Red Region Inferno

Pink Hearts, Orange Stars, Yellow Moons, Green Clovers, Blue Diamonds, and Purple Horseshoes!
Yes… another instalment to my cereal mascots in flesh.
This is Lucky the Leprechaun – also known as Sir Charms, and originally called L.C. Leprechaun.
He makes for an excellent tattoo.
Especially if your Irish.
This particular tattoo client was not only Irish… He is a bright red hair and white freckled skin type Irish.
Yep… Nobody better to sport a Lucky The Leprechaun tattoo.

Lucky the Leprechaun was created in 1963 by an advertising company employed by General Mills.
The Idea was to market the new cereal around the idea of charm bracelets.
Originally Lucky charms didn’t have a sugar coating, but people didn’t dig it so they added the sugar coating to up sales.
It worked.
Americans love their sugar!

Lucky Charms is basically just toasted oat-based pieces with a sugar coating and multi-colored marshmallow bits (called marbits) in various shapes.
At first Lucky Charms cereal contained marshmallows in the shapes of pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers.
Blue diamonds, purple horseshoes, red balloons, pots of gold, leprechaun hats , and shooting stars all came later.
General Mills likes to switch the marbits up pretty often and uses some limited time marbits offers to keep interest (and sales) strong with children.
The funniest one to me was the green pine tree-shaped marshmallows. WTF?

When we think of Lucky charms what goes though our heads?
- They’re Magically Delicious!
- They’re Always After Me Lucky Charms!
- Pink Hearts, Orange Stars, Yellow Moons, Green Clovers, Blue Diamonds, and Purple Horseshoes!
Those are the tag lines I remember most.

Yep, fun stuff.
As a kid I liked Lucky Charms a lot.
As an adult I find the marshmallow content a bit to high, but still sometimes get a craving.
As a tattooist I enjoyed tattooing a Lucky the Leprechaun on some very stereotypical Irish skin.

This is Sonny the Cuckoo Bird.
Or maybe I should say this is the original Sonny.
The new version looks a bit different.

Sonny is cuckoo for coco puffs

Sonny is the official mascot of Cocoa Puffs cereal.
What Sonny is famous for is being a freak.
In commercials usually they have him doing something semi normal until he runs into something that reminds him of Cocoa Puffs and the he freaks out and says “I’m cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!”

Sonny’s name is not a real name.
In the beginning he hung out with his grandpa in commercials who was “Gramps” and he was called “Sonny.”
After they ditched Gramps in commercial land they just kept on calling him Sonny.

Sonny was born back in the 60′s (Or introduced to us I guess) and he is a cool and freaky bird.
They updated him in 2004 to a kinda stupid version.
I don’t really dig the new version because he has no soul and is more of an ADD spaz than a freaky cool bird.
I guess that appeals to the new generation of kids better though.
Oh-Well.

Sonny makes a great cereal mascot tattoo because he is bright, energetic, fun, and eye catching.
I totally got into doing this image as a tattoo.
The client claims he gets a lot of positive comments and a few “What the heck did you get that for?” type comments too.
He digs it.

Honey Nut Cheerios is one of my very favorite cereals.
This stuff is YUMMY!

Honey Nut Cheerios was introduced in 1979 by the General Mills as the first variation from their very popular regular Cheerios.

When it first came out they actually had nuts stuck to the cheerios with sticky honey and sugar.
In 2006 for some reason they took away the nuts and changed up the flavor.
At first I wasn’t impressed with the change, but it grew on me and I ended up loving the cereal all the more for it’s new flavor and texture.

Honey Nut Cheerios has a great mascot.
Buzz The Bee or as some still call him… “BuzzBee“.

Honey Nut Cheerios Buzz The Bee Tattoo

This cereal mascot character has been one of the most popular ever.
It was introduced with the very first television commercials for the cereal and has never needed replaced to keep people interest.
Both adults and children alike love the bee.

Originally this funny little bee didn’t have a name. He got his name in 2000 when a fifth grade girl won a national contest to name the bee, dubbing him “BuzzBee”.
Later this was shortned to just “Buzz”.

My favorite Honey Nut Cheerios tag-line was (and is) “It’s a honey of an O.”
It’s kinda naughty and very yummy… I love stuff like that.

A few other good ones existed though. My faves in order….

1. It’s a honey of an O.
2. It’s Irrezzzzistable!
3. Little O, Big Taste!
4. Nobody can say “No” to Honey Nut Cheerios

The most disliked tag-lines for the cereal (my least favorites) are…

1. Bee happy, bee healthy! (the current one)
2. Race for the taste!
3. It’s Honey Nut Cheerios! (duh?)

So… as a tattoo is Buzz cool?

Heck yes he is.

Buzz makes a great tattoo and like a slinky he is fun for a girl or a boy.
Buzz has appeal to both sexes and doesn’t seem to be a pansy, but he is no tough guy either… and he represents one of the most yummy cereals in existence that actually isn’t 100% bad for you.

