Remember when cereal boxes had prizes in them?

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Once upon a time kids there were actual toys in our cereal!
I remember in 2003 when General Mills had computer games compatible for the Windows 9x editions based on popular board games. Three I got were Scrabble, Operation, and Monopoly. I still have these 3 games. I didn't play the first 2 much but that's probably because I just could not stop playing Monopoly. The 3 games were surprisingly well developed for something that came free with cereal.

Today all you get are codes you enter online or mail outs (which you probably never use).

Post memories here of stuff you got from when cereal companies used to put actual toys in your cereal!

that was several generations after my cereal toy experiences, I got just little plastic toy thingies in mine.

i don't remember getting any prizes.

it seems you and I are on opposite ends of the golden era of getting goodies in cereal boxes.

Same goes for me.

I had no idea they had put computer games in cereals in later days. I've eaten cereals but they haven't contained anything other than cereals so maybe they weren't released here; a lot of things aren't.
Quite frankly I'm glad I was a child when I was, and got to experience a good old fashioned childhood. My generation was the last to have traditional childhoods and I wouldn't trade that for anything.

I remember the computer games in cereals and I also remember something, maybe from Shreddies: a small plastic submarine that, I vaguely remember, might have worked with baking soda.

I was born in 1988 and I have vague memories of getting little plastic trinkets in the occasional box here and there, but I have nothing but vivid memories of 'Chex Quest': in 1996, Chex developed a cereal-themed first-person shooter (a 'Doom' clone, basically) and distributed it in boxes of cereal. It was an amazing marketing gimmick and even the game itself wasn't all that bad.

And, of course, I can't leave this topic without linking to one of the best Homestar Runner cartoons ever which makes some very salient points about cereal and their prizes:
http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail194.html

Yeah, I got that one----or, something like it. Mostly I got little, plastic, mostly pathetic, toys, like auntblabby said. I used to like those little slider puzzles----you know, where you move the tiles around to get a picture----sort of like a 1-dimensional Rubic's Cube. Also, if I got a little car----with REAL wheels, that moved----I was in my GLORY!! To this DAY, I still ADORE cars----trains, boats, bikes----all modes of transportation, really!! I used to get sooooo bummed cuz my mother wouldn't let me stick my "nasty hand" in the box, as soon as it was opened, to get the toy!! LOL

I think I kept my little plastic toys, they are all in a box someplace.

I got quite a few of those little toys. I was born in 1974 and cereal boxes still had those neat little prizes in them. I liked getting the little propellers that flew in the air. Those were the days.

ahhh those are so fun i see them all the time when i go to mexico for fiestas patronales.

I didn't know they didn't have prizes in boxes anymore. I remember computer games in them and demos and little trinkets. I remember the days when we had to share the toy and my mom would say it's hers and she is letting us play with it and if we fight over it, she takes it.

Ohhhhh, I remember those----I used to love getting them, TOO!! Something about using a rubber band ("elastic", I think, to Brits), to make them go?

One time, when I was about 8 or so (around 1969), I got a replica of a Wyoming license plate. That got me interested in the various license plates of the states.

I forget the cereal--might have been Cap'n Crunch.

I remember getting little plastic toys in cereal boxes it was fun to see what they were.

Yeah, why did they stop doing that? Don't tell me they were worried kids might swallow the prize, like the US feels about Kinders Eggs.

Just the other day I was being nostalgic about those little plastic figures of Disney characters that could be used as pencil-toppers or they could hang onto the rim of your cereal bowl. I also once got a spoon shaped like the Quik Bunny (back when it was still called Quik cereal and not Nesquik), and it would change color when you put it in cold milk. Another cereal brand once gave out coupons for free ice cream cones at Dairy Queen, and even for free goldfish!

In the late 90's-early 2000's they started giving away PC games like Roller Coaster Tycoon, Operation (based on the board game) or Mickey's Magic Studio with the cereal. I miss those games...but my computer is probably too new for them now to work.