10 Discontinued Cereals From The '80s We Still Mourn At The Grocery Store

Few decades of the 20th century evoke such visceral nostalgia as the '80s. Life was simple, hair was big, and everything was colorful — including the food. And no meal fully embraced the vibe of the decade more than breakfast. Nowadays, we tend to enjoy a simple smoothie — maybe with a side of toast, if we're extra hungry — as our first meal of the day, but in the late 20th century, breakfast was a loud, lively event. Families gathered in their yellow, plaid kitchens to break bread and discuss the day ahead over pancakes, eggs, bacon, Tang, and — of course — cereal.

Today, cereal is no stranger to the breakfast table, but it played a much more crucial role in the weekday mornings of the '80s. Back then, breakfast cereal was heavily associated with kid-friendly mascots and popular television and movie characters, bold colors, and funky flavors. In the 21st century, this trend is slowly withering away, but roughly half a century ago, it was at its peak.

In this list, we'll explore some of the cereals that acted as a testament to the pop culture-obsessed, fun-loving decade, leaving our breakfast aisles and our hearts far too soon. Those of us who are old enough to remember these vintage breakfast cereals would gladly give up our granola and bran flakes to have just one taste of these nostalgic favorites again. So grab your collectible Tony the Tiger spoon, your Star Wars-themed juice glass, and flick on the TV just in time for "Thundercats" to come on — it's time to dive into some iconic '80s cereal.

In 1988, Dunkin' (then called Dunkin' Donuts and originally known as Open Kettle) took a brief hiatus from cranking out the country's favorite morning drink and pastry combo to specialize in a different kind of breakfast: cereal. But Dunkin's presence in the cereal aisle wouldn't last long. The donut-themed cereal was made by Ralston, later to become Ralston Purina (yes, the pet food brand), which was then acquired by Nestlé. Ralston was responsible for producing a fair amount of the now-nostalgic cereals of the '80s, and this creation from Dunkin' is one that's still near and dear to our hearts.

The cereal was designed to mimic two Dunkin' donut flavors that are still incredibly popular today: plain glazed and chocolate. An ad for the cereal featured Fred the Baker (that's right, Dunkin's mascot at the time was hilariously just a regular guy named Fred) using a tiny rolling pin to roll the extra-mini donuts that would make up the cereal. Despite having a genuine pastry flavor and appealing to both kids and adults alike, the cereal only stuck around for a year — we assume Dunkin' had bigger donuts to fry.

The lovable golden protocol droid of the original "Star Wars" trilogy had a name that was begging to be turned into a cereal. C3PO's were released by Kellogg's in 1984, a year after "The Return of the Jedi" — the final film in the trilogy — debuted in theaters. "Star Wars" mania was still in full swing (and, let's be honest, it still is over 40 years later) when C3PO's appeared on store shelves, and despite being far less colorful than other popular cereals, kids couldn't get enough.

The cereal pieces were shaped like figure eights to vaguely resemble asteroids and were made of a blend of wheat and corn. They had a mild honey flavor, maybe as a reference to C-3PO's golden, shiny hue. Actor Anthony Daniels donned his golden suit once again to make an appearance in the ad for C3PO's, which advertised the collectible stickers and trading cards that came in each box. Some boxes even featured a large image of Luke Skywalker's face, which kids could cut out and turn into a mask to make their Star Wars action role playing games all the more realistic.

C3PO's reign over the breakfast aisle was short lived. It was discontinued in 1986, only two years after its release. While it's unclear exactly why the fan favorite, honey-flavored breakfast disappeared, some assume that the Challenger disaster triggered a rapid decrease in the popularity of anything space-themed, and thus, Kellogg's scrapped the cereal.

Rocky road ice cream — with its oddly sentimental inspiration — is objectively one of the best ice cream flavors of all time. It has a little bit of everything: decadent chocolate (but not too much chocolate), crunchy nuts, and squishy marshmallows. The ingredients combine to create a flavor and texture sensation, no hot fudge or sprinkles required. In the 1980s, an absolute breakfast genius at General Mills had the wherewithal to create a cereal inspired by this iconic flavor, and to say it was utterly delicious would be an understatement.

