...Describes Cereal Commercials for Blind Children 2

For today's commercial I picked a classic representation of the 80s, courtesy of Cocoa Puffs. This cereal is chocolate powder sprayed onto puffed corn, and it's mascot is an anthropomorphic birdman with a big yellow beak shaped like a banana and orange feathers that look like blobby gelled strands of hair. In this commercial, the bird (named Sonny, supposedly after someone's son) is dressed like a character on Miami Vice. He dons a white pant suit with the sleeves pushed up, and a pink t shirt with sunglasses hanging on the neck. His eyes suggest he hasn't slept for days.

A back up band of three normal human children playing guitar, bass, and drums are on the left of the stage. Behind Sonny on the right side are three anthro birwomen. All three have voluminous purple hairdos, and are wearing sunglasses indoors. They all have figures that would be described as bird-like, with flat chests and prominent beaks.

Although his syrupy pop-singer voice suggests a feeling closer to ambivalence towards the subject (ie cereal), his animations suggest a darker, murderous passion. As the fading 80s rock star wanders squinting in the stagelights, angry and drunk his bandmates tempt him with his personal demons. This is where Sonny differs from most cereal mascots. Where other cereal commercials usually revolve around a chase or cat and mouse game (see, Fruity Pebbles, Cookie Crisp, Lucky Charms), Sonny is actively trying to avoid the product he is trying to sell. It's possible that he's just diabetic but the literal suggestion is that his avoidance is based on the prior knowledge that when he encounters his favorite cereal he goes into a state of temporary insanity wherein he loses control of his actions and cannot distinguish right from wrong.

When "this superstar" begins to describe the breakfast which represents all that he loves and hates, a cloud of smoke takes us into his inner consciousness where we see a non-animated box of cereal which opens like a book to reveal the words "Chocolatey Taste" (sic) above a mound of fudge. The book closes and is now joined by a complete breakfast, including milk, orange juice, and toast.

When the dream is over, a prepubescent temptress with a bass and rave goggles pours cereal into a bowl in front of his face, and his eyes bug out of his skull. A blond boy brings a pitcher of mother's milk to add to the concoction. Finally, an Asian boy in glasses and suspenders gives his encouragement from behind a drumkit. Sonny's eyes are now Mesmer wheels, and he manages soar into the air and fly around over the stage. Being that he is a bird, this is not unusual, but the way in which he flies is like a bottle rocket at first, straight up into the air and then like a popped balloon in an unpredictable direction. Then he falls into a floor tom.

Never bothering to eat the cereal that gives him this violent reaction, the commercial ends with Sonny lovingly stroking the boxtop with one finger. The life of an addict is difficult, but there is hope for Sonny.

...Describes Cereal Commercials for Blind Children

This is a description I have written as a favor to the blind children of the world of the visual content of a cereal commercial. In particular, a Fruity Pebbles commercial circa 2010 in which Barney is a snowboarder.

It opens with a red sign on a snowy mountain slope reading "Fruity Pebbles Trick Off", the camera pulls back and Barney Rubble (a cylindrical caveman from a 1960s cartoon with blond hair and dots for eyes) on a snowboard flies over it, eclipsing the sun and creating a radiant prism of colored light behind him, that then shines from the cereal bowl in his hand. The underside of his snow board says "Pebbles" and he is wearing blue pants, green coat, orange scarf, purple hat, and goggles. A mountain goat atop an icy peek watches on.

"Mmm, extreme fruity flavor" retorts Rubble when he is accused of the theft of Fred's Fruity Pebbles by an unseen announcer. To prove his point, he slaloms between snowy trees and off a ramp-trailing a rainbow behind him. At the top of the ramp, the aurora shines in the colors of the cereal in Barney's bowl. Then the fruits represented by the cereal appear in the sky. Cherries, Orange, Blueberries, Lemons, Grapes, and Limes.

Suddenly, it is day again and Barney's rainbow rampage lands him in the path of a snowman on skis with bones for arms and a carrot and coal for a face. He is also wearing a top hat with a leopard print band (signature look of Fred Flintstone) with earmuffs under it. "What's this?" an obvious ambush as meaty, mittened arms pop out of the snowman and grab the bowl from the bewildered Barney, who slides past streaming rainbows from the sides of his goggles with a discontent on his face.

Skiing forward, Fred's got his Pebbles, and the snow melts off him and the top hat flys away. Fred has black hair and wears his trademark orange with tiger stripes one-piece dress. Again nighttime, Fred skis over a cliff face gap, and the aurora again shines to reveal the fruits: cherries, orange, blueberries, grapes, lemon, lime.

Barney's back, and he slides ahead of Fred. He crashes into a tree with his snowboard, miraculously bouncing aside and causing the tree's boughs to drop a pile of snow that stick his skis and sends Fred skyward and into a cave composed of two flat rock slabs leaning against each other with a pile of rocks in front and a log. The cave, which seems barely large enough for Fred, let alone the bear which breaks it open and chases Fred- causing him to "fumble the bowl" by throwing it directly up into the air where Barney catches it. He lands to find Fred hanging onto a defoliated tree with an angry bear, large enough to see Fred at eye-level and easily capable of reaching him, roaring. But then the bear turns around and gives a "What the...!?" grunt as Barney slides past.

Fred screams, and the scream is animated as concentric yellow rings representing the soundwaves of his fury as they ricochet off the mountain peaks. This causes an avalanche that reaches Barney, now on flat ground, who escapes it. Fred does not, and as the camera focuses on the complete breakfast in the foreground (composed of a box of cereal, glass of milk, grapes, oranges, a crude stone bowl and primitive spoon for said cereal, and four slices of French toast with a large pat of butter on top of a flat rock.) Fred emerges from the snow with the cereal bowl, always glowing with a rainbow of sugary light, on top of his head. A squat dinosaur shaped like a dog with a spike on it's snout and plates on it's back approaches nonchalantly with no sign of commitment and a small cask worn on it's collar in a nod to the St. Bernard dogs that helped alpine skiers with rum in the 19th C.

But he stands up revealing himself to be Rubble, as he rips off his dinosaur head. and streaks away.