But fifty years ago in May 1969, Friday in the Brady household meant one thing: Mom was going grocery shopping after dinner. And she was sure to bring home plenty (three or four boxes) of the sugary cereal my siblings and I craved. She would buy whatever we asked for – Cap’n Crunch, Cocoa Puffs, Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes... How many mothers do that in 2019?
We would pretty much go through a box on Friday night at snack time, and then enjoy some more in the morning right before we settled down for the inevitable Saturday morning cartoons.
This large ad (which ran in the Journal on May 14, 1969) combines cereal and cartoons very nicely. It shows the gargantuan Kellogg’s Jumbo Assortment: 18 mini boxes of cereal including the dreaded adult ones (Raisin Bran, Corn Flakes) and the kiddie ones we liked.
Here’s a color photo of the Jumbo Assortment in the ad, courtesy of Hake’s.com.
(I remember just tolerating cartoons like The Three Musketeers, waiting for the show to get back to the Banana Splits and their hijinks.)
Who doesn’t remember the Tra La La song, the theme song of the Banana Splits?
This YouTube sample includes the theme song again, plus some of the comedy bits, such as Fleegle getting the mail, Drooper taking out the trash, etc. That strange, caterpillar-like arm in the mail box always creeped me out!
The Banana Splits were also featured on many Kellogg’s cereal boxes, promoting various send-away offers, such as this printing set. (Hey – maybe this cereal box ad indirectly led me to go into the printing business as a career!)
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Cereal has long been a favorite topic on this blog, as well the Rice Krispies song (the author of which also wrote the Tra La La song).