Whether or not you had siblings to fight with, the excitement of opening a brand-new box of cereal just for the prize inside was real. Compare it to the anticipation of running downstairs and seeing presents under the tree Christmas morning. Or the joy of both your parents saying “yes” to you having a sleepover with your closest friends. The excitement that came with knowing you were about to open a brand-new box of cereal to claim the prize inside… Priceless. And almost everyone in my generation understands what it meant now that we no longer have this to look forward to.

Now, I don’t have siblings, so I feel like I got pretty lucky in this department. Most likely I was the one who was going to get the prize. The sense of urgency didn’t really exist. My only competition was my dad, but most the time he waited for me before opening the new box of cereal and figuring out how to get the prize out. (Apparently, this phenomenon was not just for kids!)

That doesn’t mean I hadn’t witnessed epic breakfast table fist fights over who got to retrieve the cereal box prizes. All of my friends had (older) siblings, which made for great morning entertainment.

“Don’t put your entire arm in the cereal box!!” You’d hear someone’s mom shouting from the kitchen.

So, we had to find clever ways to get to the bottom without actually placing an entire arm in the bag of cereal. Flipping the box horizontal and sliding the cereal around. Pouring all of the cereal out into a giant bowl, retrieving the prize, and then putting the cereal back into the box. How about shaking the box until the prize floated to the top?

Cereal box prizes were introduced in the 1930s by General Mills. Shortly after, Kellogg’s hopped on board in the 1940s. The craze lasted a pretty long time before companies scaled it back. A few reasons come into play when asking, what happened to the free prizes?

Chalk it up to safety concerns, or, to cut expenses. Updated marketing laws also played a role. By the early 2010s, the days of finding free toys inside your box of cereal were gone.

Nowadays, instant gratification comes mainly from the internet and social media. Which most can deem far less healthy than simply having a breakfast table free-for-all.

My generation is all grown up now. The prizes we once frantically rummaged for as children have either been lost, broken, or thrown away. We shall never forget them! Or that feeling of excitement when we first opened that brand-new box of cereal at the breakfast table.