Hebba Gouda
As great and varied as today’s cereal aisle is now, we always want what we cannot have. I find myself missing the cereal of the past. Is it because I tether those cereals to memories of a care-free childhood, when my biggest worry was if I’d like the cartoons on Saturday morning? Don’t be ridiculous. This isn’t therapy, this is a food website. I miss discontinued cereals because they were objectively delicious.
I miss them so much that this was a horrible article to write. I spent hours finding old favorites with which I’ll never be able to reunite, or tasty-sounding vintage flavors that I’ll never be able to try. I’ve put myself through the emotional wringer of seeing the offerings on Instacart, only to go to the page and see that the product is no longer available. Of course it isn’t! That’s the point of the article! But it hurt all the same.
Now, I’m going to share my pain with you. I want you to hurt like I hurt, and read about all the discontinued cereal you want but can no longer have. Here are six discontinued cereals we wish we could could come back:
- Peanut Butter Toast Crunch
-
It’ll be written on my gravestone “It’s great, but what if we added peanut butter to it?” What if we had all of Cinnamon Toast Crunch’s great qualities, with the foundation of peanut butter flavor? There was a time when we didn’t have to ask “what if?” There was a time when we could have it all. Peanut Butter Toast Crunch was a peanut butter flavored cereal coated in cinnamon. It was around for a short time after its 2004 introduction. There was another brief stint following reintroduction in 2013, but we’re now forced to live with only the memory, and the void its absence has created.
- Hidden Treasures
-
In the battle of “most ‘90s design ever,” this cereal could hold its own in a fight for the top spot against that Dixie Cup—you know the one. The whole shtick of this cereal was that it was a hollow corn cereal, and each piece could hold a mystery fruit filling—either cherry, grape, or orange. Some pieces were entirely empty. A bowl of this cereal was a great exercise in humility, because the cereal didn’t care if you were Bill Gates or some schmuck who grabbed it without thinking. Each filled piece was a gift. It was around from 1993 to 1995, before we all got spoiled expecting “filling in all of our cereal pieces” and “being able to use the phone and the internet at the same time.”
- Cap’n Crunch Oops! Choco Donuts
-
These little chocolate rings should not be compared to Oreo O’s, and how dare you even think of drawing a parallel with chocolate Cheerios? Beginning with the Cap’n’s iconic brown butter sugar sweetness, these donuts had the addition of cocoa and a distinct crust of crunchy rainbow sprinkles that kept the kids and adults alike coming back for more. This flavor was introduced in the early 2000s, but the 2017 reintroduction fell flat, perhaps because it was missing those critical sprinkles.
- Kellog’s Smorz
-
Smorz was unapologetically dessert in a breakfast bowl. It packed all the taste of s’mores without mosquitos or the effort of stoking a fire. It was graham cracker cereal with a chocolate coating and marshmallow mix-ins—how could anyone see fault? The cereal was first released in 2003, and lasted until 2013. There was a 2015 that Smorz would be reintroduced, but only until it was re-discontinued in 2019. In 2020? Another promise of its return, in response to a petition on the website Change.org and public social media campaigns. It came back in 2021. But now, it’s gone again.
- Betty Crocker’s Cinnamon Streusel
-
Truly not given a chance to shine, this offering was only available in 1996, despite the love it got from critics. The initial description on the box was “crispy flakes topped with delicious cinnamon and brown streusel [with the] delicious baked taste of cinnamon streusel.” Starting with corn flakes and adding the flavors of a cinnamon streusel was like a somehow-not-gross way of having your cereal-topped dinner casserole while finishing the night with a scoop of apple crumble. Give me my streusel cereal back.
- Kream Krunch
-
I’ll admit, I never had this one. As a Kellogg’s offering from ‘65, it was before my time. But I put this on my list because I feel like I missed out. When people say “Oh, I was born in the wrong generation,” I get it now. Because I want to live back when Kellogg’s had the audacity to put pieces of strawberry, vanilla, and orange freeze-dried ice cream into their cereal. Back when they put those pieces into a box featuring a horrifying, dead-eyed ice cream cone mascot. Was ‘65 before the Fair Housing Act or the ADA? Yeah, but, like…I could have had astronaut ice cream in my cereal.
Which discontinued cereal would you bring back?
Griffin Parker
Sporked Staff
Will Morgan
