Turns out, some people asked for it. General Mills’ director of marketing, Scott Baldwin, said in a statement, “Trix cereal is beloved by our fans, and we heard loud and clear that they wanted to see the iconic shapes back in their bowls. When Trix launched in 1954, it was the first fruit-flavored cereal that was colorful and fun.” I guess.
In my previous cereal blog about how Lucky Charms is full of cardboard marshmallows and broken dreams, I noted as an aside that “Lucky Charms is almost as bad as Trix.” I should break that down, now that there’s some Trix news.
Have you ever eaten Fruity Pebbles or Fruit Loops and thought, hmmm, I’d love to eat a similar but lesser cereal that comes in the form of crackly balls of styrofoam (I recognize I’m making the same styrofoam analogy here as I did with Lucky Charms, but bear with me. I don’t like cereal that makes me think of styrofoam.)
Trix was the cereal I resented as a child. Each time a new Trix commercial would air, I’d feel anxious until the end, nails half-bitten, hoping those stingy kids would give the “silly” rabbit food in the form of small sugar spheres. (Trix was ball-shaped from 1954 through 1991, which is when General Mills debuted the fruit shapes.) But I’m not stating anything new here, am I? As Carlton once said in an episode of Fresh Prince, “How come they just couldn’t give him some cereal?”
Watch the commercial above. I had never seen it before (or probably forgot about it), so when the kids offered the rabbit some Trix and the rabbit ate it, I yelled out, “He ate it! He got them!” And I thought, maybe back in the day, they were feeding him Trix? No, it was all a dream. In fact, this charade of teasing a hungry rabbit has been going on since the 1950s when Trix debuted with its exclusionary slogan “Trix are for kids.”
How sad is that?This rabbit has been deprived of his own supply for decades. Those kids are lucky he didn’t just smack the bowl of Trix out of their hands, which is what I would’ve done, were I a Trix-obsessed rabbit with well-groomed eyebrows. (Or I would tell on them to their parents.)
Per Mental Floss:
In 1976 and 1980, General Mills ran campaigns allowing kids to vote whether or not the Trix rabbit should finally get the bowl of Trix he so desired. Kids mailed in their votes, with almost everyone voting to let the rabbit get his cereal. Commercials aired afterward that showed the Trix rabbit exuberant in finally succeeding.
Well, that’s nice. There’s a lesson about persistence in there. As Hazel noted yesterday via messaging: “As a child you’re supposed to identify with the rabbit bc you’re not allowed to eat the cereal bc too sugary.” This is wise, and the rabbit was kinda creepy, maybe even a druggie, and I suppose you shouldn’t take or give candy/sugar to strangers… But animals are different? Perhaps I’m a bit too kindhearted for this selfish world. Maybe the rabbit should’ve given up and moved on with his life and tried a different, superior cereal.
At any rate, Trix doesn’t even taste good. It’s almost as bad as Kix, which is worse than Lucky Charms. Kix is the worst cereal of all time. But perhaps that’s a blog for another day.