My longtime pal Bruce Reznick sent me this link to an article about the origins of Frankenberry and Count Chocula, which are among the few sugary cereals I never ate as a kid. There was a time when I tried each new Kellogg's or Big "G" product as it came out and each time decided that while the box might be more exciting and the prize might be more enticing, the cereal itself wasn't as good as Sugar Frosted Flakes…or even Cheerios if I dumped enough table sugar on them. Years later, I had one spoonful of Count Chocula and decided that contrary to all my expectations, it was possible for something to have too much chocolate in it. I didn't even feel that way about a Hershey Bar but the cereal was an overdose.
Every time I see those cereals though, I flash back on one memory. Here — I'll share it with you…
Back in the sixties, the members of our illustrious Comic Book Club were occasional visitors to the "Ackermansion," which was the home of Forrest J Ackerman, editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine and all-around science-fiction fan/agent/guru. Mr. Ackerman was very nice to us and he welcomed our club, as he welcomed so many, into a dwelling festooned with memorabilia and collectables from the history of s-f and monster movies. Everywhere you looked, there were pictures of Chaney, pictures of Lugosi, etc. The Vatican probably displays fewer images of Christ Almighty than Mr. Ackerman had around of Boris Karloff. (This was not, by the way, the Ackermansion in Los Feliz, which many folks reading this perhaps visited. I went there too but this was the previous Ackermansion, the one on Sherbourne just adjacent to Beverly Hills.)
We were all fond of Forry (as he asked us to call him) to some extent but found him and his home a little creepy, perhaps by design. We were kids and he was an adult with an actual job…but we didn't take our fannish obsessions to quite that level. And we joked about Forry…not to his face, of course, but we'd say things like, "Hey, did you hear? Forry Ackerman went to see Richard Burton in Hamlet and he walked out on it because there were no monsters in it!" One of our club members did a very funny impression of Forry touring the Louvre and asking everyone, "But why aren't there any pictures of monsters?"
So one morning around 11 AM, we're going over to Forry's to talk to him about something and as we're walking towards the front door, I say to my friends, "He's probably sitting in his kitchen eating Count Chocula and saying, 'This is great stuff! At last, they finally made a monster cereal!'" My friends and I all howled at this, then Ackerman's assistant answered the door and let us in. He steered us towards the kitchen and we walked in there…
…and there was Ackerman sitting at the breakfast table, eating a big bowl of Frankenberry with the box next to him. He looked up at us and said, "This is delicious! I'm so glad they finally made a monster cereal!"
Well, we just laughed for about the next hour.
Forry didn't quite understand why we were falling over in hysterics, leaning on each other for support, and why we couldn't say two words to him without launching into additional spasms of laughter. He finally decided he'd said something very witty and he enjoyed the audience response. Then about the time we got it under control, he opened up a kitchen cabinet where he had about six boxes each of Frankenberry and Count Chocula and he said, "Would any of you like to join me in a bowl?" Whereupon we laughed for another ten minutes.
I liked Forry Ackerman in spite of that and a few questionable business dealings in which he tried to involve me. But to this day, that moment with the Frankenberry is my most vivid memory of the man…and I can't look at a box of either cereal without giggling.