Franken Berry, Boo Berry and Count Chocola. The popular kids cereals of the '70s and '80s, now enjoy a following when they're released around Halloween each year, and some fans stock up.


That is the berry-flavored cereal that turns milk bluish, delighting generations of American kids—and some adults, too. The 35-year-old Mr. Barr eats a bowl of it nearly every morning, and for Halloween dresses up as the blue ghost with a porkpie hat seen on the front of the cereal box.

"It's the best cereal there is," says the Los Angeles-based website administrator. "I eat as much Boo Berry as I can."

Mr. Barr's problem is that he can't eat as much Boo Berry as he would like, unless he lays away a year's supply. Not long after Halloween, Boo Berry disappears from stores like an apparition.

The same sort of thing haunts lovers of Count Chocula and Franken Berry, the other two spectral cereals General Mills Inc. produces for the Halloween season.

Boo Berry cereal


"I'm a kid of the '70s," says Mr. Macedo, "and what kid didn't eat the monster cereals?"

Mr. Barr and Mr. Macedo are among devotees who visit supermarkets around Halloween to stock up on the super-sweet, electric-colored phantom cereals.

Enthusiasts often go to great lengths for their year's fix. Dave Lawrence, a 31-year-old public-relations director at Albion College in Albion, Mich., buys nearly 20 boxes of the three cereals annually. "Around this time of year, there's pumpkin pie, squash and Franken Berry," he says.

General Mills says it introduced Count Chocula and the fuchsia-colored Franken Berry in 1971, followed by Boo Berry in 1972. The three cereals feature fingernail-size corn ghouls and multicolored "spooky-fun" marshmallow bats.

Count Chocula is "chocolatey," by its box's description, while Franken Berry boasts an artificial strawberry flavor.

Boo Berry touts "berry flavor." Processed-food lovers who appreciate artificial colors and flavors and lots of sugar couldn't be happier.

The company later added two other spooky cereals, Fruit Brute and Fruity Yummy Mummy. Fruit Brute's wolf-man-theme cereal died in 1982, and Yummy Mummy rejoined the dead about 10 years later.

Their maker terminated them to focus on the three more popular brands, says Ari Zainuddin, General Mills marketing manager, in an email relayed through a spokeswoman.

At first, the three surviving cereals were year-round familiars. But the cereal maker cut distribution to the period from September to around Halloween in 2010.

"We wanted to focus on the pre-Halloween weeks to best capture the holiday excitement and enthusiasm for the products," says Mr. Zainuddin.

The company doesn't release sales figures and won't say whether the cereals were selling poorly the rest of the year.

"One of the most amazing things about the monster cereals is the passion of the people," Mr. Zainuddin says.

Walgreen Co. discovered that passion last year. A spokeswoman for the drugstore chain says it doubled its order for the monster cereals this year in response to strong demand in 2011, when it offered them for the first time.

A Wal-Mart Stores Inc. spokesman says its outlets sell "tens of thousands" of boxes of the cereal daily during October.


"I plan ahead and stock up," says Ms. Thomas, a Warrenton, Mo., resident. "I like the strawberry milk it leaves behind."

There is a difference of opinion about which ghost cereal is best. Jake Bell, a 37-year-old children's book author in Phoenix, each year stocks up on about a dozen boxes of Count Chocula.

"I used to date a girl who was really into Boo Berry, and we would fight about which was the better flavor," says Mr. Bell, who emphasizes that the dispute wasn't a factor in their breakup.

Mr. Bell says his wife won't touch the stuff but "tolerates" his passion for the cereal.

Other spouses are less accommodating. Take Jared Gustafson, 41, who used to make his living promoting the monster cereals as a General Mills marketing executive in the mid-2000s.

Now his wife won't allow the stuff in their Bellevue, Wash., home because it is "not exactly organic," says Mr. Gustafson, noting he hasn't had a bite of the ghoulish cereals in years.



Many fans would love the cereals to be less elusive. Mr. Barr of Los Angeles, who collects bobbleheads, records, stickers and other Boo Berry memorabilia and runs a website called "The Unofficial Boo Berry Page," says he has written to General Mills demanding that it distribute the cereal all year long; he has received mostly polite form letters in reply.

General Mills has no plans to make the three cereals available year-round, says Mr. Zainuddin, the marketing manager, in his email.



"Sure, I get some funny looks at the register," says the 35-year-old Orchard Park, N.Y., resident, who buys about 40 boxes at a time for about $2 each at a Target Corp. store.

"It's worth it," he says. "People are willing to pay an arm and a leg for this stuff."

Write to Greg Bensinger at

Corrections & Amplifications
Albion College is located in Albion, Mich. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the college's location as Jackson, Mich.