A Passion for Cereals & the Creation of a Great American Book
I was just a skinny little kid from Cleveland, Ohio. But I had a very strong rule. I was proud of my rule. I bragged to all my friends about it.
My rule? I had to eat at least one bowl of every cereal that hit the market. Whenever I saw a commercial for a new creation I ordered his mom to buy it. The sweet and kind woman that she was (and still is at age 92!), she would do just that.
It happened quite often. After all, it was the 1960s. The Baby Boomer Era. It seemed there was a new sweet cereal concoction on the grocery shelves every week.
Then, in 1965, it happened. I was watching Yogi Bear one day when a commercial flashed on the screen for a cereal called Banana Wackies. Spokescharacter: The Wackies Gorilla. It was a banana-flavored Lucky Charms clone.
I knew I would hate it. Mikey hated everything but Life cereal. I only hated banana-flavored stuff. I was in a quandary. Should I break my rule and skip the Banana Wackies? Or should I suck it up and slurp it down?
I had a rule. And this one was not meant to be broken. I told mom she must buy Banana Wackies, I would eat one bowl of it, and she would toss the rest in the garbage. And that’s exactly what happened. My love for cereal had prevailed. And it grew over time.
Fast forward to 2002. I had two passions – cereal and sports. I had been writing my whole professional life about sports. But I had never written about cereal, the No. 1 food item bought in America. Nobody had ever created what I envisioned as a fun, funny, colorful coffee table book about cereal. So I embarked on piecing together The Great American Cereal Book.
It was a painstaking project, but a labor of love. It took many years of research from me and partner Topher Ellis. We tracked down about 800 cereals from 1863 to the present. The job also required finding collectors from Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire. Professional photographers Robb Ritzenthaler and Don Chick took hundreds of wonderful photos of cereal boxes and memorabilia in the homes of those collectors. A total of 350 made it into the book.
The last piece of the puzzle was finding a publisher. And I could not have found a better one than Harry Abrams, which transformed those wonderful images into fine art. What was published was a beautiful combination of a cereal encyclopedia and coffee table art book. It’s no wonder not one negative word has been uttered or written in the media about The Great American Cereal Book.
It would make a unique and wonderful gift for a family member, friend or yourself. And you can only have it personalized and autographed right here. Click on the “Contact Marty/How to Order” tab above for the easy directions. – Marty Gitlin.
My rule? I had to eat at least one bowl of every cereal that hit the market. Whenever I saw a commercial for a new creation I ordered his mom to buy it. The sweet and kind woman that she was (and still is at age 92!), she would do just that.
It happened quite often. After all, it was the 1960s. The Baby Boomer Era. It seemed there was a new sweet cereal concoction on the grocery shelves every week.
Then, in 1965, it happened. I was watching Yogi Bear one day when a commercial flashed on the screen for a cereal called Banana Wackies. Spokescharacter: The Wackies Gorilla. It was a banana-flavored Lucky Charms clone.
I knew I would hate it. Mikey hated everything but Life cereal. I only hated banana-flavored stuff. I was in a quandary. Should I break my rule and skip the Banana Wackies? Or should I suck it up and slurp it down?
I had a rule. And this one was not meant to be broken. I told mom she must buy Banana Wackies, I would eat one bowl of it, and she would toss the rest in the garbage. And that’s exactly what happened. My love for cereal had prevailed. And it grew over time.
Fast forward to 2002. I had two passions – cereal and sports. I had been writing my whole professional life about sports. But I had never written about cereal, the No. 1 food item bought in America. Nobody had ever created what I envisioned as a fun, funny, colorful coffee table book about cereal. So I embarked on piecing together The Great American Cereal Book.
It was a painstaking project, but a labor of love. It took many years of research from me and partner Topher Ellis. We tracked down about 800 cereals from 1863 to the present. The job also required finding collectors from Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire. Professional photographers Robb Ritzenthaler and Don Chick took hundreds of wonderful photos of cereal boxes and memorabilia in the homes of those collectors. A total of 350 made it into the book.
The last piece of the puzzle was finding a publisher. And I could not have found a better one than Harry Abrams, which transformed those wonderful images into fine art. What was published was a beautiful combination of a cereal encyclopedia and coffee table art book. It’s no wonder not one negative word has been uttered or written in the media about The Great American Cereal Book.
It would make a unique and wonderful gift for a family member, friend or yourself. And you can only have it personalized and autographed right here. Click on the “Contact Marty/How to Order” tab above for the easy directions. – Marty Gitlin.