Company: General Mills
Years: 1990 - ???
I was never a big oatmeal eater growing up, which is probably why I missed this interesting product from the early 90's: Undercover Bears Oatmeal.
General Mills took the wholesome goodness of oatmeal and the teeth sticking stickiness of gummi bears, combined them, came up with a loveable animal character to be the pitchman, put them in stores, failed to connect on a large scale with kids, lowered prices not once, but 3 times, remained unsuccessful, fired the marketing execs that came up with the idea in the first place, then pulled Undercover Bears from the store shelves, and wept.
I never heard of them until someone posted about them over at Cerealbits.com (check out the site for your fill of retro cereal box goodness!). So I did a little digging, and still didn't come up with much. I was hoping to find a scan of the box, but only found commercial stills and pictures from newpaper ads instead.
Basically, they were gummy bears that were coated in some sort of maple/brown sugar coating and hidden in the oatmeal, so when you the hot water, they bears would magically appear in your bowl!
AMAZING!!!!!!*
*actually only amazing to people who are easily amazed, such as kids, and some dumb adults.
These quite possibly were only around for a year, maybe two, from the little info I could find. So if you remember them, hats off to you my oatmeal loving friends.
Researching these lead me to a lot of gimicky oatmeals from the 80's and 90's I had forgotten about, so I jotted them all down and will be sure to cover more of them here in the future.
Pinky swear.
I remember this well. The commercial totally sold me, and I had to have them. I'm not even sure why, I didn't like oatmeal all that much. Still, I did have them once, and I was completely underwhelmed by both the taste and the "illusion" of appearing bears.
ReplyDeleteI hope one of the wacky oatmeals you'll be covering is Oatmeal Swirlers. Yet another "make oatmeal fun" gimmick I fell for.
Oatmeal Swirlers is on my list - Man, the oatmeal lobbyists sure did have a way of hoodwinking kids into buying their stuff.....
DeletePlease bring it black
DeleteBack
DeleteI remember Oatmeal Swirlers! Obviously I was a sucker for oatmeal gimmicks for my kids.
DeleteI'm fairly certain this was around for more than 2 years, this was one of the staples of my childhood (back when parents were just trying to get their kids to eat something that sounded remotely healthy, even if it was laden with sugar), but it wasn't widely sold, I can only think of a couple places that had it.
ReplyDeleteMy younger brother loved this shit.
ReplyDeleteMemories....
This stuff was delicious! I like oatmeal and my father forced me to eat hot breakfast in the cold months. This as swirlers, I miss them
ReplyDeleteOh I remember them alright. I wasn't an oatmeal fan either as a kid but Undercover Bears was my go to snack. I was also fascinated when the bears appeared just like in the commercial, lol. I dunno why it sold so horribly, I couldn't get enough of it. Maybe one day they'll make a return and give me some epic nostalgia.
ReplyDeleteOh I remember them alright. I wasn't an oatmeal fan either as a kid but Undercover Bears was my go to snack. I was also fascinated when the bears appeared just like in the commercial, lol. I dunno why it sold so horribly, I couldn't get enough of it. Maybe one day they'll make a return and give me some epic nostalgia.
ReplyDeleteI remember eating this as a kid.. my mother would make it for me when I was sick and didn't want to eat.. too bad this great treat didn't make it I could've made it for my own kids.
ReplyDeleteI remember eating this as a kid.. my mother would make it for me when I was sick and didn't want to eat.. too bad this great treat didn't make it I could've made it for my own kids.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me a little of the Quaker Dinosaur Eggs oatmeal that is made today...I tried it on my kids once, but they didnt like it, lol. They would totally get behind this though!
ReplyDeleteI came across your blog today and am having so much fun remembering and discovering these old products!
Thanks Marty! Glad you stopped by and thanks for checking out the blog!
DeleteI actually ended up buying a box of the Dinosaur Eggs oatmeal just because I remembered loving Undercover Bears so much as a kid. Sadly, the dinosaurs are little hard candies, not soft gummies, so it's just not the same.
DeleteNot at all the same! My mom tried buying the Dino egg version after she couldn’t find undercover bears. Nothing like it. I can still taste it, so nostalgic!
DeleteThese were delicious
ReplyDeleteThese were delicious
ReplyDeleteI remember eating this when I was a kid. I always thought my grandma put the gummy bears in there herself. SHe ruined it for me a couple years back and I've been looking for them ever since. Surely if the dinosaur oatmeal is still here we could bring this back. This oatmeal was actually the reason I fell in love with all oatmeal!
ReplyDeleteThere were mysteries on the packs IIRC, whichever bear wasn't in the oatmeal did it. Something like that.
ReplyDeleteI loved these when I was a kid. I remember being absolutely devastated when they were taken off the shelves. Add the fact that I was young and didn't fully grasp the concept that companies sometimes stop making a product and you've got one of the most traumatic experiences of my childhood.
ReplyDeleteMy mom would make this for me every morning before school. I miss them. They were delicious.
ReplyDeleteMy cousin and I swore we were the only ones who ever remembered this. We never met anyone else who had it! I'm also fairly certain that the bears weren't gummy bears, they were more like fruit snacks.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely more the texture of a fruit snack. If you stirred them over much the bears would partially melt into a sort of jam. Loved these
DeleteMan I remember these been craving them brings back so many memories...
ReplyDeleteI bought Undercover Bears for my kids back in the early 90s, so yes, I remember them. I thought it was a cool idea. I don't know why it wasn't successful.
ReplyDelete