Freakies

by Ralston

1972 – 1976 GONE FOREVER

Gone — the original run ended around 1976, and Ralston's mid-'80s reboot, in which the Freakies became aliens riding marshmallow spaceships, lasted about a year. Sources disagree on whether the cereal launched in 1972 or 1973 and whether the revival landed in 1986 or 1987; nobody disagrees that both are over.

Seven bumpy little monsters spent the early '70s squabbling over a tree that grew breakfast, and Ralston sold the sweetened brown rings that fell out of it. The Freakies themselves were far more famous than the cereal, which is usually how these stories end.

🧾 One more thingCopywriter Jackie End invented the characters at the Wells Rich Greene agency and modeled most of them on her own colleagues — BossMoss was named after creative director Charlie Moss, and she made Cowmumble herself. Burgess Meredith narrated the first commercial, and the mail-away plastic figurines still circulate among collectors.

Filed under: Cereal · the ’70s & earlier

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