Remember those free badge promotions featuring Gerry & Sylvia Anderson's Captain Scarlet and Joe 90 TV series, that were given away inside boxes of Kellogg's Sugar Smacks during 1968.
These vintage freebies are certainly popular collectables with Gerry & Sylvia Anderson fans.
There was six in each set but as you had no idea what you were going to get in the packet you were bound to end up with a one or two duplicates of a badge you already had, which meant time for some swapping with your mates.
The first set of six badges features characters from Captain Scarlet and Mysterons.
They're quite small, just 32 mm.
Five of the badges have a simple head and shoulders painted depiction of familiar members of Spectrum - Captains' Scarlet & Blue; Col. White, Lt. Green, and Destiny Angel , whilst the sixth has the Spectrum emblem.
On the rim of the badges, written in tiny writing: ATV (Overseas) Ltd. 1967.
The badges were promoted using this colourful eye-catching comic advertisement. This one shown is from TV Century 21 , dated January 30th, 2068.
Television advert for the badges: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSf_mXM3Fxw
S.I.G for Kellogg's Sugar Smacks!
Later in that year, Sugar Smacks began promoting Gerry & Sylvia's new TV series, Joe 90.
A brand new set of six badges showing characters from Joe 90 were given away.
Each badge, was again a simple painting, in the same style of the previous Captain Scarlet ones, presumably Kellogg's used the same artist.
On the rim written in tiny letters: ATV (Overseas) Ltd. 1968.
You got Joe 90 with his special glasses, Joe McClaine without, Prof. McClaine, and 'Uncle' Sam Loover. The other two show the World Intelligence Network badge, and finally the Joe 90 series logo.
I should add, even though it's not a breakfast cereal, that Lyon's Maid had their own somewhat underwhelming free Joe 90 badge promotion. By sending five tokens from Zoom iced lolly wrappers, you got in return a free Joe 90 badge.
Kellogg's Sugar Smacks are smashing!
Back to Captain Scarlet, and I must admit these badges shown are a bit of a mystery to me. They look pretty good , and there's plenty of them about, too many to be bootlegs. People tend to describe them as cereal give-aways, but as yet I can't find any precise information about them.
The five badges, which at 38 mm are slightly bigger than the Kellogg's and Lyon's Maid examples, show vehicles from Captain Scarlet, using art from the specification sheet that would have been given out to artists and advertisers at the time.. As I mentioned, they are often rather vaguely described as vintage, and from some un-named cereal promotion. I must admit I don't remember seeing any promotional adverts for them or which cereal, if any produced these badges. Could they have been a freebie with packets of tea, or sandwich spreads? Heck! they might not have even been free!
Has anyone out there got any info on them, or better still an advertisement ?
More Kellogg's Sugar Smacks promotional posts to follow soon.
Great post. I loved these as a kid (I still have a picture of me at primary school wearing my Star Trek one!). Haven't got any others now but I am starting to collect the little toys that came with cereals at that time.
ReplyDeleteI loved those free badges and the comic adverts, Kev, all very nostalgic, plus the badges aren't stupidly expensive these days either. : )
DeleteStay tuned for a couple more Sugar Smackers!
Lovely blast from the past, Scoop. I still have some of my original badges from Captain Scarlet, Joe 90, Doctor Who and Star Trek. No complete sets though. My odd assortment are still pinned to my original teddy bear's mum-knitted jacket. I loved collecting them as a kid.
ReplyDeleteGood to hear you've managed to hang on to most of your original badges, Tony. They were great fun to collect, weren't they. Doctor Who is next on my list.: )
DeleteLoved these when I was very young also the Thunderbirds ones too.
ReplyDeleteThese badges were certainly popular with kids at the time, and I have to say with readers here, this is certainly proving to be a popular nostalgic post.
DeleteLovely post! I love the crazy typography on the Captain Scarlet ad! I wonder if badges have fallen out if favour because kids these days might hurt themselves on the sharp points!
ReplyDeleteThanks Lewis, I enjoyed putting it all together. You raise a interesting point, I don't know whether badges have fallen under wheels of the health & safety juggernaut . How us oldies managed to make it this far without being overly protected, and generally just a little bit of common sense is certainly a mystery! ;D
Deletehttp://www.lestersdomain.org/superm/merchand.html this long established guide suggests they're City Magazines and Century 21 Publishing but there are question marks here too Scoop!
ReplyDeleteI've a full set of TV21's and I
Deletecan't recall seeing them mentioned there Woodsy. I'll recheck but I think it's fair to say the person who wrote that was just guessing, unfortunately.
A very useful blog post. I'm sitting here with both my originals of the Lyons Maid Joe 90 badge, along with four of the Sugar Smacks Joe 90 badges. A great idea to publish the ads from TV 21 along with the dates the ads first appeared - very useful indeed.
ReplyDeletePleased you find it useful, and hopefully nostalgic, baggsey. Cheers
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