The King and I

Le Roi et Moi!

Just recently I received a surprise package from fellow blogger Andy B. Inside were a load of Kelloggs Crater Critters from Sugar Smacks cereal in 1970. These were among my special favourite giveaways in cornflakes, but also the source of some serious frustration. Back in the day, I got a box of cereal and in the very first (and only) box I opened, I received two mispacked figures of Glubber and Gloob. Because I wouldn't eat the cereal, my mum wouldnt get any more, so my chances of finding more critters became very remote. However, all my school friends got them and I managed to swap all kinds of other junk including bubblegum cards and rubber monsters and ended up with an orange Miss Venus and a King Crater, albeit missing the crown. When I got home after school, I lined them all up proudly on the mantlepiece above the fire to admire them. In my haste, I tipped Miss Venus off the edge and she disappeared into the hot embers of the open fire. I was gutted.

I still had the King and his consorts, but as the offer moved on, the opportunities for finding the rest of the band disappeared. It was only after I discovered the net and quite recently got in touch with cereal maestro Mike Speth, that I discovered that the original molds for the premiums had been bought by another company and repro critters were being produced in Mexico. Mike also enlightened me to the existence of two further critters available only in Japan and a special King variant which had the legs in a different configuration. King Crater was specially interesting to me because of his resemblance to the Martian Tripod that had appeared in the Tell Me Why serialisation of War of the Worlds about the same time.


Until recently, id been unable to find any of the original critters, although I did manage to buy some of the lesser repros on ebay. These are not as good quality and were produced in garish flourescent colours.

BUGSY BACKBONE

GLOOB

GLUBBER

LUNARTIC

UPSY DOWNSY

MISS VENUS

JODRELL JIM

KING CRATER

When Andy sent me the collection of Critters, I was utterly amazed to find that his orange King still had his crown and Upsy Downsy even had his hat! With a little coercion, I managed to get the orange pretender to the throne to give up his crown and finally after so many years of ignomany, gave my purple King Crater a coronation he deserved. No wonder he's smiling now!