Hearts, Moons, Stars and Clover: The Hidden Meaning of Lucky Charms

S

SifuPhil

R.I.P. With Us In Spirit Only
Location
Pennsylvania, USA
When the marshmallow-packed cereal Lucky Charms first came out in 1964 I was immediately hooked. I'd spend hours fishing out the marshmallows from the cereal bowl, until the sugar-coated oats turned to mush. Then I'd drink the mush. I wasn't very discerning back then - heck, how discerning can a 6-year-old BE?

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Of course, the give-aways were a large part of its appeal as well, just as they were with other kiddie cereals. But as this original box-cover shows, they had GOOD stuff back then - a finger-puppet theater! Now all you get is a lead-coated piece of misshapen plastic made in China that could be a whistle just as much as it could be a model train.

But those marshmallows!

Over the years General Mills began to periodically change the shapes and colors of both the standard and "special occasion" marshmallows. Thus we encountered blue diamonds in 1975, purple horseshoes in 1984, red balloons in 1989, rainbows in 1992, pots of gold in 1994, leprechaun hats in 1996, various colored shooting stars between 1998-2011 and an hourglass in 2008. This year 6 new moons and 2 rainbows were added.

Supposedly someone at General Mills was paid good money to come up with a list of what each shape means -


  1. Hearts - power to bring things to life
  2. Shooting Stars - power to fly
  3. Horseshoes - power to speed things up
  4. Clovers - luck, but you will never know what kind of luck you'll get
  5. Blue Moons - power of invisibility
  6. Rainbows - instantaneous travel from place to place
  7. Balloons - power to make things float
  8. Hourglass - power to control time


These were of course in addition to the "limited edition" marshmallows ... whales, pine trees, sprinkled and swirled marshmallows, "magic" marshmallows that changed shape or produced an additional shape when wetted with milk, special LGBT rainbows (seriously!) ... although what some of these shapes or meanings have to do with a leprechaun who is OCD about his finances is beyond me. I just like to eat the stuff.

GM has said that they are targeting the adult nostalgia market as well as children, so periodically they'll run a commercial using the old jingles and some '60's imagery. In a word, they're messing with our minds, trying (and largely succeeding, as they just had a record year of Lucky Charms sales) to trigger our early memories into betraying our adult wallets.

Hearts, moons and stars, indeed! If they want ME to start buying their cereal again they'd better re-tool the factory line to produce marshmallows in the shape of red Corvettes, green $100 bills and red-tinged strippers whose clothing disappears when you drench them with milk.
 

What an interesting subject ! I am pretty sure that they didn't have these when I was little, but my mother would not have bought them for me to eat, in any case. I have never in my life tasted a Lucky Charm, so the ads won't trigger any childhood memories for me.

I had Grape Nut Flakes for breakfast, and sometimes, just plain Grape Nuts. I loved those crunchy little bits !
I don't remember which cereal had the Navy Frogmen in it, but I think it might have been Wheaties, and since that was the "Breakfast of Champions", I was allowed to eat that one as well, and loved watching the little divers go up and down with their soda bubbles.

My dad didn't like most cereals, but he did like oatmeal, which I thought was the worst breakfast ever. However, I adored my Dad, so when he shared his oatmeal with me, I ate it and pretended that it was delicious.
My favorite breakfast was just a salami sandwich, made with sandwich spread, which was kind of a mayonnaise with sweet pickles mixed into it.
 
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Quite a history lesson there ...

I never liked Lucky Charms, they just looked too busy in that box. :) .. I could only go with the boring simple cereals, Cheerios, Kix and Rice Krispies.
 

Interesting. I used to like Lucky Charms, but don't care much for an excess of sugar anymore.

Happyflowerlady, I remember that sandwich spread!!! Wonder what was in it?? Also, used to love bologna; it was in a big roll and the butcher sliced it in thick slices - No idea what was in it then, and sure don't care for the stuff they sell now. :( Oh for the old days with 'mostly real' foods.

