I've received quite a few messages from folks who remember the Banana Wackies cereal, not one of whom recalls it favorably. The nicest thoughts were from my buddy Paul Dini…
In response to your recent post, I have also used the expression "Banana Wackies" throughout my childhood and into adulthood.
And for the same reason — overexposure to those commercials. I actually tried the cereal though. It was unremarkable. The cereal pieces were Styrofoamy in taste, but the banana marshmallow bits were not bad. My sibs and I picked them out and squeezed them together to make banana marshmallow balls out of them. On the whole, I preferred Quisp when it came to mid-1960's junk cereals, and even now I still order it online.
I did consider using the expression "Banana Wackies" in a cartoon when when describing some crazy character, but I wasn't sure if I would be risking copyright infringement, so I changed it to "wacky bananas" instead.
And the following is from C.K. Wyman…
What I remember about Banana Wackies is that at age 10, I finally found a pre-sweetened cereal with cartoon characters on the box that I didn't want to eat. I did not then think such a thing was possible, though I came close with the original Lucky Charms. I think they've improved Lucky Charms since then because I had a few spoonfuls of it once when my son insisted I buy it for him and it wasn't as bad as I remembered.
If they still made Banana Wackies, I would not buy it for him no matter how many tantrums he threw, not because I wanted to spare him the agony of having that garbage in his mouth but because some court would pronounce me an unfit parent, take him away from me and throw me in a cell somewhere. And I'd deserve it.
I remember in the sixties eating one bowl of Lucky Charms at a friend's house and deciding that could last me for the rest of my life. I also remember the frustration that the cereals I did like were never the ones that offered the neatest prizes or offers. I'm sure I got my mother to buy me a number of cereals I would never have otherwise eaten because they had Hanna-Barbera characters on the front and inside, a Huckleberry Hound or a Yogi Bear something.
But as a kid, I think my favorite cereals — going just by what was inside the box — were Cheerios and Rice Krispies. This was when Huckleberry Hound was on Sugar Stars, Yogi Bear was on OKs, Snagglepuss was on Cocoa Krispies, Quick Draw McGraw was on Sugar Smacks, Pixie & Dixie and Mr. Jinks were on Kellogg's Raisin Bran…
No child should be pulled in that many different directions.