Cap'n Crunch


 * For information on the phone phreak called Captain Crunch, see John Draper.

Cap'n Crunch is a sweetened corn and oat breakfast cereal manufactured by Quaker Oats Company. Quaker Cap'n Crunch was introduced in 1963 and has become one of the most successful sweetened ready-to-eat cereals ever launched. Pamela Low, while working for the Arthur D. Little consulting firm developed the flavor for Cap'n Crunch cereal based on a recipe that her grandmother, Luella Low, used to serve.

The mascot of the cereal is a character named Cap'n Crunch, whose full name is Cap'n Horatio Magellan Crunch. The cereal pieces resemble yellow, slightly-flattened boxes, intended to look like treasure chests.

Variations
A Cap'n Crunch Crunchberries version of the cereal was created in 1967 and also contained spherical pieces in red, intended to represent berries (in the '90s, additional colors of the Crunchberries [blue, purple, green] were added to the mix, but all are flavored the same, regardless of color). Peanut Butter Crunch would follow two years later in 1969; according to sales charts, this version was the most successful. Two more editions were issued in the '70s (Vanilly Crunch and Jean LaFoote's Cinnamon Crunch) but were later discontinued. A special edition named Christmas Crunch was first released for the 1988 holiday season and contained Cap'n Crunch with red and green crunchberries in a green box with the Cap'n wearing a Santa Claus hat. This variety is now only available currently in certain regions of the United States. Another special edition was Oops! All Berries containing nothing but the strawberry flavored crunchberries and none of the corn squares.

Advertising
For over four decades, TV commercials have made Cap'n Crunch a Saturday morning icon. In 1963, the first Cap'n Crunch commercials aired, featuring four children and the canine Sea Dog, who sailed with the Cap'n on his ship, The Good Ship Guppy. The crew was tasked with keeping the cereal safe from the Cap'n's nemesis, Jean LaFoote, the Barefoot Pirate. The characters also appeared in a comic book included in Cap'n Crunch cereal boxes.

Jay Ward is credited with the creation of the Cap'n Crunch character and his Jay Ward Studios produced the first Cap'n Crunch commercials. The commercials have historically used basic cartoon animation; however, Vinton Studios produced a claymation ad during the '80s.

Daws Butler was the original voice of the Cap'n and continued in the role until his death in 1988. Other characters in the original ads were voiced by Ward Studio veterans June Foray, Bill Scott, and Paul Frees.

In modern TV ads, Cap'n Crunch is often seen riding his ship through a wall as the whistle blares. He often comes in the middle of a predicament and uses his cereal to solve the problem at hand by "Crunch-a-tizing" it. Another reference to the cereal's crunchiness, a regular theme used to feature Cap'n Crunch battling off the evil "Soggies" who attempted to "sog out" the taste of his cereal; however, this hasn't been a common theme as of late. In a recent ad, Jean LaFoote returns, this time trying to steal the Captain's cereal recipe.

Cap'n Crunch was the most popular children's cereal from 1965-1971 when Post released its fruit-flavored crispy rice cereal known as Fruity Pebbles. It only took 6 years for Crunch to dominate the stores again, releasing its new flavor of crunch berries, grape.

Relation to hacking culture

 * Main article: John Draper

In early 1971, a Vietnam War veteran named John Draper (later nicknamed Captain Crunch, Crunch or Crunchman) discovered with his friend Joe Engressia that a toy whistle that was, at the time, packaged in boxes of the cereal could be easily modified to emit a tone at precisely 2600 hertz, the same frequency that was used by AT&T long lines to indicate that a trunk line was ready and available to route a new call. This would effectively disconnect one end of the trunk, allowing the still-connected side to enter an operator mode. Experimenting with this whistle inspired Draper to build blue boxes, electronic devices capable of reproducing other tones used by the phone company. He was sentenced in October 1971 to five years' probation for toll fraud.

Also, in Neal Stephenson's 1999 postcyberpunk novel Cryptonomicon, over 11,000 words are used to describe a character's Cap'n Crunch eating habits.