The crunchy-puffed-wheat-coated-with-sugar-and-honey Breakfast ...
Oh er .... they'll never fit that on their shopping lists. We'll have to think of another name. What about, "Puff-kins"?
A cereal before my time, by the makers of Weetabix. The description suggests they were similar to Sugar Smacks and Sugar Puffs. Were they available for long? No idea ... maybe you can tell me. What I do know is they came with little interlocking creatures: the Poppit Puff-kins.
While not quite as acrobatic as the Acrobates which Wotan and Paul have been showing to us, they did have some tricks of their own. Each Puff-kin could connect with another in four different ways, enabling them to form stacks, pyramids and chains. There were twelve colours, if the advertisements are to be believed.
Were these premiums given away throughout the (presumably short) availability of the cereal? Wish I knew. All the information I have is that the Poppit Puff-kins were advertised during the opening month of 1960 and Weetabix ran at least three "colour in this picture" competitions.
I'd love to know more about them and the cereal itself. So excuse the pathetic quality of the photograph of my own little troupe of Puff-kins and shed some light on these, please.
wow - never seen those before, or heard of the cereal. They look like linking 'Upsy-Downsy' from the Cratwr Critters. Neat
ReplyDelete(nods) reminded me of Upsy Downsy too. Perhaps these are his cousins, the Rightway-Upsies.
ReplyDeleteOh dear, I'm showing my age. I vaguely remember girls at my infant school having these.
ReplyDeleteBut apart from that, nothing to add I'm afraid!
Even that is useful to know, Andy. So thank you for mentioning it.
ReplyDeleteWOW I has some of these WANT ONE NOW!
ReplyDeleteThey were great do you have some or one to sell?
ReplyDeleteI looked for these on line when I first got my computer in 1999 my wife thought me crazy and when I typed the word puffkin men i got a gay xxx site she was not amused.
Yes they were in the packet and a black one was the rare one...also white I had half a dozen alas no more.
ReplyDeleteSorry, John, but I don't have any for sale. But good luck with the search.
ReplyDeleteI shall show even greater age than other posters. As a young boy back in the last century Puffkins were one of my favourite cereal collectibles, so much so that one of my nicknames was Puffkin.
ReplyDeleteThey were certainly available before 1960: I recall playing with the first one I had (red - I think I still have it) at our house in Staines, from where we moved in 1959. There WERE 12 colours: black, white, brown, red, pink, dark blue, light blue, orange, yellow, light green, dark green, and purple. I used to have a full set, but that disappeared in a house move many many years ago. By my observation, the rarest was light blue: I only ever had one (against many red ones, for example) and that got chewed by the dog. The cereal itself was the Nabisco/Weetabix version of Sugar Puffs. I don't know when they were taken off the market: they must have been available for a few years, as I must have had at least three dozen of the things, and Puffkins were not the only breakfast cereal we ate: there were spacemen in removable helmets in some other cereal, not forgetting baking powder submarines.
A few Puffkins were sold on Ebay a year or so ago, and there is currently one (white one) for sale: search for "cereal puffkin".
Excuse me now: I'm going out to get a life ...
Would you get me a life too if you're popping out for one?
ReplyDeleteDo you remember if the actual cereal tasted nice? It was before my time, so I'm curious.
I know the Spacemen and Submarines you mention: 1960 and 1957, respectively. Both Kellogg's and the Subs were issued again in 1963.
I'm not sure you should trust either the memory or taste buds of someone whose grandaughter finds amusing that when he stays with her (she's 3) his breakfast cereal is a mixture of bran flakes and coco pops. My wife won't buy coco pops at home, but I think the mix keeps me regular AND sweet.
DeleteTo be honest, it is a VERY long time ago. They were very similar to sugar puffs, but I think a bit less sweet: I can't now remember whether they were honey coated (a la sugar puffs) or sugar coated like Frosties.
One other fact about puffkins (the little men): their vulnerable point is their thumb, which after a few hundred insertions/detachments tended to come apart from the rest of the hand. You've probably found this out for yourself. REALLY heavy play resulted in the top brim of the "hat" coming loose.
The advertisement describes them as "The crunchy-puffed-wheat-coated-with-sugar-and-honey Breakfast." So maybe they were a bit of both?
ReplyDeleteThank you for the memory.
I now have NINE..hahaha
ReplyDelete