If you’re a foodie like me, you dig learning about obscure facts that will (one day) help you win trivia in a landslide victory. So, to bolster your foodie knowledge repertoire, here are five things you may not have known about the quintessential cereal of the 90s. Eat up.
1. The original Trix mascot was a stick-figure flamingo.
When the cereal first debuted in 1955, General Mills designed a simple, accurate flamingo mascot. We would probably sneer at the thick lines and small eyes of the flamingo (or any mascot from that time, actually. Look at Toucan Sam!).
It would take five years before the Rabbit, originally a hand puppet, would grace the front of cereal boxes.
2. In the nearly sixty years Trix has been around, the Trix Rabbit has only gotten his paws on the cereal twice.
General Mills executives, after withholding Trix cereal from the Trix Rabbit for seven years, became worried that they were sending the wrong message to kids, “by having the Rabbit always fall short of his aspirations.”
‘Twas the American thing to do, they claimed, to put the Rabbit’s cereal fate to a vote. In 1976, slogans like “Let the Rabbit Eat Trix!” beckoned to kids on the typical cereal boxes– all they had to do was send in box tops with their votes. Ninety-nine percent of votes declared ‘Yes!’ They used a similar campaign in 1980, the last time anyone has ever seen the Rabbit steal a spoonful of Trix.
3. There’s a second half to the Trix Slogan.
“Silly Rabbit, Trix are for kids” goes the slogan we all know. This commerical, first shown in the 1960s, shows the devious nature of our favorite breakfast crusader, escaping the clutches of the children who won’t give him Trix, whispering, “and sometimes for tricky rabbits!” Am I the only one who never remembers hearing this?
(Do you want to know what the original original slogan is? “I’m a rabbit and rabbits are supposed to like carrots. But I like Trix.” Silly Rabbit, you were always a rebel.)
4. It was only in 1991 that General Mills made Trix into fruit shapes.
This ad debuted the new fruity Trix shapes with Grapity Purple, Lime Green, Orangey Orange, Lemony Yellow and Raspberry Red in new fruity shapes (these were only four of the five original flavors, thank you very much. Wildberry Blue enjoyed a short cameo appearance in our cereal bowls from 1998-2006, while Watermelon Burst was introduced in 1999.)
In 2006, perhaps in response to this petition, General Mills decided to revert back to the original Trix shape: puffs of popped corn, bringing back the memory of Kix cereal as “nostalgia.”
My childhood feels like a lie.
5. Trix’s 60th Anniversary will be in 2015.
You can make these Dr. Seuss-inspired Trufula Trees with Trix. Who said brightly colored cereal was only good for hyperactive Saturday mornings?