Offtopic: Teddy Grahams!

Remember Teddy Grahams? Man, I do. These graham cracker snacks were introduced in 1988. They were really heavily promoted when they came out. We didn't even have a TV when I was growing up and I still remember the commercials. They featured the bears playing in a rock band and you can see the commercials on Youtube. If you want to sing along, the words to the song are:

We just want to eat
tasty teddy grahams.
Scrumptious bunch of bite sized bears
full of golden graham.
Oh let them be
your teddy grahams.
(Delicious graham snacks in honey, cinnamon and chocolate.)
Just want to eat those teddy grahams!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjEJS4BXv2s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42te2VnzLhY

The claim that they are "wholesome" seems a little hard to believe. "Full of golden graham" sounds pretty weird too, but it makes a little more sense when you learn that graham is a type of flour similar to whole wheat flour. I have my doubts about whether it's "golden," but I've never seen any graham so I don't really know. The breakfast cereal known as "Golden Grahams" is marketed by General Mills, but as far as I know they never took any legal action against Nabisco for using the term "golden graham" in this commercial. Maybe that's because Nabisco used it in the singular, or it was sufficiently distinguished from the breakfast cereal. I bet Golden Grahams don't really contain much graham. They're probably not as good as Kix, either. Kix are pretty good. They're kid-tested and mother-approved. Oh, and peanut butter Cap'n Crunch isn't bad as a sugary breakfast cereal, if you can get past the "Cap'n" in the name.

It strikes me as a little odd, also, that the bears are singing about how good Teddy Grahams are. I guess in this case the cookies are just shaped to look like the bears. But sometimes it's the food itself singing about how good it is. That's pretty sick, when you think about it. Those commercials should show that singing food meeting a gruesome end as one of the overly wholesome, focus grouped children in the ad eats it.

Now the funny thing is, I didn't have a Teddy Graham until I was legally an adult! I don't remember the exact moment, but it was sometime in the last ten years. To be honest, it wasn't all that good. It was like a denser, lower-quality animal cracker, coated in some kind of tacky fructose-based sweetener that left my hands sticky. I would rather have animal crackers. They're better tasting, don't leave your hands messy, and offer a variety of shapes. They're not limited to just bears. Although it is worth noting that Teddy Grahams featured bears in two different poses - arms down and legs closed, and arms up with legs open (what message was THAT sending to our children?). In a way, this description of a Teddy Graham is also fitting of the commercials, just replace "my hands" with "my brain" and it's about the same effect.

Nabisco, the maker of Teddy Grahams, introduced a Teddy Grahams breakfast cereal at some point. I've never had the cereal, but I don't imagine it's very good. It's too bad there is no animal cracker breakfast cereal. I imagine this cereal to be just like animal crackers, but more resistant to sogginess.