Cereals You'll Never Have Again

It might be healthy, trendy, and a bit grownup to have avocado toast or a kale oatmeal smoothie for breakfast, but if you're like me there's still nothing better than staying in on a Saturday morning and enjoying a giant bowl of cereal while watching cartoons. If you want to feel more like an adult you can have Fiber One, but where's the fun in that? Of course you can wax nostalgic eating Lucky Charms and Trix, but there are lots of cereals from your childhood that will unfortunately never return to grocery store shelves.

For the past few years, Nabisco has been rolling out crazy limited edition flavors of Oreos, but unfortunately for cookie-inspired cereal lovers, the only option since 2007 has been Cookie Crisp. Post's Oreo O's were launched in 1998 and featured chocolate flavored "o's" with marshmallow bits tossed in to emulate the cream part of an actual Oreo. Any cereal that turns regular milk into chocolate milk is usually a hit, but Oreo O's were exceptionally delicious. It's been well over a decade since I enjoyed a bowl, but what I do remember is that the marshmallows were softer and dare I say, creamier, than other marshmallows that are usually found in sugar cereals. Post discontinued the cereal in 2007 —but it's not gone everywhere.

Currently, a version of Oreo O's are actually available in South Korea, according to Foodbeast. Boxes shipped directly from South Korea frequently pop up on eBay, but they're by no means cheap. If you're craving Oreo O's, but can't justify paying $25 for a box of cereal from thousands of miles away, The Impulsive Buy spotted a similar cereal currently being produced by Malt-O-Meal called Cookies & Cream. Unfortunately, this cereal doesn't contain the marshmallows that made Oreo O's tasty and unique.

I have fond memories of eating tiny boxes of Nerds that were tossed into my McDonald's Halloween Bucket when I went Trick or Treating, but unfortunately I was never able to experience the cereal version of the tangy, sugary candy. Nerds were released in 1983 by the Willy Wonka Candy Factory, because of their initial success Wonka teamed up with Ralston to produce Nerds cereal two years later. Nerds cereal came in two (Well, technically four) flavors. Orange N' Cherry and Grape N' Strawberry. Just like with the candy version, the cereal box was divided. In the now classic commercial they posed the question, "Which side are you gonna eat first?" I know I'm not the only one who mixes their cereal, so a gimmick like Nerds cereal with two different flavors in one box definitely needs to make a comeback. The fruity puff cereal with a great gimmick sadly did not live past the late 1980s and has yet to return to shelves.

Before there was Sheldon Cooper on the Big Bang Theory, there was Steve Urkel. The lovable nerd with the insufferable catchphrase, "Did I Do That?!" was everywhere in the early 1990s, so of course Ralston needed to jump on the Urkel bandwagon in 1991. Urkel-O's were strawberry and banana flavored circles similar to Fruit Loops that were marketed to all of the crazy Urkel fans out there who needed something to eat while doing the Urkel Dance with their favorite talking Urkel doll.

Despite Family Matters airing from 1989 to 1998, Urkel Fever died down rather quickly, and according to Cereal Time TV Urkel-O's cereal was "a complete dud and didn't last more than a year." You basically can put Urkel-O's in the expansive category of cereals that tried to make money on whatever flavor of the week was popular with young kids. Unless you're willing to try 26-year-old cereal bought on eBay or at a comic con, you'll never be able to have Urkel O's again. Even though you probably didn't try them in the first place.

If you want to satisfy your filled cereal craving, there's currently Kellogg's Krave, but it pales in comparison to another Kellogg's cereal from a bygone era. Released in 1994, Pop Tarts Crunch were little baby Pop Tarts "for your spoon." They came in two flavors, Brown Sugar Cinnamon and Frosted Strawberry. If you were a Pop Tart fan you probably reached for the Frosted Strawberry — honestly who ever buys Pop Tarts without frosting? More importantly, why are unfrosted Pop Tarts still available, but this luscious cereal has been discontinued since the 1990s?

Apparently, it was a commercial failure for Kellogg's, and according to Bustle, Pop Tarts Crunch was removed from store shelves in 1995, just one year after it was released. It doesn't appear that Kellogg's will be reviving this '90s cult classic cereal, but if you have some baking know-how and a combination of time and patience, the blog Aww Sam has a recipe to make your own Pop Tarts Crunch cereal — they even look tastier than the original!

If you couldn't tell by the aqua-colored box, Sprinkle Spangles were an early 1990s cereal produced by General Mills. The blog, Mr. Breakfast described the cereal as "sweetened corn puffs with sprinkles." Technically speaking, Sprinkle Spangles were sugar cookie-flavored and shaped like stars. Released in 1993, Sprinkle Spangles used a genie as a mascot (Probably trying to capture the popularity of Disney's Aladdin at the time) voiced by the late comedian and chef, Dom DeLuise.

Even though kids love sugar, the cereal somehow proved to be too sweet for even those who plow through gigantic Pixy Stix with ease. In fact, back in 1993 the Utah-based newspaper, Deseret News described the cereal as much too sugary. That negative press probably didn't help the brand and it faded away by the mid 1990s. However, a quasi revival of the cereal did spring up on shelves recently. Cereal review blog, Cerealousy claimed that Cap'n Crunch Sprinkled Donut Crunch, which was released in 2016, tasted a bit like the long retired cereal.

