Erik Eats Cereal: Lucky Charms

Faith 'n begorrah, this is probably the most offensive opening to a blog post I've ever done.

But it's okay, I'm technically Irish.

I completely lost my train of thought there for a moment.

Clarification time:  This isn't my first time experiencing Lucky Charms.  This was (and still is) the go-to cereal for my sister since she was little.  I would have some now and again, but being the older sibling I didn't want to just eat the same cereal as my sister, so I was constantly trying to find my own "official" cereal out of the options available to me.

Of course, when I was little, options for cereal included stuff like this:

But we'll come back to that at a later date.  For now, let's discuss funky marshmallow shapes.

Here's a fun fact to let you know how old I am, when I first saw this cereal advertised on television, it didn't have most of the shapes they have now.

Here's the chant I remember from my youth:  "Pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers, blue diamonds!"

In 1983 they added purple horseshoes, and I vividly remember the commercials.

Later on came red balloons, and I phased out of the cereal completely after that.  It appears now there's hourglasses and shooting stars and other stuff.

First off, I want to say I love the fact that apparently Lucky's "secret vault" is based off of the "Jehovah is spelled with an I" portion of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, presumably because "only the penitent leprechaun will pass" didn't make it past focus groups.

So, Erik, how does it taste?  Well, I'll tell you...after I address one thing.

The oat shapes.

I'm pretty sure these are cranked out of the same place that did Friskies dry cat food.  I mean, look at them.

Okay, in the upper left we have what's either a plus sign or an "x."  In the middle we have... a spade?  Is the plus sign supposed to be a club, then?  Are these playing cards?  Okay, in the lower right, we have...is that a tree?  A bell?  Finally, in the upper right there we see what I always thought was a fish.  Is it the Jesus fish?  Are they saying that Jesus ranks right up there with a bell as a great symbol but doesn't even compare to how awesome a "red balloon" is?

I have no idea what the symbolism of those pieces are supposed to mean, and I'm pretty sure nobody at General Mills knows, either.

Taste-wise, the cereal was sweet, but not too sweet.  The marshmallows only take up about a quarter of the space (yes, I once sorted out a package of the cereal to figure out the oat-to-marshmallow ratio, though that was some time ago), and since I can't tell if the oat pieces have any additional flavoring besides being really strangely shaped Cheerios, the flavor pretty much balances itself out pretty well.

I will freely admit it is a good cereal, but still...I think that part of my brain that's still a child (as opposed to the part that still loves cartoon shows and the like) still refuses to accept it as my own cereal simply because my little sister still eats it.

I give it an 8 out of 10.