25 discontinued cereals that disappeared from store shelves

Most of the pieces in a box of Hidden Treasures were empty. General Mills filled only some of its sweetened corn squares with cherry, grape, or orange icing, so every spoonful was a gamble. "Things aren't always what they seem," the box warned, though sharp-eyed kids learned to spot the filled pieces by their seams. The gimmick sold the cereal more than the taste did, and General Mills retired it by 1995.

Rainbow Brite was already on TV, toy shelves, and lunchboxes when Ralston gave her a cereal. The box promised "natural" fruit flavors, and the prizes did the rest: kites, stickers, and charm bracelets. Ralston was licensing nearly every character kids loved in the 1980s, and Rainbow Brite was one of the shorter-lived.

General Mills coated sugar cookie-flavored stars in rainbow sprinkles and hired Dom DeLuise to voice its mascot, a genie whose catchphrase was "You wish it, I dish it!" It may have been too much, even by '90s standards. Sprinkle Spangles had a short run and now has a cult following online.

General Mills borrowed the ice cream parlor's flavor, mixing vanilla and chocolate puffs with chocolatey, nutty-coated marshmallows. It was dessert with a breakfast excuse. Rocky Road held on for about three years against Cocoa Puffs and Count Chocula before General Mills pulled it.

Kellogg's reportedly built this cereal after learning that kids were breaking Pop-Tarts into bowls of milk. The company shrank the pastry into bite-sized pieces in Frosted Strawberry and Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon. Pop-Tarts Crunch lasted about a year. Kellogg's revived it as a Walmart exclusive in 2019, and that version didn't last either.

Kellogg's turned its own bake-sale classic into breakfast: crisped rice pieces with a sweet marshmallow coating, with no melting or pan required. It became the rare novelty cereal with staying power. Kellogg's discontinued it in 2020 after a run of more than two decades.

Mini Swirlz was a comeback before it was a casualty. Kellogg's first sold the tiny cinnamon roll-shaped pieces as Cinnamon Mini Buns in 1991, then relaunched them as Mini Swirlz in 2005, later adding Fudge Ripple and Peanut Butter. The brand was retired in 2009. A year later, the same idea returned under a licensing deal as Cinnabon Cereal.

Fred and Barney had their Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles. Post gave the Flintstones' pet dinosaur a cereal of his own: vanilla-flavored rice cereal mixed with colorful dinosaur marshmallows. Dino got about three years. The other two Pebbles cereals are still on shelves.

General Mills shaped its pieces like the letters "E" and "T" and flavored them with peanut butter and chocolate, a nod to the Reese's Pieces that lure E.T. out of hiding in the film. The timing worked against it. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial hit theaters in 1982, so by the time the cereal arrived in 1984, its audience had moved on.

Not every cereal needed a cartoon star or a blockbuster to get noticed. Munch 'Ems kept it simple with bite-sized crunchy pieces, bright packaging, and a name aimed squarely at kids. It arrived in an aisle crowded with established favorites and never found a lasting place.

Ralston put Family Matters' breakout nerd on a box of red and yellow strawberry-and-banana rings, complete with his catchphrase, "Did I do that?" Prize packs pushed "Urkel for President." Most sitcom cereals lasted a season or two. Urkel-Os ran for most of the decade and were still around when the show ended in 1998.

Most Muppets merchandise went to Kermit or Miss Piggy. Post handed this one to the Swedish Chef. The cinnamon stars were "cinnamonnamony" by his account, and the back of the box was full of nonsense puzzles, some of them impossible to solve. Post discontinued it after about a year, then brought it back briefly in 1992. It hasn't returned since.

One box held two games. Ralston split the Nintendo Cereal System into two bags: fruit-flavored Super Mario Bros. pieces shaped like Marios, Goombas, and Koopa Troopas on one side, and berry-flavored The Legend of Zelda pieces shaped like Links, hearts, and keys on the other. Boxes also carried Nintendo Power trading cards. It was built as a limited promotion, and a single box sold for more than $200 on eBay in 2010.

The Rugrats babies' favorite dinosaur got one summer in the cereal aisle. Post made Reptar Crunch as a limited-edition tie-in to the video release of Rugrats: Runaway Reptar, with purple rice crisps and green Reptar-shaped pieces. Boxes carried a mail-in rebate for the VHS tape. By fall, it was gone.

Ralston timed this vanilla cereal to the November 1991 release of The Addams Family, and it leaned into the family's taste. The pieces were shaped like skulls, headless dolls, and Thing, the disembodied hand. Boxes offered flashlights shaped like Thing, Uncle Fester, Lurch, and Cousin Itt. It outlasted the movie's theatrical run by about two years.

Post brought Saturday morning's biggest cartoon to the table with berry-flavored corn puffs. In 1987, Post tried a refresh called Smurf Magic Berries, which was the same cereal in a new box with marshmallows added. The makeover lasted about a year. By 1988, the Smurfs were out of the cereal business.

Pizza-shaped marshmallows were the hook. Ralston mixed them with crunchy cereal pieces, and some boxes came with packets of green-tinted "Honey Ooze" for kids to drizzle on top (a nod to the mutagen that made the Turtles). Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael took over the front panel at the height of Turtle Mania. The cereal lasted into late 1992, a long life for a TV tie-in.

Ralston's cinnamon cereal came with music-themed marshmallows, "Hysterical Postcards," and a mail-in cassette holder shaped like the duo's time-traveling phone booth. Its best publicity was unplanned. Arsenio Hall dared an audience member to eat a bowl on air while he interviewed Alex Winter (Bill). The run was short, and boxes are now among the harder movie tie-ins to find.

Ralston promised "a hint of vanilla, sweet, but no pushover" in this cereal of loosely star-shaped pieces. Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior fronted the box, and one edition ran a sweepstakes for a trip to WrestleMania VIII in 1992. That was as close to a title shot as the cereal got.

Kellogg's released a toasted oat Spider-Man cereal alongside Sam Raimi's 2002 film, and it sold out on its first run along with companion Spider-Man Pop-Tarts. Kellogg's brought both back for Spider-Man 2 in 2004. That was the cereal's last swing.

Kellogg's skipped the marshmallows for Buzz Lightyear's cereal. The whole-grain pieces were green and purple flying saucers, and the box carried adventure stories from Toy Story 2. It lasted longer than most movie tie-ins, about three years. Kellogg's briefly revived it in 2022 to promote Lightyear.

At the height of Pokémania, Kellogg's built a Lucky Charms-style cereal of toasted oats and Pokémon-shaped marshmallows, starting with Pikachu, Poliwhirl, Oddish, and Ditto. A limited-edition run that June switched to Generation II characters. Like the fad it was built on, it didn't stay long.

Ralston shrank the chain's donuts into crunchy pieces in two varieties: Glazed Style and Chocolate Style. The TV ad starred Fred the Baker, Dunkin's longtime mascot, building "the world's smallest donuts." The original lasted about a year. Post revived the name in 2020 as a caffeinated cereal for adults, in Caramel Macchiato and Mocha Latte. That one was gone by 2023.

Kellogg's bet that kids would want their orange juice in a bowl. OJ's were orange, ring-shaped pieces that Kellogg's said carried the vitamin C of a 4-ounce glass of juice. A cowboy mascot named OJ Joe lassoed oranges in the ads, and boxes carried coupons for a free Wendy's Frosty. The problem was the milk. Few kids wanted orange flavor with dairy, and OJ's lasted about a year.

Kellogg's launched the first Star Wars cereal in the U.S. with infinity-shaped pieces of honey-sweetened wheat, oats, and corn. The boxes doubled as costumes, with character masks printed on the back for kids to cut out. When sales slipped, Kellogg's tried an unusual second act. In 1987, it repackaged the identical cereal as Pro Grain and marketed it to triathletes. They didn't want it either.

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