal featured the traditional Pebbles cereal pieces in orange, yellow, and white and were “candy corn flavor.”
Halloween Krave
Released in 2015 alongside the Froot Loops and Apple Jacks with “build your own skeleton” marshmallows was the limited edition Halloween Krave. Deemed “Chocolate Chocovores” this creepy version of Krave took the traditional chocolate filled Krave cereal and colored it orange for the Halloween season.
What’s interesting about this
“One night, a witch caught a greedy chocovore stealing her chocolate. She hexed the thief, turning it shocking orange. ‘Now chocolate will see you coming,’ she cackled, ‘and you’ll never catch any!’ The cursed chocovore had lost the element of surprise. But this time of year, he can hide among pumpkins and orange decorations to pounce on chocolate once again! That’s why orange Kellogg’s Krave only appears around Halloween!”
Reese’s Puffs Bats
The latest in the growing line of Halloween cereals came last year with the release of the limited edition Reese’s Puffs Peanut Butter Bats.
The Halloween spin on the traditional Reese’s Puffs cereal swaps the chocolate-y peanut butter-y puffs with bat shaped cereal pieces to become a breakfast equivalent to a Halloween candy favorite.
These are of course all of the cereals you would find on grocery store shelves. Funko has of course been releasing a growing line of collectible cereals over the last year that included Freddy and Jason cereals, Elvira cereal, and more.
Did you know about all of these spooky cereals? Do you have a favorite, or is there a particular past spooky flavor that you miss? Let me know in the comments or on social media!
