Kellogg's has always done promotional cereals for movies; from "Finding Nemo" to "Star Wars", "Robots" and even "Cat In The Hat". It came as no surprise when the Pirates of The Caribbean boxes appeared mysteriously around the same time as the film. Being fans of the film and loving Jack Sparrow's very idiosyncratic character I decided to give them a try. I was under the assumption that there were different boxes to collect but only saw one with Sparrow on the front. The boxes haven't been seen in mainstream grocery stores for over a year but they have surfaced in dollar stores, most of which have exceeded [or are close to it] the 'best by' date.

Kellogg's Pirates of The Caribbean Cereal

I believe that cereal can be eaten any time of the day or night. One local grocery store has an entire half of an aisle just for boxes cereal and that doesn't include oatmeal, breakfast treats like Pop Tarts and breakfast drinks. With so many to choose from why would someone want to get this particular cereal? Well, most people would buy it because of the cross promotion with the film. From the box, the description of the cereal reads, "Naturally sweetened chocolate pearl shaped cereal with pirate shaped marshmallows". The consumer translation to that is Cocoa Puffs with Lucky Charm styled marshmallows. It left milk with a light brown color and light chocolate taste to it but it wasn't worth the almost five dollar a box price it had when it was first released.

So the actual cereal is nothing more than your standard Cocoa Puffs with some hard marshmallows added to it. When I bought the first box I was expecting to see some detail to the marshmallows but that isn’t the case, the product pimping of pirate hats, swords, treasure chests, gold coins and ships wheels were nothing more than ill formed globs of compressed marshmallows that quickly lost whatever shape they had when the milk hit them. Sure, it was something that you could toss into a bowl, add some milk and chomp down on for breakfast but at the same time, when you are imagining oh-so-chocolaty 'black pearls' and mouth watering marshmallows and you end up with this, well, it is a little disappointing.

Per Kellogg's suggestion, one serving is one ounce and it contains 110 calories, 25 grams of carbohydrates [15 from sugar] and one gram of protein. Keep in mind that this is the dry mix not with milk. If you are adding milk you will have to add those calories and carbs to the total. This is a little less than some cereals but it's not as good as a Granola blend with a banana sliced on top of it. This was targeted towards kids and the appeal of having a pirate type breakfast [do pirates even eat breakfast?] and the toys that were added into the packages as well as the special mail in promotions like a pirate bandana or pirate eye patch with ohhhh x-ray vision. The flashing skull that we got in one of the boxes worked for about two weeks then died.

The 11.8 ounce boxes had a rather high price when they were first introduced but when they weren't hot sellers most stores dropped the price to something that was a bit more comparable to other similar cereals. I paid about $2.50 or $3.00 for a box but if memory serves me, I did have coupons that could be used on any Kellogg's cereal. From a collectors standpoint, these would be really nice to add to a Pirates of The Caribbean collection but you would want to remove the cereal from the box using the bottom flap then resealing it. I know, some people say leave the cereal in it but to me that is just more of a chance of it getting trash or showing bulging as the product settles over time.

In addition to the cereal there were also Kellogg's Fruit Flavored Snacks and four different types of candy in the M&M 'Pirates of The Caribbean' Collection. That was just the food side of the marketing campaign; there were also toys, clothing and movie products released at the same time or shortly before the films release.

The Bottom Line

Even though this might be all but gone from mainstream grocery stores you can probably still find it at places like Big Lots, Dollar General or dollar stores that sell discontinued food items. The date on the box flap should show the 'best by' date but come on, if it’s a dollar you might as well take a chance on it. Just dump it out into a bowl and if anything move, chuck it outside for the birds. If you get them for a dollar a box you can double or triple your money selling the flashing pirate skulls that came inside specially marked packages. I don't avidly collect Pirates of The Caribbean merchandise but it sure was nice waking up and having breakfast with Jack Sparrow or sneaking into the galley and having a late night snack with him!

As always, thanks for the visit…

~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~

© 2008 Freak369


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