Anyone remember when Proctor & Gamble was accused of being Communist and/or Satanist because of the moon and stars logo??? (not so relevant, just happened to think of it) :p

http://www.yourememberthat.com/media/15017/Proctor_and_Gamble_Logo_Controversy_/

I remember something similar being said about Arm & Hammer, but not sure what the details were.
 
Anne, I think if you add some sweet relish to mayo , and maybe a dab of ketchup for the color, then it will taste almost identical to the old fashioned Sandwich Spread used to taste like, and it is much cheaper. I think they still sell the spread, but only in half-pint jars, and for a large price for such a tiny jar. I guess it just is not used as much as it used to be back when we were growing up.

My family had one of the neighborhood groceries, so I remember the bologna coming in those huge rolls, and my Grandpa would slice it for the customer, so they could choose how much they wanted, and how thick or thin they wanted the slices to be. We had bologna, salami, pimento/olive loaf, and head cheese loaf. Milk was in the quart size containers, and could be either pasteurized or homogenized. If you chose pasteurized, there was still cream on top, more like real milk.

I DO remember reading about the Proctor and Gamble thing, and many of us boycotted their products for a while, and then it just seemed to wear off, I guess. I think the baking soda was the name, Arm and Hammer, being like the supposed communist, Armand Hammer.
By the way, it is his son, Armie Hammer, who is starring in the Lone Ranger movie with Johnny Depp. Since the Lucky Charms marshmallows are all kind of occult symbols according to the list Sifu posted, maybe they got boycotted as well. Are they Proctor and Gamble, by any chance ?
 
I spend a few moments sometimes in the breakfast cereals aisle, gazing in amazement at the variety, but mostly in appreciation of the BS marketing cons they offer.
One in particular here is touted as 'iron man food'. That has a different connotation here, nothing to do with RD junior's film career. The Iron Man competitions are athletics, triathlon, Ocean swimming, cycling, running.... all that foolishly o.t.t. physical stuff that the deluded among us aspire to and only lucky freaks of nature ever achieve.

This packet of mysteriously shaped, crunchy morsels of presumably legal, performance enhancing nutrition was/is bought by Mums with dreams of Li'l Johnny standing about in skimpy gear, dripping sweat and wearing medals.

I tried it once, it wasn't half bad. I quite enjoyed it. Guess why?? 'Cos I'm addicted to sugar! Yummmo.

When tests were run on the biggest selling brands that one, touted as the healthiest, and by logical progression, most expensive, was the medal wearing all time champion of sugar content. It stood there dripping like a champion, not sweat, but bullsh*t. All those virtuous vitamins and minerals were glued together in those mysterious shapes by sugar. Wow eh? no wonder it was such a boost for the kids, they must have been running up the walls!

I rarely eat cereal at all, especially not for breakfast. If I'm hungry I want food, not pap. Muesli is poison, I seem to have a mild allergy to oats and it makes my mouth feel as though I'm chewing pins. Corn flakes were proven to have the same nutrition benefits as the box they're packaged in. Sugar is cheaper to buy in a bag than in a cereal box... Rice Bubbles are at least a bit of buzz to hear and crunch on but they're my limit. I don't use milk much so I only eat them if I've got some fresh stuff left over from when visitors were here. Their best use, and reason for being in my pantry at all, is in making 'Chocolate Crackles' but then, they aren't exactly breakfast fare.

The ideal breakfast to me is sausages and or bacon, ss up eggs, a grilled tomato when there's one left in the fridge, and a fried banana. All topped off with Tomato sauce (ketchup to you), and accompanied by toast to clean up the plate with, and a coffee to wash it all down.
I run on high octane fuel and a handful of puffed, flaked, toasted and otherwise highly camouflaged grain might keep herbivores going but not this chick.

So all this unhealthy addiction to 'real' food has prevented me from enjoying the delights of finding those lucky talismans in cereal packets.
What a deprivation. How could I have allowed myself to miss this essential ingredient of a happy and fulfilled life? Oh the regret, the woe of it all! I might have won the lottery if I'd only known about all that packaged luck!



 
Di Wrote Their best use, and reason for being in my pantry at all, is in making 'Chocolate Crackles' but then, they aren't exactly breakfast fare.

