Growing up when I did, there are certain pop culture things that I remember...nobody else doe, but I do/ It being October, the stores are filled with Halloween themed things. It is the time of year when every supermarket in the Country is stocking the classic monster cereals.
I like a nice bowl of Boo Berry as much as the next guy, but it doesn't make me hearken back t my youth as much as my old man's inconsistent oatmeal. The year was 1975 and I was 7 years old. Like every good 7 yr old. I wanted everything I saw on the television. What I saw was the Freakies.
The Freakies were the product of drug addled hippies moving into new careers in Advertising. These strange cereal spokes-things were both groovy and terrifying. They had acid induced marketing written all over them, The original Freakies lived in a tree and spent much of their time concerned about their ancestral home and...cereal.
The usual stuff I steal from Wikipedia.
The Freakies were made up of seven creatures named Hamhose, Gargle, Cowmumble, Grumble, Goody-Goody, Snorkeldorf and the leader BossMoss. In the mythology of the Freakies, the seven went in search of the legendary Freakies Tree which grew the Freakies cereal. They found the Tree, realized the legend was true, and promptly took up residence in the Tree which then became the backdrop for all the TV spots and package back stories. In 1987, a new Freakies cereal was made, depicting the characters as aliens from another planet. Boss Moss and Grumble were still the same, but the other characters were replaced by new ones, named Hugger, Sweetie, Tooter and Hotdog.
I know very little of the replacement freakies that were redesigned by people liike me to sway a new generation to eat weird cereal products, but it seems to me they strayed from the mythos. I know it's bizarre to be concerned about the marketing mythos of a cereal, but somethings aren't supposed to change. Cereal mascots get updated all the time. Even the Monster cereals have had makeovers, but they are still the same basic cartoon. Tony the Tiger is still a tiger, Toucan Sam, is still a snotty toucan,
The overhaul on the Freakies came with character changes. the group abandoned their tree. The new 80's Freakies were from space and wore Hawaiian shirts. they probably listened to Wham instead of the Grateful Dead.
I watched a piece of my childhood crumble and fade into obscurity. No one remembers the Freakies and their tree hugging ways. The death of the Freakies may have led to the rise of clear cutting in the forest and strip mines, and global warming. We may never know.
For me it was more than a keeping up with the times, it was the abandonment of the values that could have saved a planet. Sadly, in my life, I;ve seen the shift from trees are good to greed is good. I don't think we've ever recovered.
That's right, I just took some nostalgic reverie about breakfast cereals and made it into a minor social commentary. Today's moral, things change, but not always for the better.
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