The Count Everyone Forgets

Mea culpa, mea culpa, maximum mea culpa.

Dear readers, we here at the Society work hard to bring you quality content. We cover all things horror, from books, to games, to movies, so this oversight on our part is inexcusable. If you decide never to read us again, I understand. We’re all doing a lot a of soul searching right now.

There’s many Counts in horrors–Dracula, The counting Count, Countess Bathory, but we here at the Society have criminally ignored the one, the greatest Count of all.

The one. The only. The Count Chocula.

Image via Bloody Disgusting

Count Chocula was first introduced by General Mills in 1971 as a follow-up to the success of Lucky Charms, which was the first cereal with marshmallows. Copywriter Laura Levine created him as a play on Bela Lugosi’s scene chewing performance in the original Dracula, and artist George Carn (of Trix rabbit fame) created the iconic appearance. While the strawberry flavored Frankenberry launched at the same time, Count Chocula was the runaway success, and both monsters were followed a year later by the first blueberry cereal, Boo Berry. Yummy Mummy and Fruit Brute were eventually introduced, but outside of a couple of cameos in the Reservoir Dog and Pulp Fiction movies, they never really caught on. (The Count and Frankenberry were also the first chocolate and strawberry flavored cereals on the market at the time.)

Horror fans are ridiculously, beautifully hardcore, and even for a breakfast cereal, the fandom has the same hardcore approach. There’s people who collect the boxes, archived that one time the monsters went into space, ones who’ve complied every single commercial from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s (the ones with Boo Berry are actually funny), there’s even bloody fan fiction. And yes, since this is the internet, there’s an erotic fan fiction (I didn’t read it but I’m very disappointed in everyone. Especially you, Jim. We all know it you). In fact, it was big news when Fort Collins had a shortage of Count Chocula. It went to a good cause though: Count Chocula beer.

Tragically, Count Chocula, Frankenberry, and Boo Berry are only produced during September and October,  but the love for the Monster Cereals is only growing, and in 2014, several DC Comics artists re-designed the monsters.

So why not start off the High Holy Days of Halloween right, you can pick up the Count and his friends now.