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Hey folks.
What free prizes do you remember getting in boxes of cereal?  Or the Toy Surprise in boxes of Cracker Jack?  Or any other box of some sort of consumer product that had a free surprise in it?

The stupid tattoos in Cracker Jack boxes were the cheapest possible thing you could get:
(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c3/82/eb/c382eb87bff101ec32fda68ec916bc27.jpg)
And with your Happy Meal in the mid-80s you got these fairly cool pull-back race cars:
(https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7093/7256644358_1b4366dbb5_b.jpg)
This could also simply be something that came WITH a meal (not necessarily inside a box), like a free glass or mug or something.

Fire away!

I remember visiting family here in SA as a kid and seeing the words "Gratis monster" on a cereal box, thinking excitedly that there was a free monster in the box, only to be told that the Afrikaans words meant "free sample". Bummer.  :wink:

I recall in some cereal boxes ( I don't recall which brand), there were free posters inside of Glenn Strange as the Frankenstein Monster as painted by James Bama and the Creature from the Black Lagoon, by Basil Gogos!
Also on the back of some cereal boxes in the late 60's-early 70's- Archie or the Monkess cardboard records! They played too! Lotsa times they would have pencil erasers shaped like Captain Crunch or the Sugar Bear.
Cracker Jacks, I remember getting whistles or little cowboy or Indian figures. That was in the 60's.

Once got a plastic figure of the big bad from 'The Black Cauldron' in a box of cornflakes. He made a handy leader for my undead army in games of WHFB.


(http://i.imgur.com/UKgiTkD.jpg)

Wonderballs:

Sorry... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po915tRgLOY#)

Sorta like a Kinder Egg, except for the U.S. market. The toy was inside a smaller plastic ball cased in chocolate. Always thought it looked like a choking hazard; guess the FDA agreed with me.

Burger King Pokeballs:

Sorry... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1o7XmUJ0s4#)

Burger King got the license to the hottest kids show of 1999, but the toy they marketed had a problem:

Sorry... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6xFoJ3LAwE#)

The toy was too big to swallow, so it was approved for all ages, but it was just the right size & shape to fit over a kid's mouth & nose. A toddler who slept with one wound up dead.  I don't remember either of these commercials; I just remember seeing a clip on the news about it. Burger King kept the license & produced new, safer toys.

Submarine

Sorry... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS4HSPCjC28#)

Never did the baking powder thing, but I think I had one of these; they were still in cereal boxes in the late 90's. I think mine was yellow.

General Mills CD-ROMs

Sorry... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL2uGtQtILc#)

These came with a game, an offer for Lightdog filtered internet services, & a collection of digital books, including the Bible, which apparently led to some hullabaloo & eventual recalls.  We had these, & still have them. Didn't know there were books or controversy till I read about the hullabaloo a few years ago.

I also remember jam jars which we'd rinse out & use as glasses; they had cartoon characters on them. And Teeny Beanie Babies from McDonalds, & toys for Disney's Hercules, also from McDonalds.

Some bags of Frito corn chips had Frito Bandito pencil erasers. I had one. But they changed to W.C.Frito erasers-I had one of those too.  :smile:

I have the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Frankenstein, and Wolf Man Burger King toys.  From the 90's, I believe.

Ever look up how much those might be worth to a collector?

I kind of remember those!
(https://www.mrbreakfast.com/images/list5_honey_comb_monkees_flexi.jpg)
I remember there being a big Post Cereal tie-in with the Superfriends for a long time.  If you didn't win some sort of sweepstakes (hmm.. there could be a sweepstakes thread too!) top prize you could get a cheapo prize like a Wonder Woman or Batman Frisbee, or something.
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/InKQHwsUSR8/hqdefault.jpg)

Well, when I sent in 3 boxtops of this cereal they sent me a spoon just like the one the berserker on the cover is holding...

(https://i.redd.it/xyt0f8bozqdz.jpg)

tiny little robots with moving arms and legs that were given away by mammoth mart when i was around 9...still have 3 of them.

Millions of those were given away-they ain't worth much. I see them at flea markets all the time going for a dollar or less.

I had all 4 of those posters... Frankenstein, wolfman (not from the movies) Creature, and...?

I dunno- I only had the Creature and Frankenstein ones.
I bet I can figure it out, though-! :thumbup:
EDIT- the PHANTOM OF THE OPERA as painted by Gogos-the same one used as the little picture in the corner of old Famous Monsters magazine covers.
And they came in Super Sugar Crisp boxes! That's why I had them. Mary Joe would by that stuff all the time. We NEVER had eggs and bacon for breakfast There were 7 kids. We had cereal, oatmeal. Cream of Wheat, or rice and milk.

Cost of a dozen eggs in the 1960s: $0.57. Adjusted to 2019: $4.50  :buggedout:

damn! where do you live, claws? i pay a buck 19 for a dozen eggs! it's the bacon that's getting up there in price, THAT'S 4.50 a pound.

Well, I reckon that's why we never had them. My Dad might have made $2 dollars an hour in '69-'70. Might- I really don't know.
I know we went barefoot in the summer, because shoes were for school and winter only. In the summer, we went barefoot.

I once got this blue plastic bull that snapped apart so you could slip a tiny secret message inside. I think that was the high point of Cracker Jack prizedom, but in 2000 I bought some Golden Grahams to get a free PC disc with Scrabble on it. I played that game for years til I switched operating systems. Prizes are definitely slipping, Russell.

I was pointing out how much a dozen eggs from the 1960s would cost in 2019 if you'd adjust for inflation 1960s $0.57 to today  :smile:

I know-it's crazy, right?
I remember in 1969 a comic book cost 15 cents! How much are they now? $5? Cigarettes were 50 cents a pack-they go for almost $8 bucks for Marlboros!

OH! sorry, i read that wrong, lol! :cheers: