Cereal Wednesday Episode XI: Cap’n Crunch

Cap’n Crunch is probably one of the sweetest cereals. It maintains its crunchiness despite the milk’s best attempts to soften it up. The ability of the cereal to remain as crispy as it does also is an attributing factor to the fact that the cereal has been known to cause abrasions to the palette of the eater’s mouth.

Cap’n Crunch is by far one of the most famous pre-sweetened cereals on the market since its introduction in 1963. Cap’n Crunch has also become a popular pop culture icon due to the advertisements featuring him sailing on his ship, the USS Guppy, with three children as shipmates and battling his arch-nemesis Jean LaFoote. Modern commercials usually involve Cap’n Crunch crashing through a wall with his ship to save the day of a modern problem using his cereal as the solution and to “crunchitize” it. Most recently, LaFoote has made a re-appearance in attempts to steal the cereal from the Cap’n.

Pamela Low, who has been credited as the food flavorist creator of the unique coating on Cap’n Crunch Cereal, passed away on June 1, 2007 at the age of 79 in New London, New Hampshire.

Cap’n Crunch premiums have always been highly sought after items. One of the items, a whistle from the 1970’s, has been credited with being the tool that spawned early hackers into the creation of “blue boxes”. The whistle, when used properly, emitted a tone at 2600 Hertz that was used by AT&T to indicate a trunked line was ready to route a new call. This effectively disconnected one end while the other end stayed connected in “operator” mode. The irony that a Cap’n Crunch toy whistle gave rise to the piracy of American telephone lines has not been lost in the hacker subculture.

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For more information you can visit the Official Cap’n Crunch website.