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For this #WhateverWednesday, we’re taking a few minutes to check out a toy that is more fun than frightening: the Jada Toys Count Chocula!
Back in 1971, General Mills introduced two new cereal mascots to compete with Kellogg’s Tony the Tiger and others. They saw a chance to offer chocolate- and strawberry-flavored cereals, so they introduced Count Chocula and Franken Berry. With their fun characters and marshmallow bits, these cereals quickly became favorites among fans.
The cereal’s mascot is a friendly vampire with a cartoonish grin and prominent fangs. He wears a high-collared brown cape and a matching tuxedo. Notable features include elongated ears, a large nose, and distinctive, swooping, chocolate-colored hair. The character’s voice was modeled after Bela Lugosi’s Dracula, performed by Jim Dukas until 1978. Legendary voice actor Larry Kenney, best known as Lion-O from ThunderCats, took over in 1978 and voiced the Count for decades.
Several notable actors appeared in Monster Cereals advertisements before achieving fame, including Kirk Cameron, Christina Ricci (seen above in 1990), and Hilary Duff. In 2005, Count Chocula appeared in MasterCard’s “Icons” Super Bowl commercial, joining other famous mascots at a dinner table. Then in 2010, General Mills launched Count Chocula cereal bars and made Franken Berry, Boo Berry, and Count Chocula cereals available only for a few months each fall, around September and October.
This Jada Toys Count Chocula 6-inch action figure was officially released in October 2021 as a part of the Cereal Monsters line celebrating the 50th anniversary of the General Mills mascots. It was packaged in a familiar retro-style cereal box and included an alternate head and a miniature cereal box accessory.
The figure moves pretty well and looks just like the character from the cereal boxes over the years. The head was easier to remove than on his strawberry counterpart, but I broke an elbow joint right out of the box because the joints were stiffer than Frankenberry’s. I still wish Jada had added extra hands and a cereal bowl, but the hands that come with it can hold the mini cereal box, which features some cool artwork on the back for a cardboard mask to cut out. 😄
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