Whatever happened to the free toy that used to come in a box of cereal?  I remember the Saturday morning commercials of those kid cereals and almost all of them gave away some kind of premium to entice kids to ask their parents to buy the cereal.  I remember for a period of time Whamo was giving away a frisbee ring in one cereal I forget what it was now, but we must have had two dozen of those things to toss around one summer.  But I remember at my house us kids would always fight to see who got the toy in the cereal, mom came up with a democratic way of of solving the solution, whoever's bowl it landed in when the cereal was poured it was theres.  That lasted I think two times when my brother got it two times in a row.  After that it was a rotation.  I think the coolest one was a record on the back of the box of Honeycomb. You cut the 45 off box and played it on your record players, I can't ever remember it working though.  I think Cheerios gave away sticker flags of the world one time.  These were great, but the stickers ended up on a bunch of things my mom didn't approve of and we had to scrape them off.

But these premiums also came in other ways.  Who here remembers the Flintstone mugs.  I think they were about 10 or 12 oz mugs, made of very heavy plastic.  I think they came in a laundry detergent.  I had the yellow Fred Flintstone. 

The jelly jar glasses.  Welch's Grape Jelly I think it was the Archies or Scooby Doo on the jars, after it was empty you had a nifty little glass to drink your juice in at breakfast.

The Kool-Aid pitcher and mugs. Back then these were made of heavy durable opaque plastic.  These are still around I guess, my niece purchased a set here a few years ago and they are so flimsy I'm surprised they don't fall apart from the weight of the Kool-Aid

Planters Peanuts mugs and banks. You'd have to send away for these things with empty wrappers.  My dad tended bar back then and along with bringing home a bag of peanuts for us kids now and then, he'd bring home all the empty wrappers so the empty wrappers would add up pretty fast.  It was like if you sent in 10 wrappers and 25 cents in to Planters Peanuts you could get stuff back.  Each of us had a Mr Peanut Mug and a Mr Peanut Bank.  The bank if memory serves stood about a foot high, the mug was about 6 oz.

Of course the Bazooka Bubble Gum Premiums.  It looks like they still have things you can send away for.  When I was about 11, an item stood out for me, a genuine Ball and Strike Counter.  It looked so cool to me in the little black and white drawing on the comic, and I think it was like 25 comics and a dime to get it free.  Well I spent the entire summer collecting the comics for this item (I thought I needed 25 comics with that Ball and Strike Counter on it) and I finally got it that winter.  I was anxious of baseball to start so I could use it.  I still have it, it's almost 40 years old now.  Its' made of tin with white hard plastic dials with black numbers on it.  The numbers have long wore out, inked in with permanent market and wore smooth where you used your thumb to turn the dials.  I brought it to a baseball card show here back in the early 90's and some collector offered me $25 for it, even in it's condition, but I said no way.

The Cracker Jack premiums of course.  I buy Cracker Jacks now and then, what a gyp the stuff they give away in those now.  whatever happened to those little games with the bb's in it where you had to get all the bb's in the holes.

The gumball machine where you got not only a couple of gumballs but maybe a toy trinket too all for the cost of a single penny.  This was always big for us kids.  Whenever my cousins would come to visit, we'd pool our money, which would amount to about 50 cents total, get it all in pennies, then get our moms to drive us to town to "play the gumball machine".  The gum would be seperated equally among us, but the trinkets would be part of our Bingo games.  Whoever won a game of Bingo got a trinket.  There'd be anywhere from 8 to 12 of us playing, and I remember my cousin always cheating when it was her turn to call the numbers (we took turns calling numbers but still played a card).  Anyway rainy days in the summer, our moms knew how to keep us kids occupied for hours at a time, because we never turned down a chance to play Bingo.

Anyway there must be dozens of others too from the 1970's, but can't think of any at the moment.

What are some that you all remember?? 

I remember and endless succession of free packs of Carefree gum! 

Sometimes they would offer some nominally interesting trinket if you sent in X number of box tops with proof-of-purchase seals, but by the time we bought the next box of Cheerios or whatever, I'd forgotten all about it anyway!
;D

...  I think the coolest one was a record on the back of the box of Honeycomb. You cut the 45 off box and played it on your record players, I can't ever remember it working though.  ...


I recall getting a copy of the Jackson Five's I Want You Back from a cereal box.  (We already had a copy of it on LP, but it was definitely the novelty of the cereal box record.)  We probably got a dozen or more plays from that flimsy cardboard 45.  By the time we were done with it, it was really trashed.  :D

It's funny how you brought this post up because I was just thinking about freebies.

