Golden Grahams: The Currency of the Realm
Image credit: Dalboz17
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I deviated from my regular Food Nazism and purchased some Golden Grahams. Kind of like how you take pride in the sheer number of years since you last threw up, it dawned on me that over a decade had passed since I last owned some.
I was taken aback by the box artwork — a slathering of cartoon characters and a bastardization of the logo. It bore no resemblance to the monolith of packaging depicted above. I remember as a kid how Golden Grahams stood out because of the crisp lines and the focus on the cereal itself. In other words, Golden Grahams had lost its way, at least in terms of advertising.
The inside of the box was equally shocking: instead of the faux foil-paper that normally encased Golden Grahams, instead they were encased in the same plastic used by lesser cereals. No other cereal featured this metal-like seal, and it made Golden Grahams seem even more rarified. With the generic plastic wrapper, it had been cast out from cereal heaven to troll amongst mortal mill.
Besides the box facade, the last thing I remember the most is how Golden Grahams held a special place in my the Bruce Hall cafeteria. At Bruce Hall, all of the cereals were kept in their original boxes and housed in a metal cart. Every cereal — Froot Loops, Lucky Charms, Life — was in abundance, but there only seemed to be one box of Golden Grahams at any one time. First thing each morning, I would secure this box and sit with it at the center table. As it stood in this exalted location, friends and strangers-who-weren’t-friends-yet would visit, sit at the table, and share these same Golden Grahams. In a way, we were breaking a form of bread. In another way, Golden Grahams helped to unite the realm.
Now if they would just bring back the metal wrapper, I could forgive the box art.
