Crispy Critters

Crispy Critters was a breakfast cereal manufactured by Post Cereal starting in 1963. The sweetened cereal, made of oats, consisted of animal-shaped pieces akin to animal crackers. Television commercials featured a cartoon lion, Linus the Lionhearted, voiced by Sheldon Leonard, with the slogan "The one and only cereal that comes in the shape of animals,"[1] sung to the tune of "Trepak" from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker ballet. The next year, Linus was spun off into a Saturday-morning cartoon show, which ran for two years on the CBS network, then reran on the ABC network for three more until 1969. After a decline in popularity, the cereal was discontinued.

Post made an unsuccessful revival attempt of the cereal in 1987.[2] This time, the commercials featured a puppet named "Crispy" with pom-pom antennae and a furry yellow body. Crispy spoke and sang with a voice based on that of Jimmy Durante including the nonsense phrase "Ah-cha-cha-cha". This puppet interacted with a child actor and was accompanied by smaller puppets which resembled the individual pieces of cereal. Together, these puppets spoke the cereal's tagline: "It's indubitably delicious."

The phrase "crispy critter" entered American military, police and firefighter slang as a name for a burnt corpse.[3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Topher's Breakfast Cereal Character Guide - Post
  2. ↑ X-entertainment article
  3. ↑ p.513 Partridge, Eric; Dalzell, Tom & Victor, Terry The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English 2006 Taylor & Francis


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