To some, cereal is their life blood. It has been the only constant, permanent fixture in their lives. For decades people have began their day with cereal. Some interject it for an early lunch or make it a mid afternoon snack. Some people go wild and make it their dinner. (These are what we call "poor people", but hey I ain't judgin'). But make no mistake - cereal is not only a building blocks of not only a well balanced nutritional day, but the foundation of a goddamn graet American lifestyle. But of all the cereals that run up and down the aisles at your Market Baskets, your Shaw's, your Stop N Shop's, which one rules them all?

Mindwafers dares to ask....

What is the greatest cereal of all time?

Cookie Crisp.

I just love the commercial where the dog hollers "Coooooooooooooookie Crisp". Something about that kills me. I have no idea why. Cookie Crisp is a great cereal, don't get me wrong, but there are hundreds of cereals that make their living with cookie/chocolate as their cereal and they don't stand out half as much as Cookie Crisp. Maybe it was the whole commercial campaign of robbers with those Zorro masks always trying to steal Cookie Crisp but being outsmarted by a group of wily kids addicted to cookie cereal. So I guess Cookie Crisp gets on the list on the strength of their commercials. Something tells me they won't be the first one on this list that pulls that off.

Frosted Mini Wheats.

I must have ate about 60 pounds of Frosted Mini Wheats from the years of 1996-2000. Despite the occasional Ego waffle or burnt Pop Tart as I madly ran for the bus, the Frosted Mini Wheats were as synomous with my high school as Western Civ, football games, and not getting laid. Something about milk mushing up that frosted square and getting one part complete barren of frosting, and the other side covered in sugary frosted splendor really did a number on me. I was a hardcore Frosted Mini-Wheats addict. I would easily crush two bowls at breakfast before school--barely able to fight the urge for a third because they were just so damn delicious. To this day I'm not really sure why Frosted Mini-Wheats tickled my fancy so much. There wasn't much a jazzy cereal box--the schizophrenic Mini-Wheat guy who constantly argued with his frosted half wasn't that cool of a character--but still I lived and died by the FMW. Everyone now and then I'll dip back into the Wheats, pick up a box and remember the good old days: chugging a bowl of the wheats, watching back to back Saved By The Bell reruns, racing down my street to catch the bus, or firing up my crappy Neon and listening to 2-Pac and Biggie while driving to the whitest high school in Masschusetts. Ahh, those were the days.

Lucky Charms & Trix.

These guys get on their commercial appeal alone. I was never that big of a fan of either cereal (honestly I don't even think I ever ate Trix once) but their marketing and promotional skills alone make these world-class cereals. When you compare these two cereal icons--the Trix rabbit and Lucky the Cereal Leprechaun--you see that they aren't that different. With Trix, the neighborhood children are constantly keeping vigil that the rabbit doesn't steal or have or even taste their precious Trix, almost to a cruelty point. With Lucky Charms, the same neighborhood kids are all about catching Lucky and stealing his cereal so they can enjoy it. In both cereals the cereal is so godlike - so magically delicious if I may paraphrase - that neighborhood kids will defy logic, gravity, physics, and go to the ends of the Earth to deny Lucky & Trix a taste of their precious cereal. I may need a correction on this but aren't both these cereals just basically marshmellows with shapes of stuff in them? I could be wrong, never being a Trix or Lucky Charms kid growing up. But depsite that--and this is the exact reason it makes the list--these two guys are the most recognizable cereal faces out there. I mean the Trix Rabbit and Lucky could have spawned their own endorsements deals or ABC sitcoms. There are ripoffs everywhere--look at the Celtics. Their mascot is named Lucky too--and what is it? A wily leprechaun decked out in green. These guys even had major marketing campaigns based on ludicrous cereal contests. (I remember them both, sadly: For Trix, it was voting on whether they should finally give Trix a taste of his precious cereal after something like 50 years of denial; for Lucky Charms, kids got to vote on what the next marshmellow shape would be. I even remember the winner: a hot air balloon. Yes I fully realize I am a complete loser for knowing that.) But I gotta give credit where credit is do: Trix and Lucky Charms revolutionized the cereal mascot genre and, with the state of country is in right now, will probably get Hollywood Walk of Fame stars next to Ryan Seacrest and Twinkie The Kid.