Honey Nut Cheerios actually still has some nutrition and is semi high on fiber.
Yay for bad for you cereals that we can pretend to be eating semi healthy with!

In short… “The Honey Nut Cheerios Bee is a rock’n tattoo!”

Time for another cereal character tattoo!

Today we have Jose.

This fabulous little monkey may look like he is eating a poop ball… but nope.

Jose The Cocoa Krispies Monkey As A Tattoo

What we got here is a cocoa krispie.
Jose was the first mascot for Cocoa Krispies when it came out back in 1958.
They traded him in pretty fast for Coco the elephant, but Jose the monkey was first.

I guess Kellogg’s figured out it looked like this funny little monkey was eating a turd. Maybe somebody complained… I don’t know.

Certainly  makes a pimp cereal tattoo though.

Just for fun I will give you some Cocoa Krispies mascot history.

• 1958 is the one and only Jose. A super pimp chimp with a taste for poo.
• 1959 we get Coco the elephant who just happens to look like a pink Dumbo.
• 1963 The Hanna-Barbera character ‘Snagglepuss’  took the job of  Mascot.
• 1965 Cocoa the ape man came and went.
• 1965 Snagglepuss returns.
• 1968 brings us Ogg the Caveman. He sucked! Total dork of a caveman in my opinion.
• 1971 brings us Tusk the brown elephant. He acts just like Coco, but is brown with tusks.
• 1981 Kellogg’s gets smart and just gives the job to Snap, Crackle and Pop.
• 1990  They make Coco the Monkey the Mascot again, but this time he is a bad ass and doesn’t eat poo.
• 2001 Someone at Kellogg’s realizes people like Snap, Crackle and Pop , so give them the job back.

Yep… Seems Kellogg’s just doesn’t know what direction to go with this particular cereal and the mascots for it’s publicity campaigns… but that’s cool.

Chocolate cereals kinda sell themselves.

Do it like a toucan.
Toucan Sam that is.
His #1 most famous line is… “Follow my nose, it always knows”
Yep. This is a tattoo of the famous Froot Loops cereal mascot Toucan Sam.

Toucan Sam “Follow my nose, it always knows”.

I enjoyed many a bowl of these tasty cereal yum yums as a child.

Loved the commercials with Toucan Sam leading the way through the jungle… yep, they had me addicted through advertising.

Recently while staying at the Hampton Inn in Seattle I found they had boxes of Froot loops down stairs with the free breakfast.
I decided to grab a box and to my surprise… “blue loops”!
WTF… When did that happen?
The Froot Loops I remember didn’t have blue. It is cereal sacrilege.

I know Archie Bunker wouldn’t have been into blue loops.
(For those that didn’t watch All In The Family – Froot loops was Archie’s favorite cereal)

Oh well… here are some great Froot Loop facts.

• Kellogg’s introduced Froot Loops in 1963.
• They have made other varieties of the cereal including a lower sugar version and a marshmallow version.
• Froot Loops cereal is fortified with 11 essential vitamins and minerals and is low in fat.
• The into on the frootloops.com site annoyed me so much I couldn’t even look at the site to get any cool froot loops facts to post here.

So… not to have a short and boring post.
Lets look at the term “Froot Loop” as “Fruit Loop”.

The word “Fruit Loop” is sometimes used as an area description for cruising and hanging out in gay circles… usually you find many gay bars, restaurants, stores and other businesses targeted to gay men and women in these areas.

A fruitloop is a descriptive term for people we consider crazy. “That dude is a fruit loop!”

Fruitloops are a common slang term for those sets of six rainbow-colored metal rings worn as necklaces, bracelets, etc to show gay pride.

To do a “fruit loop” is slang for walking through a gay bar or club while  looking for some action.

Hmmm… I think that is about it. If you have some others let me know.

So… The tattoo.

No big story to it at all. The guy who got it pretty much got the idea from looking at pictures of other cereal tattoos I had done…. He was checking them out and asked .. “You done Toucan Sam?” and I said “nope”… so he said “I want Toucan Sam”.

That’s the whole darn story.
Told ya there wasn’t much to it.

General Mills started pumping out Count Chocula cereal back in 1971.
That means I was lucky enough to grow up with this oh so healthy chocolaty breakfast treat.
I never got into Franken Berry, but Boo Berry was my favorite of the monster themed breakfast cereals.
The problem with Boo Berry is it was so hard to find unless it was getting close to Halloween.
Count Chocula on the other hand was readily available.

So Chocolate it was!

This super sweet Count Chocula tattoo owns with his old-school cereal style.

The latest addition to my ever expanding collection of cereal themed tattoos is the count himself.
Not the new style one you find on the box these days, but the old-school image that they used for all those years I ate the stuff.
The image I remember from all the awesome monster cereal commercials.
I point that out because I am not a huge fan of the new way they have rendered him. Actually I think they ruined all the monster cereal mascots.
Oh well, new days, new crowd of kids = new ways to sell stuff to them.

Anyways…. Count Chocula makes for a way pimp style and super fun tattoo.