Wheaties Box to Become More Loser Friendly

Wednesday, September 25th, 2001

In a move sure to shock the breakfast cereal industry, General Mills has replaced the traditional sports heroes found on their famous Wheaties boxes in exchange for the image of a frightened, pathetic henchman.  In doing so, they hope to increase their lagging sales in middle America and in the all-important Wimp Factor which makes up ninety-percent of the cereal market.

General Mills spokesman, Mike Winston, said, "We've long been known as the 'Breakfast of Champions' but what is the common man to eat for breakfast?  Soggy toast and fruit roll-ups?  By featuring a sniveling coward on our boxes, we hope to have greater appeal to the everyman."  In the past three years, Wheaties had lost a major portion of their sales to more loser-friendly cereals like Fruit Loops and Lucky Charms.  For the past nine months, a cereal think-tank resolved to rebuild the Wheaties image.

"We needed something that didn't make people feel bad about themselves," said Winston.  "We were simply getting too many complaints from fat, lazy people that the images we presented were simply not possible.  That, combined with the fact that our product tastes like dirty dishwater, really cut into our sales."

The new box, which features a nameless henchmen gripped in the fear of death, will hit store shelves by mid-October.  Test markets have shown an overwhelming appeal for the new hero-free boxes.  Katherine Mannihan, a mother of four from Kentucky, was among the first to buy the new boxes.  She said, "I'm glad to see a loser on the box.  That screaming guy isn't much different than my loaf of a husband.  I hope he gets  the message."

To further this new push, General Mills has also decided to include new "cowardly" toys inside the box.  "Imagine finding a little white flag in the box," Winston explained, "or a tiny panic alarm.  Those are things someone could actually use."    

Also changed was the plastic material which once surrounded the cereal.  General Mills promises that the days of "hard to open bags are gone for good."  Replacing the plastic is a new, patented material that is "roughly the equivalent of a wet paper bag."  With this new material, even the "puniest of arms" will be able to rip open the packaging without problem.

Cereal experts, like those at the University of Tennessee, aren't as sure the move will be a success.   Dr. Theodore Wills, who spent the last ten years studying cereal boxes for the United Nations, believes the boxes, "are a damn farce."  He explained, "For too long America has slipped into a morass of declining virtues and ideals.  By highlighting the weak and stupid, we all are dragged down.  If General Mills needed a new image, why not focus on our proud political leaders.  Imagine if Lenin or Stalin were on the box.  Then you would have something."

The henchmen on the box, who prefers to remain nameless, is "shocked" at all his recent fame.  "I can't really take the pressure this is bringing me," he said in a closed news conference, as he clung nervously to a podium.  "Why won't  you people leave me alone?  Do you need me to wet myself?  Do you?  Well, there, I just did.  Does that make you happy?"

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