Although it leaned more toward dessert than breakfast, Rocky Road Cereal was a favorite way to start the day for kids and their parents. Released in 1986, it consisted of sweetened corn puffs in chocolate and vanilla flavors with chocolate-coated marshmallows and nuts. Like any good breakfast cereal of the decade, it featured a literal band of characters on the box and in colorful TV ads. Van was the guitar-playing, vanilla-flavored puff, Choco was — you guessed it — the chocolate puff band member, also on guitar, while Marsha was the long-legged, heel-clad singing marshmallow. Despite its excellent taste and popularity, Rocky Road Cereal didn't even make it into the next decade; it was discontinued by 1989.

The year was 1988: George H.W. Bush was elected president, the Soviet-Afghan War was coming to an end, and Nintendo Cereal System was unveiled by Ralston. Although it didn't appear until the end of the decade, this cereal was easily one of the most iconic breakfasts of the '80s. Nintendo was — and truthfully, still is — in its heyday, and every kid around the country was utterly obsessed.

There was something special about this cereal that other brands couldn't compete with: It was a two-for-one deal. Each box contained two different cereals in separate bags, with separate spots to pour them from the box. The Super Mario Bros. Action Series was deemed "fruity," while the Zelda Adventure Series was berry-flavored. The cereal shapes were inspired by items and characters from the two games, including Goombas and mushrooms for the Mario side, and hearts and boomerangs for Link's. Obviously, every kid was mixing them together to create a fruity-berry crossover game in their bowls.

The Nintendo Cereal System box was decked out with images from the two side-scrolling games, and we're sure more than one or two kids cut them out to hang up as a free poster for their bedroom. However, the cereal also came with a mail-in offer for a chance to win an actual free poster, and even a chance at a Nintendo Entertainment System, complete with all of its bells and whistles. Today's cereal could never compete with this.

Kellogg's — the breakfast cereal pioneer responsible for some bizarre, infamous food trends — released Apple Raisin Crisp in 1984. It didn't stick out in the breakfast aisle among the flashy cereals of the decade; instead, it carved out a quiet niche for itself that was more likely to attract adults rather than kids. There were no mascots to be found and no catchy jingles — just tasty, sweetened cereal with the fruits of the forest in every bite.

You can think of Apple Raisin Crisp as a predecessor of today's Honey Bunches of Oats. It had chunks of real dried apple and plump, juicy raisins mixed into sweetened, crunchy corn flakes. The original box resembled an old-fashioned needlepoint design, likely invoking the nostalgia of a fresh-baked pie at Grandma's house. Later iterations of the cereal came with instructions for baking an easy, classic apple crisp with it, plus coupons for free instant coffee. We're sure that the kids of the '80s found this cereal incredibly boring, but adults of the decade loved its lightly sweetened cinnamon and real fruit flavor. It stuck around for a bit but was discontinued roughly around 1991 for unknown reasons.

Ahh, simple Pac-Man. We've come a long way since the days of the little chomping man who ate ghosts and ran into walls, but there was a time when the delightfully spherical character reigned supreme in the world of American pop culture. Pac-Man was featured everywhere, from clothes to TV cameos, and — of course — in our breakfast. Pac-Man cereal (branded as just Pac-Man) was full of round, yellow corn cereal that looked very much like the titular character, plus marshmallows in the shape of his favorite things to eat: Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde. You better believe that kids would take the marshmallows and cereal pieces out of the bowl, much to the dismay of their parents, in order to re-create the legendary game on their breakfast tables.

Pac-Man cereal was introduced to grocery store shelves by General Mills in 1983, three years after the game was first launched. But it ceased to exist come 1988, when more advanced games were starting to take the place of the humbler Pac-Man. Around the same time, Ralston unveiled a new Donkey Kong cereal, so some believe that General Mills was inspired to create Pac-Man cereal as a means to rival the other video game-themed breakfast offerings of its competition. General Mills succeeded because most of us don't remember Donkey Kong cereal, but we remember the Pac-Man breakfast nearly as vividly as we can recall the game itself.

It appears that ice cream for breakfast was a popular trend in the '80s, and we don't think anyone was complaining. Ice Cream Cones Cereal came about in 1987, courtesy of General Mills. The cereal had two different shapes: round corn pieces to resemble scoops of vanilla ice cream and brown, triangular pieces to look like ice cream cones. It was possible to stack the ice cream scoops onto the cones, so kids could pretend they were munching on the world's tiniest ice cream cones. The boxes came with chances at various prizes, including free Dairy Queen Blizzards, a gumball machine coin bank, and a kid-sized piano.

