Rant #2,680: Easy Come, Easy Go

Good morning!
 
It is June 22, the 173rd day of the year 2021, and we are still alive in the midst of the pandemic …
 
At least I assume that we are all alive if I am typing this thing out and you are reading today’s Rant.
 
What shall we talk about today?
 
I don’t know, third base.
 
That refers to Abbott and Costello’s classic “Who’s On First” routine, but that is not what we are going to talk about today.
 
How about the New York Yankees’ third triple play this season, which came on Sunday to end the game against the Oakland A’s, preserving a tense 2-1 win for the once Bronx Bombers?
 
The third triple play tied a record held by many teams for the most triple plays accomplished in a single season, but that is not what we are going to talk about today.
 
How about the successful Father’s Day that we all seemed to have, one year after many of us could not even see our fathers due to the pandemic?
 
I spoke a lot about that yesterday, on a personal level, so while it is great that people finally got to relax and celebrate Father’s Day the way it should be celebrated, no, that is not what we are going to talk about today.
 
Honestly, I don’t know what topic to discuss today at any great length.
 
I am running into something of a writer’s block today, so I am really not generating any ideas in my head that make for a good Rant for the day.
 
It happens.
 
I have brought this up at other times, that sometimes the well runs dry when I try to think about what I am going to write for the daily Rant.
 
Nine out of 10 times I won’t know what I am going to write about until I sit down at the computer and start to type.
 
When that happens, it is like magic. The stuff just flows out of my brain and into my fingers, and I can write, write and write some more.
 
Other days, like today, I am at my wit’s end trying to formulate an idea that I can write about.
 
At least I am being honest about it.
 
Let’s see, what can I write about today …
 
Hmmmm …
 
I have thought of something. It is something that I have kept in the back of my head for a while, and I think I might have even spoken about this before in an earlier Rant, but if you want something nebulous to read about with your morning coffee, here it is—
 
Cereal Box Records.
 
I know, I know, this is as out of left field as they come, but these records—which were found on the backs of cereal boxes during the prime Baby Boomer years—briefly resurfaced a few years ago, only to fade away again.
 
Let me explain, and yes, I did write about this phenomenon back in Rant #1,681, dated May 26, 2016. As I said in that entry:
 
“These records--found on the backs of cereal boxes--had been around since the late 1950s. I believe I remember seeing Mouseketeers and Alvin and the Chipmunks cereal box records around this time, and this marketing tool was also used in intervening years, and not just on cereal boxes. For one, the Dave Clark Five promoted its film "Having a Wild Weekend" by having a cardboard record available on packages of Fresh Start Medicated Cleansing Gel.”
 
I know that it is hard to believe in this day and age of computers and streaming, but back then, records of the vinyl kind was the main way of delivering music to our homes, and when you heard a song on the radio that you liked, you ran out to your local record store or department store and bought the record, which you would take home and put on your turntable to listen to.
 
Anyway, through the wonders of technology at the time, manufacturers of cereal and other products and record companies were able to get together and mine both their industries for the better good of both of them with cereal box records, which were geared not to the teen market, but to the weenybop, pre-teen market of kids just discovering their world out there.

 
So you could kind of figure out who the majority of cereal box records revolved around, when they reached the height of their power. Any music group that had a huge younger audience was ripe for this marketing tool, and everyone from the Archies to Bobby Sherman to the Monkees to the Jackson 5 were put onto these records, and kids forced their moms to buy the cereal to not only eat the sweet stuff, but to listen to the records on the back of the boxes, which had a listening level of about a -5 on a scale of 1 to 10.
 
Other things were put on the back of the cereal boxes, including spooky stories and various interviews of stars geared to this age group, but the bread and butter of this phenomenon—which actually lasted into the early 1980s, believe it or not—was the pop star.
 
I only bring this up because after my son bought me an eBay card for my birthday, I decided to look around and see what was out there—and I found a great deal for some of these records, and I used the card to make my purchase.

 
I got back a few Bobby Sherman cereal box records, a Paul Revere and the Raiders interview disk that came inside one of the teen magazines of the day, and a Toucan Sam record—from Fruit Loops cereal—that came out in the early 1980s.
 
To my surprise, all of them played as well as you would expect, so I was happy with my purchase, and these records were happily added to my collection.

 
In 2016, Rhino Records actually released the first cereal box or cardboard records in ages, with a four-record package revolving around the 50th anniversary of the Monkees.
 
The choice of songs was dismal, the records wouldn’t play well at all on modern turntables, and it ended up being something of a rip-off, but at least they gave it the old college try.
 
And that it all for cereal box records. I doubt that any more will ever be produced, but you never know.
 
OK, I am done for the day. I did have something to write about after all!
 
Nebulous as it was … and it went together perfectly with your morning coffee and your morning cereal and whatever else you eat for breakfast.
 
You see, even minor writer’s block can be hurdled by just taking a few moments and thinking …
 
And funny, even if it has nothing to do with writer’s block, I do wish we would all take a few moments and think in general, because that is what our brains are there for.
 
An idle mind is the devil’s playground … I kind of co-opted that saying, but I do believe it all makes sense in the context I am using it in.
 
Now, let me listen again to Bobby Sherman’s “Easy Come, Easy Go,” and I will be back tomorrow with another hopefully interesting and enjoyable Rant.