Franken Berry



Franken Berry is a member of the line of monster-themed breakfast cereals produced by General Mills for the North American market. It contains strawberry-flavoured corn cereal bits and marshmallows. Franken Berry is also the name of the cereal's mascot, a variant of Frankenstein's monster.

Monster themed cereals of the 1970s
In 1971, the first two cereals in the line were introduced, the still-available Count Chocula and (strawberry flavored) Franken Berry. Franken Berry was very popular at that time, even though the initial batches of the cereal used a dye that didn't break down in the body, causing many children's feces to be bright pink, a symptom sometimes referred to as "Frankenberry Stool." Boo Berry was released two years later, in 1973, and Fruit Brute appeared a year after that, in 1974. Fruit Brute was discontinued by 1983. General Mills tried replacing Fruit Brute in the late 1980's with Yummy Mummy in 1988, but that too had a short shelf life when it was discontinued in 1993. Boo Berry and Franken Berry are sometimes mistakenly thought to be discontinued as well. In reality, their distribution is just much lower and more sporadic than that of the flagship cereal Count Chocula. The best time of the year to find Boo Berry and Franken Berry is around Halloween. Target and Wal-Mart are among the stores that have been known to carry these more scarce cereals during October. They can be found year-round in the Midwest at Wal-Mart Supercenters and on Amazon.com. In addition, they have been spotted year-round in some Wal-Mart Supercenters in the East.