70s Fruity Pebbles cereal premiums / in box prizes

Have you purchased any kids cereal lately? If so, have you noticed the lack of cool in box prizes? Being a kid at heart, I certainly have. Kids cereals of today seldom offer in box prizes, and even if they do, the premiums are nowhere near as good as they were back in the day! If you're a kid in this day and age, you hope and pray that your parents buy three to five boxes of the same brand cereal. That way, you can mail away the UPC's along with a check or money order for $5.99 to get a toy. Or, you can enjoy minutes of fun with a maze, or word games printed on the back of the cereal box. I'm sorry, but kids of this generation got the short end of the stick in regards to cereal prizes.

When I was a kid, I used to run to the cereal aisle while my mom was shopping. I would scour the entire aisle to find the boxes with the best toys. Yes, it was more about the toys than the cereal itself. This was the hook that the cereal companies used to persuade buyers (Mothers) to buy their products. It was amazing how an unruly brat could instantly be silenced by being handed a box of unopened cereal. There was always a picture on the front panel of the box displaying the "prize inside" and the back panel usually featured art or pictures of kids enjoying themselves immensely with said prizes.

Back in the 70s and 80s my dresser drawers were literally overflowing with cereal premiums, including everything from bicycle license plates to mini action figures. From what I remember, the absolute best cereal premiums were obtained from Cap'n Crunch, Quisp, Frankenberry, Count Chocula, Boo Berry, and Frosted Flakes.

Post Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Pebbles were some of my favorite in box prizes. My cousin and I absolutely adored the Flintstones growing up and we made a hobby out of collecting Fruity Pebbles cereal premiums. Here are a few of my favorite Flintstones premiums from my personal collection.  Enjoy...

1975 Flintstones coin purses

 

 

Why don't people use coin purses any more?
Oh yeah.. you can hardly purchase anything with coins these days.


1970 Flinstones Flintmobile

These cars were cast in several colors.

As most in box prizes, they came disassembled.

1974 Fred & Barney pencil holders

 

These were great back when I was in school.
(Back when kids still used pens and pencils)

I still have a couple of shoe boxes full of old cereal premiums. Maybe I'll showcase more of them in a future post. How about you? Do you still posses any cereal box memories from your youth?