I actually did get a freebie a few months ago when I bought a box of cereal; it was one of those patriotic red teeshirt with a white maple leaf composed of signatures from athletes. I just had to mail off my request (and I got to select an actuall shirt size!) with no postage or shipping fees!

But yes I think there were more freebies out there back in the old days. I remember when I went to the movies back in the '90s they would hand out freebies after the show such as packets of gums.

And speaking of gum, I do remember using a gumball machine back in the '80s would just be a quarter or even a dime if it was just gum. I remember my favorite was the chirping hen who would spin around and chirp before finally dispensing an egg with a trinket inside.

Back in 1990 my friends and I formed an eraser club (we were definitely not part of the cool club!), and we would actually go to the local mini mall and use the gumball machine that had the erasers, and use the machine a dozen times in a row just to get our erasers!

I remember the Archie's "Sugar, Sugar" coming on a cereal box. Very appropriate since the cereal was nothing but sugar.  :D ;D ;D ;D



Cat

Mostly I remember Shrinky-Dinks coming free inside cereal boxes.  I can still recall making an R2-D2 one.  And those small frisbees that came with a flipper.

Things I remember saving tokens/box tops for include a F1-style toy car from Weetabix, a watch from Hula Hoops (chips) and a T-shirt, also from Hula Hoops I think.

You occasionally get free things in cereal boxes.  I can't recall exactly what they got but I remember my two kids arguing over something in a cereal box in the past year or so

I can't remember what kind of cereal it was (one of the "monster cereals," i.e. Boo Berry or Franken Berry maybe?), but there was an actual record pressed into the back of the cereal box, and after you finished all the cereal you could cut it out and play it on a record player. So my brother and I cut it out and played it and it told an oooooooooooohh! scary story!

I wish I could send box tops in to the finance company instead of car payments!
:-\\

i loved quisp cereal...i remember this...
http://theimaginaryworld.com/quuissp02.jpg

I remember the prizes in cereal, it was usually a piece of junk, the thrill was just getting it. I remember getting a huge bowl out of the cabinet and pouring all the cereal out to get the prize right away, of course my Mother would be pissed cos' I'd leave the cereal in the bowl rather than getting it back in the box.
  I also remember getting an eraser in a bag of Frito's once shaped like the Frito bandido (anyone remember him?). Anyway it wasn't much of an eraser as soon as you'd put pressure on your pencil his head would snap off.

I remember the prizes in cereal, it was usually a piece of junk, the thrill was just getting it. I remember getting a huge bowl out of the cabinet and pouring all the cereal out to get the prize right away, of course my Mother would be pissed cos' I'd leave the cereal in the bowl rather than getting it back in the box.
  I also remember getting an eraser in a bag of Frito's once shaped like the Frito bandido (anyone remember him?). Anyway it wasn't much of an eraser as soon as you'd put pressure on your pencil his head would snap off.


lol, i would just wolf down the box of cereal till i got to the prize. don't ask how i remain skinny!

I remember the prizes in cereal, it was usually a piece of junk, the thrill was just getting it. I remember getting a huge bowl out of the cabinet and pouring all the cereal out to get the prize right away, of course my Mother would be pissed cos' I'd leave the cereal in the bowl rather than getting it back in the box.
  I also remember getting an eraser in a bag of Frito's once shaped like the Frito bandido (anyone remember him?). Anyway it wasn't much of an eraser as soon as you'd put pressure on your pencil his head would snap off.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkO9fVBky0I






Cat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkO9fVBky0I

Cat


WOW - How many years did I have that silly Frito Bandito's song stuck in my juvenile head?  :D

I remember the prizes in cereal, it was usually a piece of junk, the thrill was just getting it. I remember getting a huge bowl out of the cabinet and pouring all the cereal out to get the prize right away, of course my Mother would be pissed cos' I'd leave the cereal in the bowl rather than getting it back in the box.
 I also remember getting an eraser in a bag of Frito's once shaped like the Frito bandido (anyone remember him?). Anyway it wasn't much of an eraser as soon as you'd put pressure on your pencil his head would snap off.


I remember the Frito Bandito eraser. Everyone at school had it on their pencils. My sister once got a Bobby Sherman 45  (Hey Mr. Sun) inside or on the back of a cereal box.