For the most part, the taste of Post's Croonchy Stars was forgettable — cinnamon-flavored cereals are a dime a dozen. If you close your eyes and grab a box in the cereal aisle, there's a good chance it might be something cinnamon-flavored. What made Croonchy Stars different was how it was marketed and packaged. Croonchy Stars was the first cereal in the United States for a Muppet character, and that honor went to the Swedish Chef.

Back in 2009, Wired gave a brief history of the short-lived cereal claiming that Jim Henson, who was a lover of all things breakfast cereals, convinced Post to produce a cereal with the Swedish Chef, even though he wasn't a character on Muppet Babies, which was wildly successful in 1988 when Croonchy Stars was released. The cereal was advertised as "a cinnamonnamony new cereal with 10 essential vitamins and minerals, no artificial coloring, and no doorknobs." Other gems from the box included, "No batteries necessary!" and a list about how to consume the cereal ("Place spoon in mouth, Place teeth in cereal").

The Swedish Chef is a cultural icon, but the cereal has yet to make a return even with a resurgence of Muppets in the media.

Back in the 1990s, kids were all about mystery flavors and surprises when it came to food and drinks. How do I know this? I was one of those '90s kids who would go for the White Mystery Airheads first and totally begged my mother for those blacked out bottle Mystery Squeezits. General Mills capitalized on this trend and in 1993 they released Hidden Treasures.

Hidden Treasures were similar to Krave cereal that is currently available, but instead of chocolate inside tiny squares, Hidden Treasures had a fruit flavoring inside, but the whole "treasure" part of Hidden Treasures was that only some of the cereal pieces had the fruit filling (which included cherry, orange, and grape) with the others being just regular old sugar cereal pieces. The cereal itself resembled Cap'n Crunch in taste, but the fruit fillings were a bit odd and jelly-like. Hidden Treasures didn't make it past the mid '90s and it seems as though it'll be stuck there because it hasn't made a comeback.

Some fruit flavors like bananas and berries are begged to be morphed into cereal form, but there are some fruits that just don't translate well for breakfast cereal. Case in point, Kellogg's OJ's, which were launched in 1985 and were available for less than a year. I know a lot of folks have a glass of orange juice with their breakfast, but for some reason I'm picturing the flavor of OJ's to be that of Tang, vaguely orange-flavored but extremely sugary and cloying after one bowl of the stuff.

OJ's and their cowboy mascot, OJ Joe, boasted that "each bowl has all the Vitamin C of a 4-ounce glass of orange juice — 100 percent of the daily requirement!" Kellogg's will probably never bring back this cereal because the demand for it just isn't there. If you're looking for odd fruity cereals, General Mills has your back every Halloween with Frute Brute and Yummy Mummy.

When you're a kid, living the dream is having ice cream for breakfast. You probably weren't able to have a scoop of rocky road or one of those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ice cream bars (you know which ones I'm talking about, the ones with the gumballs for eyes), but if you were a kid in the mid 1980s, your parents probably didn't think twice about buying you Ice Cream Cones cereal.

Manufactured by General Mills in 1987, Ice Cream Cones didn't last for long. The cereal featured adorable tiny ice cream cones in chocolate chip or vanilla. The cereal itself really didn't catch on, but the jingle featuring the mascot Ice Cream Jones was extremely catchy. They even wanted kids to learn how to play it on a mini echo piano that was free in the box. General Mills re-released Ice Cream Cones back in 2003 to mark the 100th anniversary of the ice cream cone and was available for a short time, only in the chocolate chip flavor.

Wheaties always used athletes to promote their brand, but it really isn't a "kid-friendly" cereal. I always enjoyed them, but I was that weird kid at 4-years-old eating Raisin Bran and asking to put extra raisins in it. In 1993 General Mills decided to release a version of Wheaties for kids called Dunk-A-Balls. Dunk-A-Balls were tasty basketball-shaped, brown sugar-flavored puff cereal that were a lot sweeter than their grownup brother. Dunk-A-Balls didn't have Michael Jordan, Shaq or any other NBA star of the '90s promoting the cereal, they were simply just basketball themed and had a great cut out hoop that you could attach to your cereal bowl and shoot Dunk-A-Balls into it.

The following year, Wheaties rolled out the same cereal under a different name. Quarterback Crunch was, you guessed it, a football themed cereal that tasted just like Dunk-A-Balls. Same cut out on the back, but instead of a hoop it was a goal post. This time, Wheaties was able to use NFL team logos. Maybe they learned from their mistake with Dunk-A-Balls? Both of these cereals were for a limited time and were advertised as such, but I know I'm not the only one who remembers how great they were. Tasty, "healthy," and they encouraged you to play with your food. These cereals had the perfect combination for a successful kids' cereal, yet Wheaties has not brought Dunk-A-Balls or Quarterback Crunch back since they left the market 22 years ago.