C-3PO, Human-Cereal Relations

Remember C-3PO Cereal? You don't? You obviously weren't a child from the year's of 1984 to 1985. If you were, you'd recall the sweet oat puff cereal (similar in many ways, taste-wise, to Corn Pops if memory serves) with the big gold droid on the box. Now, X-Entertainment has a large tribute to this short-lived breakfast-themed phenomenon, filled with colorful photos and even remembrances of the C-3PO TV commercial (which I have sadly forgotten...maybe it was on up against "Transformers").

It's a very funny article that made me oddly nostalgic for the days when cheap merchandising like this would work on me. I recall my fandom of not one but several movie and TV show tie-in snacks. My two favorites? Batman cereal (released after the Burton 1989 movie) and Garfield Fruit Snacks (released during the height of popularity of his Saturday morning TV crapfest "Garfield and Friends"). These were products that actually had pleasing tastes to my young palatte, in addition to coming with free toys based on entertainment products I enjoyed.

Now, of course, I like to think I'm immune to this sort of direct marketing. That just because I like a movie, I wouldn't neccessarily go out and buy a lot of cheap crap loosely based around it. But, of course, this is not at all true. I have an Army of Darkness T-shirt, countless DVD's of all kinds of movies I like, posters of Zero Effect, Mulholland Drive and Vertigo up in my room, the soundtracks to films like Rushmore and Trainspotting, even all three extended-edition Lord of the Rings movies. Because, in many ways, I am still an easy-to-market-to movie dork. I suspect this will not change over time.