"Tara" > wrote in message
...
> My big brother and I used to love getting the prizes out of a box of
> cereal. We were pretty good at wiggling our grubby hands through the
> cereal to get to the prize at the bottom. I remember diving
> submarines that were powered by baking soda. We both have a vague
> memory of a train trip that was somehow subsidized by Wheaties box
> tops.
>
> My boys got their first cereal box prize this week. They were
> intrigued by an episode of the Max and Ruby cartoon in which Max is
> trying to get to the bottom of a box of cereal to get the prize. They
> had never seen cereal with prizes because we rarely buy the store
> brand and we don't buy the junky, colorful cereal. Miracle of
> miracles, I realized that the two boxes of Golden Grahams in our
> pantry contained Shrek markers. They were delighted. The prizes
> aren't in the bottom of the cereal anymore; they are between the wax
> paper liner and the box.
>
> Tara

>
When I was four years old my mother sent away box tops from some sort
cereal, I don't know if it was Corn Flakes or Wheaties or what. (Back then
there weren't store brands.) I wanted a Woody the Woodpecker knock on the
door door-knocker in the worst way! She collected box tops and got me one
and stuck it on my bedroom door. It was just a cheap piece of plastic that
snapped together. But when you grabbed the tail of the woodpecker you could
make it knock on the door with its beak! I thought it was so cool.

Some years later my mother sent away for a stuffed Jolly Green Giant doll.
I have no idea what she had to send in to get that thing. I may even still
have it in with all the stuffed animals I collected.

A couple of years ago I bought a box of Cheerios and imagine my surprise!
It had a toy inside! I thought toys in cereal had fallen by the wayside.
Inside was a weird little gorilla looking thing associated with some movie
I've never seen and probably never will see. You were supposed to submerge
it in water and when you squeezed it it would squirt water at you. It was
amusing.

Reminds me a lot of buying Cracker Jack just to get a tiny tin whistle.

Jill