When we started talking about Monster cereals here at Tablespoon, I immediately flashed back to being a little girl in the 80s, watching fabulous commercials where Count Chocula and Frankenberry would argue over who’s cereal was better. (Check out one of those commercials!). I loved those commercials — and loved the idea that all the fabulous Monster flavors came with (drumroll, please) marshmallows! Cereal+marshmallows=one happy girl.

So, I started digging around to see what cool tidbits I could find about General Mills’ Monster cereals. First, let’s start with some of the awesome commercials (thank you, YouTube!).

It was so fun to check out the first Boo Berry Commercial — I always loved how the Monsters were so squeamish. And it was awesome to see my fav Monster commercial again — where Frankenberry makes Count Chocula fall down a well.

Remember Fruity Yummy Mummy? At the time, it seemed like such a big thing for this new cereal — with several fruit flavors — to join the lineup. Of course, the introduction was shortlived — Fruity Yummy Mummy came on the scene in the late 80s and was gone sometime in the early 90s or so. But you can have some fun memories with this commercial that introduced it (and showed Count Chocula and Frankenberry getting along!).

Of course, Fruity Yummy Mummy wasn’t the first Monster cereal with a mix of fruit flavors — from the late 70s until the mid-80s, Frute Brute had a similar mix. The title character of that cereal was a werewolf, who howled a lot during the commercials.

Fun Facts about the Monster Cereals:

• The first monster cereals debuted in 1971. They were Count Chocula and Franken Berry.
• Boo Berry was introduced in 1972. Check out the very first commercial!
• Frankenberry is still wearing the same outfit he wore when the cereal debuted.
• There are two retired Monster cereals – Fruit Brute, which debuted in the 1970s and Yummy Mummy, which debuted in the 1980s.

Want to try a fun recipe that features a Monster cereal? Try this Boo Berry Cereal Milk Ice Cream!

Sarah W. Caron (aka scaron) is a food writer, editor and blogger who writes about family-friendly foods and raising a healthy family at Sarah’s Cucina Bella.