Halloween novelty hit "Monster Mash" becomes a cereal

 

Bobby "Boris" Pickett's 1962 chart-topper "The Monster Mash" is the daddy of all Halloween novelty records, and because of the song's renewed popularity on Tik Tok, General Mills is releasing a new limited-edition monster cereal this season called "Monster Mash."

General Mills says the cereal is being released to commemorate the 50th anniversary of their monster cereals, which were introduced in 1971, but I'm guessing that the Tik Tok popularity of "Monster Mash" influenced the direction that their anniversary celebration took.

Whatever the catalyst, the song "Monster Mash" is worth celebrating. It holds up to repeated listening better than a lot of novelty songs and inspired the great Mr. Show sketch "Monster Parties: Fact or Fiction?" Collectors of Halloween-themed novelties know that a lot of these songs are terrible, but "Monster Mash" is catchy, crackles with energy, and tells a story.

Although Monster Mash cereal is being branded as a new cereal, it isn't exactly new. It's a combination of pieces from all five monster cereals: Count Chocula, Franken Berry, Boo Berry, Fruit Brute, and Fruity Yummy Mummy. The inclusion of the latter two cereals is interesting, because those varieties have been discontinued for years, and, apart from a brief return to the market several years ago, will be available for the first time in a long time in the Monster Mash medley. 

A caveat, though: If you fondly remember Fruit Brute and Fruity Yummy Mummy from your childhood, don't get your hopes up about revisiting them in the Monster Mash mix, because they might be reformulated like the other three monster cereals. 

That's right—the monster cereals of today are nothing like they were when they were introduced. Back in the '70s, the monster cereals were made with oat flour, so the flavor and texture were similar to Cheerios. When the monster cereals started being offered only as seasonal items at Halloween, the recipes were reformulated, and now they're made with corn meal, like Cap'n Crunch. And also like Cap'n Crunch, the crunchy bits now have the same ability to shred the roof of your mouth as broken glass and volcanic rock.

Food quality aside, any addition to the monster cereals line is sure to excite cereal fanatics, for whom the monster cereals hold a special place in pop-culture history. The new Monster Mash box has an awesome retro 1970s look but at least one anachronism: The reverse flying-V guitar that Boo Berry is playing wasn't introduced until 2007.

A brief aside about Boo Berry: As a longtime fan, I miss the old recipe, so when Cheerios introduced a blueberry flavor a few years ago, I hoped it would be more like the original Boo Berry than the current Boo Berry is. Unfortunately, the blueberry flavor is subtle and the cereal has no marshmallows, which are an integral part of the monster cereal experience. However, if you removed the marshmallows from a box of modern Boo Berry and added them to the blueberry Cheerios, you'd end up with something more like the original Boo Berry than the current Boo Berry is. Someone should do this and let me know how it is.

It's worth mentioning that the monster cereal characters are no strangers to novelty records. In 1979, General Mills issued a series of flexi discs that featured the monster characters, including the classics "The Monsters Go Disco" and "Monster Adventures in Outer Space."