This Old-School Star Wars Cereal From The '80s Had A Fun Surprise Inside

The 1980s were a wild time for food trends. It was the decade when sun-dried tomatoes were a ubiquitous recipe addition, neon-colored cocktails ruled, and there were tons of novelty breakfast cereals. In this latter category, we can put C-3PO's Cereal, which Kellogg's released in 1984, a year after "Return of the Jedi" came out. The front of the box featured the fussy, polite, and sometimes anxious golden droid from the Star Wars franchise. Inside, the cereal was a honey-sweetened mix of corn, wheat, and oats in a double "O" configuration, possibly meant to mimic the droid's round eyes. Also inside, in some boxes, you'd find sticker trading cards with various Star Wars characters.

On the back of other boxes, there were masks featuring the faces of Luke Skywalker, a Stormtrooper, C-3PO, Yoda, Darth Vader and Chewbacca. Once done with the cereal, you could cut them out and wear them (most parents would frown on hacking the box apart when there was still cereal inside). From there, you could live out your Star Wars' fantasies, although the masks were cardboard, thus a bit stiff with the possibility of paper cuts if you weren't careful. It wasn't just kids who were thrilled by the masks. Mark Hamill has admitted he was equally excited by having his face on a mask on the back of a cereal box.

In 1984, when Kellogg's introduced C-3PO's Cereal to great fanfare, they released a series of commercials featuring not only the golden droid, but his sidekick R2D2, with the tagline "A New Force at Breakfast." And it sold well, even coming so late after the third film in the franchise. The reason the cereal came out a year later had to do with the long process of securing the licensing for the character. At the time, Kellogg's said they chose C-3PO for his personality and his ability not to alienate adults who might also want to try the cereal. But for young Star Wars fans at the time, it was the trading cards and masks that were the real hit.

If you don't recall this particular breakfast treat, don't feel too bad, it's just one of a dozen snacks from the 1980s no one remembers today. The cereal only lasted two years. In 1986, Kellogg's quietly retired the cereal. Although C-3PO's Cereal boxes today aren't worth as much as some expensive vintage cereal boxes, like a 1960s Apple Jacks box that sold for $3,800 in 2024, they can still fetch around $50. And the cereal is still fondly recalled by many of us who grew up in the 1980s.