Have you tried Chocolate Crackles using Cadburys milk chocolate instead of copha and cocoa, they are delicious Di
 
To not have ever tasted Lucky Charms is to never have fully lived.
~Lucky the Leprechaun

I think he was quoted during one of his more lucid moments, not directly after ingesting his namesake product. Otherwise he would have said "ARRRrgghghhhhhh!!!!!"

I was a sugar-frosted kind of kid all during my childhood. I guess Mom and Dad either didn't notice my increased energy levels or (more likely) since I was Child #4 they just didn't GIVE two hoots anymore.

I bounced back and forth (literally as well as figuratively) between Lucky Charms, Captain Crunch, Sugar Pops ... basically anything that would grow hair on a diabetic. With milk, out of the box, baked into little square treat-bars - I didn't care as long as I got my fix.

Wheaties never thrilled me, nor did any other Plain Jane breed of cereal. They were boring and their free toys sucked. I didn't care if Mickey Mantle was on the cover of the box - even at that young age I suspected that those athletes were really powered by steroids.

I haven't consumed any cereal for the past 20 years or so, so I guess I've outgrown that particular addiction. Besides, I'd probably get an arrhythmia if I had a bowl of that stuff today - like marijuana, they're making much stronger strains of Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs these days.

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While giving long and careful scrutiny of the fare on offer in a cake shop I was asked "can I help you?" My reply of "having trouble choosing which calorie bomb to buy" brought a silent and hostile glare.

Some 'shoppies' just have no sense of humour.
 
Diwundrin said:
While giving long and careful scrutiny of the fare on offer in a cake shop I was asked "can I help you?" My reply of "having trouble choosing which calorie bomb to buy" brought a silent and hostile glare.

Some 'shoppies' just have no sense of humour.
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Whenever someone in a shop asks if they can help me my standard reply is "I doubt it - 4 psychiatrists and an exorcist couldn't". :playful:

I belong to a group on Facebook that celebrates the city I was born and raised in (Yonkers, NY, for anyone playing stalker) and they recently had a slew of pictures of the old-time bakeries around town. The pictures instantly brought with them a whole range of smells and feelings - of cookies being boxed up and tied with thin red string, rum-soaked cakes and cookies and the cloud of confectioner's sugar that always seemed to be floating in the shop's interior. And of course there was always the free coffee on the sideboard.

Good times.
 
Both my sons eat weetbix. My youngest who gets up at 5am. goes to work & at 9.30am has 8 weetbix with a litre of milk.
For the rest of the day 3 pieces of fruit & 2 litres of water. Everyday!!!
Eldest starts off with 6 weetbix milk & a banana.

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GDAD said:
Both my sons eat weetbix. My youngest who gets up at 5am. goes to work & at 9.30am has 8 weetbix with a litre of milk.
For the rest of the day 3 pieces of fruit & 2 litres of water. Everyday!!!
Eldest starts off with 6 weetbix milk & a banana.

View attachment 1989
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OMG Gdad, 8 Weetbix should be enough to choke a horse! I gag on a second one, but the men of the family used to put them away in roughly those numbers.

I keep them on hand for visitors but rarely eat them, and then only split in half to make two thin layers and bury them in butter and Golden Syrup.

and eat them dry.... yeah, yeah.... I know....
 
Jambi said:
Informative post. So what did the yellow crescent moons stand for?
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That info wasn't on the side of the box like the other, so this is just guessing on my part: yellow stands for "illumination", so perhaps the yellow moon sheds light on mysteries? (Mysteries of course being tied to the moon itself throughout history).

That, or they just got a great deal on FD&C Yellow #5. :D
 
SifuPhil said:
1)That info wasn't on the side of the box like the other, so this is just guessing on my part: yellow stands for "illumination", so perhaps the yellow moon sheds light on mysteries? (Mysteries of course being tied to the moon itself throughout history).

2)That, or they just got a great deal on FD&C Yellow #5. :D
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1) Makes good sense, thanks.

2) :highly_amused:
 

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