Cap'N Crunch Peanut Butter Crunch.

Blows regular Cap'n Crunch out the water. Like completely destroys it. I enjoyed regular Cap'n Crunch, but I specifically remember the first day my Dad brought home this new-fangled Cap'n Crunch Peanut Butter Crunch with its crazy orange box and after one bite I was hooked like a junkie on High Street. I didn't even bother with milk-- it was all big handfuls straight out of the box like I was eating potato chips. It's barely even considered a cereal in my household, it's more like desert. We eat fistfuls of it after meals, in between meals, out of salad bowls, in ice cream, it's friggin insane. It's like a Twilight Zone epiosde where everybody on Earth enjoys Cap'n Crunch Peanut Butter for its cereal value and we're the one crazy family that just mows it like it's the fifth, unnamed food group. If you bring Peanut Butter Crunch into my home, you will make a friend for life. 

I will also give props to Reese's Peanut Butter Puffs. In my mind they taste pretty similiar, but you can't deny it's effect on the world. People will straght up MURDER you for a bowl of Reese's on some days.

Ghostbusters cereal.

Everybody had a weird cereal growing up based on something completely abstract and stupid. Addams Family, Super Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Gem--all awful cereals that in some point in life our parents bought us just because we were amazed at the cool cereal box and more importantly to shut us up. Well mine was Ghostbusters. I wasn't even that big of a Ghostbusters fan, I just had to have the stupid box with the giant Ghost with the Red Circle through it, plus I wanted to eat ghost and ghoul-shaped marshmellows and pretend I was Winston saving the day from ecoplasm terror. (By the way that could have been the gayest sentence I've ever typed in my life.) I had to have Ghostbusters cereal. It didn't matter that the whole thing was a sugar explosion that I definitely should have done without as a young tot. And Ghostbusters had to be one of the lamest "movie/TV-inspired" cereals out there. There were literally hundreds and for some reason I remember Ghostbusters. I mean right now at age 28 I still obesses over GI Joe, Thundercats, and Transformers but for some dumb reason I was the kid that had to have Ghostbusters The Cereal. Talk about lifelong regrets. But there is one cereal that I will never ever regret, a cereal that changed countless lives in countless homes in countless bowls across the nation, and that cereal is none other than...

Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

The phenomenal. The ultimate. The best. The Muhammed Ali of cereals--the greatest of all time. I don't know how the fine folk at Geberal Mills constructed such an awesome cereal--it really seems quite simple when you break it down, light toasted squares with an orgasmic crunch of sparkling sugar and peppered with brown sugar--but I break my childhood into 2 categories: B.C. (Before Crunch) and A.C. (After Crunch). I wish I was joking but there really is something life alterating about Cinnamon Toast Crunch. It is such a delicious cereal that your first bite just paralyzes you. You can barely lift the spoon after the first mouthful goes down. It's so good that I can completely overlook the fact that the Cinnamon Toast Crunch chef guys are complete ripoffs of Snap, Crackle & Pop of Rice Krispies fame. Completely overlook it. That's how powerul the draw is with Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I'm not even ready to discuss Peanut Butter Cinnamon Toast Crunch--if I was, I would get about 6 words into my little rant and immediately quit my job and head for the nearest Market Basket in the area. So what else can I really add or elaborate on when it comes to the CTC? Nothing really. It's like saying Tom Brady is a great quarterback or The Sopranos is a pretty good TV show. No shit they are. You don't need any follow up. And Cinnamon Toast Crunch doesn't need any more accolates than what people have been saying for years--no check that, decades. This could be the biggest no brainer in the history of my blogs, folks. Cinnamon Toast Church is greatest cereals of all time. Go grab yourself a bowl..you won't be disappointed.