The Lucky Charms Marshmallow Epidemic

The other day I was doing some research in the name of science and discovered that there are now way too many different kinds of marshmallows in Lucky Charms (For those of you unfamiliar with Lucky Charms, it’s a breakfast cereal consisting of an assortment of marshmallow shapes mixed with some dry cat food).

Back in my kid days we only had five different kinds of marshmallows: pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers, and blue diamonds.

Of course in 1984 they introduced purple horseshoes which ended up being a huge controversy turning this country upside down and causing the Russians to boycott the 84’ Olympics. But as a world we eventually healed.

But now I’ve learned that they have added all kinds of new absurd marshmallows. There’s shooting stars, balloons, rainbows, pots of gold, and something called cloverhats. I’m disgusted. 

They’re magically oversaturated with marshmallows is what they are.

Pat, surely you are not a fan of all these new foreign marshmallows are you?

Pat:  I think I did a clover hat at a Dead show way back in college. Not sure, but that sounds familiar. And I hear shooting stars are what all the kids these days are trading their Ativan™ and Ritalin™ for when they go to those weekend parties.  

You can buy those in cereals now? Wow...things are getting progressive!

Christian: I’m not surprised at all that you are in favor of this free-for-all orgy of marshmallow recklessness. Weren't you also the one that argued that they needed more members in Menudo if they ever really wanted to reach true success? Pshhh.

So if you are in favor of this new marshmallow regime, let me ask you this; is there a point at which you’ll feel like there are too many marshmallows? Or do you think they should just keep adding new marshmallow after new marshmallow after new marshmallow until someone is killed?

Pat:  First off...don’t try to distort my words. What I said was that I thought it was pretty cool that they were putting DRUGS into Lucky Charms. Because I misunderstood and thought that those things you were talking about were drugs, and then I started thinking about how much more I probably would’ve liked cereal--and potentially life--if there were drugs in it.  

But anyway...now I get it. And I have to say I still think the more-marshmallow thing is okay. I mean, nobody ever buys that cereal for the bland grain-based non-marshmallow things, do they? Hell, I think it’d be cool if the cereal was nothing BUT those weird foamy marshmallows. Imagine the gloopy paste that would turn into when mixed with milk and saliva in your mouth. Mmmmmmmmmm!

Christian: Yes I agree, drugs or no drugs, the marshmallows are the best part.

Drugs

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However I do feel you need at least a little bit of the dry cat food part for texture’s sake but that’s an argument for another day.

My issue with these new age Lucky Charms is the constant changing of the marshmallow shapes. If they keep adding and removing marshmallows all willy-nilly like, it’s just going to confuse and frighten kids (like Menudo). And what if a kid gets particularly attached to a specific marshmallow but it’s then removed to make room for another new one?

How am I supposed to explain to my four year old that his favorite hot air balloon Lucky Charm marshmallow is now dead? Slaughtered into a cold pool of gooey blood by marketing marshmallow murderers who say the balloon marshmallow wasn’t trending well?

Pat, you are a monster.

Pat:   I suppose you struggle with the fact that “Small Wonder” and “Charles in Charge” aren’t on TV anymore, too. Yeah? Life moves ever forward, Christian, in people and in marshmallow-whole-grain(??) cereals. Embrace change or prepare to huddle in a small mass of quivering flesh on your kitchen floor. Forever.

Christian: Hey, I’m all for change. Without it technology wouldn’t advance and we wouldn’t grow as people. But it is also important to hold onto tradition and our roots. And change just for change’s sake is not something I’m always on board with. Especially at the frequency the marshmallow engineers at General Mills keep changing the Lucky Charms marshmallows.

Since 1986, they have added a whale-shaped marshmallow then got rid of it, a green tree-shaped one then got rid of it, sprinkled marshmallows then got rid of them, and don’t even get me started on the ludicrous number of freakish star and balloon hybrid marshmallows they have experimented with over the years.

I don’t remember this one.

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They are basically doing their market research on us. Can’t they just figure out what the best shapes are without having to experiment on us?

Pat, do you like having large corporations experiment on you? I don’t.

Pat: Marshmallow-dentata? That’s kind of fucked up. Gelatin balls shouldn’t have teeth. Or eyes, I suppose.  

Would this be a bad time to bring up the light brown M&M™  from our youth?

Christian: EXACTLY!!! That’s the perfect example of large corporations experimenting on us. I don’t remember all the facts as to why they eventually discontinued them but didn’t those light brown M&Ms kill a lot of people including wiping out the entire population of a small town in Nebraska? Again, I don’t remember the details but DON’T google it. We don’t want to break the momentum this post has going on right now.

And let us not forget the Coca-Cola recipe experiments of the 80’s which was the root cause of Baby Jessica falling down that well.  

In conclusion, I think it’s pretty obvious that constant changing of the marshmallows in Lucky Charms will only lead to the devastation of small midwest towns and babies falling down wells.