Cocoa Puffs is an American

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...

-flavored

puffed grain Puffed grains are grains that have been expanded ("puffed") through processing. They have been made for centuries with the simplest methods like popping popcorn. Modern puffed grains are often created using high temperature, pressure, or extru ...

breakfast cereal Cereal, formally termed breakfast cereal (and further categorized as cold cereal or warm cereal), is a traditional breakfast food made from processed cereal grains. It is traditionally eaten as part of breakfast, or a snack food, primarily in ...

, manufactured by

General Mills General Mills, Inc., is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, the company orig ...

. Introduced in 1956, the cereal consists of small orbs of corn and rice flavored with cocoa. Cocoa Puffs have the same shape as Kix and Trix cereal. Cocoa Puffs are sold in Canada, Latin America, and Europe under the

Nesquik Nesquik is a brand of food products made by Swiss company Nestlé. In 1948, Nestlé launched a drink mix for chocolate-flavored milk called Nestlé Quik in the United States; this was released in Europe during the 1950s as ''Nesquik''. Since 1 ...

brand, via the

Cereal Partners Worldwide Cereal Partners Worldwide S.A. is a joint venture between General Mills and Nestlé, established in 1991 to produce breakfast cereals. The company is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, and markets cereals in more than 130 countries (excep ...

agreement between

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Switzerland, Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other me ...

and General Mills.

Ingredients

On several occasions, Cocoa Puffs boxes, as well as commercials, stated that they are made with real Hershey's

cocoa Cocoa may refer to: Chocolate * Chocolate * ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree * Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao'' * Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and ...

. In December 2009, General Mills announced that it would cut the

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

in 10 kinds of cereal, including Cocoa Puffs, to less than 10 grams per serving. This could represent a 25% decline in the

content from the original level and 18% from the 2009 level of 11 grams per serving. In 2020, General Mills, Inc. bought back the retro recipes for four of its ready-to-eat cereals: Cocoa Puffs, Golden Grahams, Cookie Crisp, and Trix. Some fans immediately noticed the change, calling the cereal smaller, denser, and with a less chocolatey flavor.

Flavors and variants

A cereal bar of Cocoa Puffs has been made. A layer of dried, sweetened

condensed milk Condensed milk is cow's milk from which water has been removed (roughly 60% of it). It is most often found with sugar added, in the form of ''sweetened condensed milk'' (SCM), to the extent that the terms "condensed milk" and "sweetened condens ...

is added to the bottom, and marketed as a substitute for a bowl of milk and cereal. A new addition was introduced in the summer of 2008, Cocoa Puffs Combos, which consists of the recognizable chocolate puffs with vanilla puffs. Unlike original Cocoa Puffs, the Combos cereal does not contain

; instead, it contains artificial, imitation cocoa. Besides Cocoa Puffs Combos, there have been varieties of the popular cereal. One such example was Cocoa Puffs Brownie Crunch in 2011. That cereal was described on the front of the box as "naturally and artificially flavored sweetened chocolate squares."

Advertising

The mascot of Cocoa Puffs, Sonny the

Cuckoo Cuckoos are birds in the Cuculidae family, the sole taxon in the order Cuculiformes . The cuckoo family includes the common or European cuckoo, roadrunners, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals and anis. The coucals and anis are sometimes separ ...

Bird, was introduced in 1962. In television commercials, Sonny attempts to concentrate on a normal task but ends up coming across some reference to Cocoa Puffs themselves (usually described by the adjectives "munchy, crunchy, chocolatey") and bursts with enthusiasm, exclaiming his

catchphrase A catchphrase (alternatively spelled catch phrase) is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance. Such phrases often originate in popular culture and in the arts, and typically spread through word of mouth and a variety of mass ...

"I'm cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!" Sonny was voiced by

Chuck McCann Charles John Thomas McCann (September 2, 1934 – April 8, 2018) was an American actor, comedian, puppeteer, commercial presenter and television host. He was best known for his work in presenting children's television programming and animation, a ...

from 1962 to 1978, and has been voiced by

Larry Kenney Larry Kenney (born August 5, 1947) is an American voice actor and radio personality. Early life Larry Kenney was born August 5, 1947 in Pekin, Illinois, the son of George and Joyce Kenney. He has a brother, Steven, and a sister, Jody. He graduat ...

since 1978. The line "cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs" has entered the vernacular as a term for somebody who is irrational. Sonny's name comes from the original format of the commercials, in which he was paired with his grandfather (also voiced by McCann). Rather than proper names, they always referred to each other as "Gramps" and "Sonny." When the grandfather was dropped from the ads, "Sonny" remained as the character's name. In 2010, Gramps returned to the Cocoa Puffs ads, with McCann reprising his role as Gramps and Kenney continuing to voice Sonny. Sonny was designed by Gene Cleaves. Animation pioneer "Grim" Natwick (of Fleischers'

Betty Boop Betty Boop is an animated cartoon character created by Max Fleischer, with help from animators including Grim Natwick.Pointer (2017) She originally appeared in the ''Talkartoon'' and ''Betty Boop'' film series, which were produced by Fleischer ...

team) also contributed to the early images of Sonny and Gramps, according to then-contemporaries who collaborated with Natwick. Sonny was originally depicted as wearing a pink-and-white striped shirt, then in 1995 was redesigned, this time wearing 1990s " extreme" clothes and being given a more

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

-esque appearance. In 2004, he was redesigned in a more simplistic fashion, this time without clothing.

References

External links

Official website
{{General Mills Products introduced in 1956 General Mills cereals