Geeky Cereal and Book Pairings
is a factual cliché that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. There are many people who spend their mornings cramming food in their faces as they haul butt down the freeway, or run off to the local train or subway station. There is nothing quite as nice as a calm breakfast with a cup of coffee and a little reading. We've decided to take a look at some of the geekiest cereal ever created. That isn’t all, though. For the bookish crowd, these taste sensations are being paired with the highest quality reads.
Ghostbusters Cereal and The Turn of the Screw
When there is something weird in your breakfast bowl, it is probably Ghostbusters Cereal. Driven by an attempt to capitalize on the success of the live action films and children’s cartoon, it was hard to avoid the Ghostbuster brand in the eighties. With the film having a creepy yet fun tone, a breakfast of fruit flavored O’s and marshmallows would combine perfectly with the adrenalin rush of Henry James tale of a nanny who is sure she is being haunted.
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Cereal and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court
Bill S. Preston Esquire and Ted Theodore Logan are the two most excellent time travelers ever. Going back in time and messing with some historic figures was the premise of their first outing. Many of us are still waiting for the third and final film in the series, but while we are waiting, there is always the work of Mark Twain. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court is a great time travel adventure were knowledge becomes magic. A mouthful of the cinnamon cereal would be amazing with a morning read of Twain.
Nintendo Cereal and Snow Crash
Nintendo has been one of the leading video game companies for decades. In the eighties they were able to cross over into food with this dual package of fruit cereal (one based on Mario brothers and the other on Zelda). This would pair perfectly with Snow Crash a novel about a virtual reality game which is so real, it could actually bring about incredible destruction.
E.T. Cereal and Stranger in a Strange Land
Got aliens on the mind? E.T. was a huge hit, which launched the career of Drew Barrymore. After the adorable title character wormed his way into everyone’s heart, his peanut butter cereal found its way into fans’ stomachs. As we work our way toward a mission to mars, Robert Heinlein’s novel about the first human to be born on mars and return back to earth is becoming more and more likely.
Batman Cereal and The Curse of Capistrano
Batman has been a huge part of American pop culture practically since his creation. His cereal, which was honey nut flavored, was a tie in for the 1989 Tim Burton film starring Michael Keaton as The Caped Crusader. Looking back at Batman’s origin story, he was obviously inspired to his superhero antics by the actions of Zorro a.k.a Don Diego De La Vega. So, what better reading than the first ever Zorro story, The Curse of Capistrano. While not the Zorro story which is most tied to the Batman mythology, it is best to think of the tale as Zorro Begins.
G.I. Joe Cereal and The Things They Carried
G.I. Joe was huge in the eighties. The popular cartoon series based off of the popular action figure and comic book line spawned a popular cereal which tasted like Lucky Charms sans marshmallows. While G.I. Joe made soldiering look like a blast, it is important to juxtapose this idea with some of the hard truths about military life. Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried is one of the most celebrated novels about the Vietnam War.
C3-POs and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
Poor C3-PO, he is always having a hard time. The constantly concerned A.I. was so popular that he had his own honey flavored cereal. Fortunately for the droid, he exists in a universe where he is seen to be a non-threat. This is simply not the case in Philp K. Dick’s novel about A.I. gone rogue. This novel follows a private eye as he hunts down a series of robots who have gone off the farm. Perhaps C3-PO should give this novel a read and quit his complaining about the odds of survival.
