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Who among us hasn't longed to live the glamorous, rich life of Toucan Sam? Or have the confident, devil-may-care aplomb of the dashing Tony the Tiger? Sure, we've all dreamed. However most of us have the dignity not to try to slavishly imitate our morning heroes, contenting ourselves with the drab, weary existence that is life outside of a cereal box.
Most grocery store chains, however, don't have such dignity, and have hired cheap, non-union replacements to shill for their knockoff children's cereal, in the hopes that they should be able to convince some of the slower kids that these are really the same product. The fools. —Jason Torchinsky |
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Tony, the mascot of the original 'Frosted Flakes', is a tiger. The mascot of the Ralph's brand knockoff frosted flakes is a polar bear. You know what's interesting about tigers and polar bears? They're both members of the small group of animals that will hunt and eat humans.
This must be a key criteria for the position of a sugar-frosted corn flake cereal mascot.
Other than meeting the willingness to eat humans criteria, the polar bear is sadly derivative of Tony, who has grown quite buff and less cute over the years. The bear mimics the wide, exuberant grin of Tony, and adds a pair of fangs, perhaps to provide that thinly veiled threat that Tony's bulk provides.
KNOCKOFF RATING: C. Too derivative, and 'frosted' refers to the sugar, not arctic climates. Jeez. |
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The key to marketing a bland, greyish cereal punctuated with vibrant bits of colorful marshmallows seems to be medieval British Isles folklore. That would explain both Kellogg's Lucky Charms' choice of a crafty leprauchaun named Lucky and the wizard of Ralph's brand Magic Stars cereal.
In this case, the knockoff brand actually seeks to one-up the original, as any Dungeon-and-Dragon addled geek can tell you a wizard could surely whip the green snot out of a leprauchaun.
KNOCKOFF RATING: A-. Just as Irish-looking. but more powerful, and perhaps less selfish and annoying, but this could only be the result of not having any commercials to demonstrate his true personality. |
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I have a lot of personal fondness for Toucan Sam. I can't really justify or explain why this is, seeing as how he's just another miserable anthropomorphised bird hawking sugared cardboard, but at least he has a firmer grip on reality than that unstable Coco Puffs bird. Please just accept that for whatever reason, I like Sam. Which is maybe why I feel such contempt for his serpentine doppelganger.
This multicolored snake of the knockoff 'Fruit Rings' has a certain slimy, obsequious quality I just can't abide. Maybe it's that hat, doffed smarmily with that creepy prehensile tail. Or maybe it's the way his green scales gleam on his head, or perhaps that, in nature, a snake with bright, vivid colors means STAY AWAY.
KNOCKOFF RATING: D. Stay away from my children, filthy serpent. |
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I can't believe the people who came up with a mascot for 'Crisp Rice' brand cereal were even trying at all. Those grinning, vapid beavers violate the cardinal rule of knockoff mascot making: Make your mascot potentially confusable with the originals. The only token gesture made to the powerful triumverate of crispy, noisy rice cereal is that there are a pair of beavers, instead of just one. That's it.
I'm baffled at the ineptitude of this one. It's not like there's a dearth of material either; Snap, Crackle, and Pop, the three elves of the original Rice Crispies, could surely suggest some other trio: three gnomes named Crack, Splutter, and Click, for example. Or maybe three little aliens called Blap, Blorple and Bop. I just can't believe they didn't even try.
KNOCKOFF RATING: F. Oh, and beavers make you think of eating wood, too. So there. Maybe they're squirrels. |
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