As Mr. Breakfast writes, it was a "fruit-flavored dinosaur-shaped cereal with five friendly dinosaurs on the box - four in chef's hats and one poor guy - who still managed to flash a smile - whose body was hollowed-out and converted into a diner." Sure, I was 11 when it was introduced in 1988, and my aversion to cereal was deeply embedded in my psyche by then, but I think the presence of my favorite extinct archosaurs would have been the nudge I needed. And I might have won a Nintendo Entertainment System, for crying out loud. Winning an NES from a box of Dinersaurs would have been a childhood accomplisment so undeniably badass that it would deserve a prominent place on my CV.
Here's what the box looked like, thanks to Flickr user Jason Liebig. Put on your 3-D glasses for a trippy experience!
Here's another photo of a Dinersaurs box from John Gavula. It's low res, but I'm intrigued by the offer of 12 trading cards. I want them. You know how badly Stallone wanted custody of his son in Over the Top? That's how bad I want those trading cards, and I'd go to even further lengths. After the arm-wrestling tournament, I would have done a badminton tournament.
Here's a set of promotional stickers for the cereal, courtesy Waffle Whiffer, who contributed the Grimace trading card featured yesterday. It's been a week of hard science here! I apologize to NASA if I stole the thunder from their arsenic-loving bacteria.
Also worth checking out is this page, which features artwork from a Dinersaurs commercial with a short description from an artist who worked on it. In looking at more than three sites with information about Dinersaurs cereal, I think I just accidentally became the world's foremost expert on the subject.
You're welcome, mom and dad!
When I was little it was only "healthy" cereals for me, Kix was as sugary as my parents would allow (you can forget the Berry Berry stuff). Maybe I was generally satisfied with this, and if I'd made a fuss more often my childhood could have been a speedy gateway to diabetes, but the only times I ever made the effort to convince my parents that I might die if I didn't get some sugar-based breakfast products was when it was paired up with specific brands, like Ninja Turtles, Nintendo, and yes, "Dinersaurs."
ReplyDeleteMore often my morning cravings for Dinosaur-related breakfast content were met by Western Family, who was putting cutout cardboard Dinosaurs (and maybe some educational "facts?") on the back of the boxes of their generic cereals. I can't seem to find any pictures of them online. :(
I did eat this cereal, and as I seem to recall, it was pretty unimpressive flavor-wise. I only asked mom to buy it because of the shapes. I never did tread into the world of Chef Boyardee's dinosaur pastas, though. Never acquired a taste for his brand of mushy noodles, ketchup and sand-like meat packets.
ReplyDeleteI was able to substitute a whole range of unhealthy breakfast foods for cereal. I especially loved custard-filled bismarcks from the Glen Park Bakery. And I remember pigs in a blanket... ON A STICK! Somehow that was acceptable to my palate while cereal wasn't. Hmm. Thanks for tipping me off to the Western Family dino cards... another item to track down.
ReplyDeleteBL - I'm continuously amused by the ability of cheap canned pasta to be reshaped and market anew with every fad that comes out. I do think I've indulged in a few dinosaur-shaped pasta products from time to time.
ReplyDeleteI have nothing to add to this except thank Raptor Jesus that somebody else remembers this cereal. I used to think it was the best-tasting cereal ever made... and then it dawned on me that Nintendo Cereal System (ah, the late '80's) tasted almost *exactly* the same.
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