The mascot for Ice Cream Cones Cereal was Ice Cream Jones (we think General Mills' creativity meter must have been running on empty at this point). In TV ads, he peddled around on a bike with a small ice cream freezer attached, distributing his goods to children in the woods, for whatever reason. The kids don't think he'll find them deep, deep in the wilderness, but Ice Cream Jones always finds a way.

The cereal only lasted for about a year in the '80s, but 2003 marked the centennial anniversary of the invention of the ice cream cone, so General Mills thought it would be fitting to bring back Ice Cream Cones Cereal for a brief revival. The 2003 version resembled cookies and cream ice cream and came with coupons for Nestlé ice cream treats.

Mr. T might be the most iconic '80s character of all time, so it's no surprise that the man — who was a unique blend of fictional character and real, live person — got his own cereal. Despite looking intimidating, the actor-wrestler had a cult-like following with children thanks to his good-natured, wholesome persona and cameos in the decade's most popular movies and TV shows.

Mr. T's cereal — brought to us by Quaker — is one of the most famous retro breakfast cereals, despite not having much going for it, flavor-wise. It had a Cap'n Crunch-like taste, which was plenty sweet and vaguely fruity, like many quintessential kids' cereals. The cereal pieces looked like the letter T, naturally, and were considered to have a "crispy corn taste with a touch of brown sugar."

In the words of Pee Wee Herman imitating Mr. T: "I pity the poor fool who don't eat my cereal!" The cereal famously made an appearance in "Pee Wee's Big Adventure," when Pee Wee poured Mr. T's cereal all over his Mr. Breakfast. The cereal was all over TV as ads starring a cartoon depiction of Mr. T with his crew of adventurous kids. The team was also featured on the cereal box in the form of comics, so kids could go on a mini-adventure while they chowed down. The cereal was released in 1984 and lasted longer than most themed cereals of the decade; it wasn't pulled from store shelves until 1993.

Television commercials for breakfast cereal always feature a glass of orange juice alongside the cereal bowl, so Kellogg's likely thought to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, and turn the juice into cereal. OJ's cereal was said to contain all the vitamin C of a 4-ounce glass of orange juice (so, half a glass of orange juice) and the delicious, juicy citrus taste that kids love. The cereal had orange corn-based spheres and O-shaped cereal pieces in a lighter orange color, for a little variety, although the cereal had one flavor and one flavor only: orange.

The mascot for OJ's was a wranglin' cowboy by the name of OJ Joe (there seems to be a theme of unimaginativeness with these cereal mascots) who would round up oranges into a pen to later be squeezed into OJ's. The cereal is a bit of a controversial pick for this list — some folks remember it fondly, associating the taste with summer mornings in the mid-'80s, reveling in no school and Saturday morning cartoons. Others despised the cereal, and we can't say we blame them; orange juice and milk are a notoriously dastardly combo. But then again, we don't see much wrong with citrusy Froot Loops. Nevertheless, the cereal was released in 1985 and subsequently discontinued soon afterward in 1986, likely due to a general distaste for orange combined with milk.

Cracker Jack has been synonymous with baseball since 1908, when "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" was one of America's most popular songs. But in the 1980s, they were briefly associated with breakfast, too. Few snack foods from the previous centuries are as iconic as Cracker Jack. It came into existence all the way back in the late 1800s as a mixture of candy-coated popcorn and crunchy peanuts. Later, toys were added to the box, and Cracker Jack suddenly became a two-for-one delicacy for kids.

Cracker Jack brand cereal was marketed as having "nutritious golden puffs of cracklin' crunch," plus, just like the original snack, a surprise toy in each cereal box. We imagine that the cereal's flavor was caramel-like and malty, just like its inspiration. The box looked nearly identical to the iconic Cracker Jack popcorn box, with Sailor Jack and his dog, Bingo, and a red and blue striped design, so it was easy for parents and kids to seek it out on store shelves. Ralston unveiled the cereal in 1983 and discontinued it not long after for undisclosed reasons.