More Sugar Puffs Promotions of the 1960s

Moonshot Slides (1968)

The scans below were kindly sent to me by Kim and they show three of the stages in an Apollo moon mission.

See here first for details of all slides and the packet.

With the first manned moon landing the following year, this would seem to have been the perfect subject for a cereal promotion. As well as having a brief title, the slides are marked with the Sugar Puffs logo, 'MOONSHOT SLIDES' and 'PATENTS APPLIED FOR'.  The artwork shows an early version of the lunar module from some years earlier, around 1963.  The back of the cereal packet is dominated by (somewhat crude) artwork of the Saturn 5 rocket. There is a  box of (large-ish) text that  refers to a manned American 'moonshot programme' and while it does mention the Saturn 5, it doesn't refer to project Apollo by name. The slides show rocket (again, somewhat crudely) and Apollo spacecraft during key stages of such a mission. However, this is where it starts to fall apart: the one scene you might expect to see depicted  - namely of the lunar lander and astronauts actually on the surface of the moon - is noticeable by its absence and to cap it all,  the (smaller) text on the side of the packet, seemingly at odds with the main text, describes an unmanned mission instead, more like one of the 1970s Soviet Luna missions! This is all rather baffling and somewhat disappointing - the promotion could have been so much better.

This is what it says on the side of the packet:

Go to the moon and back with moon shot colour slides

Rocket launch

Separation

Moon landing

Mooncraft rejoins rocket

Re-entry

Splash-down

You can follow the spacecraft all the way there and all the way back with this series of six slides. From the moment the rocket is launched it's action all the way.

As it goes into orbit round the moon the front section - the mooncraft - is separated from the parent rocket and lands on the surface of the moon. Its job is to take pictures, test the surface (see if it's hard or soft, whether anything will grow etc) and collect all kinds of information that will help to prepare the day that a man sets foot on the moon for the first time.

The mooncraft then launches itself from the moon - controlled by scientists back on earth - and rejoins the rocket which brings it back into orbit around the earth. The capsule, carrying all the information learnt on the trip detaches itself and re-enters the earth's atmosphere under its own power splashing down in the sea using parachutes. The voyage is over!

SPECIAL OFFER

Look! There's a special Sugar Puffs viewer - made by world-famous Halina - for only 13/6 and two guarantee panels. It's usually 27/6. Now your friends can see your 'Moonshot' slides even better!

Fairground Rides (1967/68)

More fantastic memories from 'Spooky Steve' - this time of a promotion in '67 or '8. The picture is from an eBay auction by seller ricsan100 for a Mexican-made premium.

Steve says: Do you remember I said that in '65 I only managed to collect all the spooks by writing to Quaker Oats? And then later, the cat got nicked. Gutted? I think I invented the word. Anyway, I wrote to them again, and when I received quite a large, fat envelope, my heart soared....briefly. They sent a very kind letter, thanking me for my continued interest in the spooks, but stated that as that promotion had been 2 or 3 years ago, they were sorry to say they had no more spooks.   So, that would have been in '67 or '68  What they did send were some samples of their current promotion [ from '67 or '68]  which were small kits of parts to make simple models of fairground rides.  The vendor says it was a Kelloggs premium, made by R&L. Both statements could well be true. I googled R&L- Rosenheim & Lipmann of Melbourne, Australia; who it seems were huge when it came to making cereal free gifts from the 60s to the 90s, but in the late 70s they relocated to....Mexico! For cost reasons, no doubt. So, that could explain why the elephant on e bay is in Mexico. Or, equally possible, it could have been made in Australia in '67 or '68, and Mexico could have been one of the countries included in the promotion. If the former is true, Kellogs could well have commissioned it second time around  PHEW!!!!  So, where does that leave us?  Well, we can state for certain that the sugar puffs promotion in England for 1967 or 1968 was a series of self assembly small kits [push fit by the way, no glue needed] depicting various fairground rides, including a 'flying elephant' [That's what sugar puffs themselves called it].  Flying elephant? Yes. If you look at the picture, a length of cotton could be threaded through the wheel frame so that when the cotton was pulled taught the bottom of the wheel would rest on it. If the taught cotton was raised one end, the elephant would 'fly' [ok,roll] along the cotton, turning the wheel as it went.  These things kept me amused for a couple of days but all I wanted was MORE SPOOKS!!

Many thanks indeed, Steve - very interesting to hear that R&L made premiums for Sugar Puffs! That was news to me, as I've only come across them before from promotions for Kelloggs. 

More from Steve about an eBay auction he came across in 2016: The seller calls it a Carnival Dive Bomber. Do you remember me saying about Fairground Rides, a couple of years after the Spooks?  This was one of them, I had a blue one, sent by Quaker Oats the second time I wrote to them trying to get more spooks, when I was about 9. I thought you might like to add the picture to that of the Flying Elephant on the Haunted Manor website. Interesting that this is from New Zealand. (the elephant was from Mexico) but it seems to confirm that they were made by R & L. The seller says 1969, im sure we had them a little earlier. I have often wondered how many countries the Spooks were available in, maybe the Commonwealth countries as well as England? This doesn't prove anything one way or the other but I know R&L moved to mexico which explains the elephant.

Thanks Steve. I was unable to locate the exact auction item, but here are pictures from seller norifivedollars2.  BTW, I loved cereal kits like these as a kid!

Good point about Sugar Puffs perhaps being available overseas. I know they were available in Canada. I seem to recall that they may have been available in Scandinavia as well. When I first came across R&L, I did wonder if they had made the figures, but their output seems to be a fairly well documented and the Spooks aren't listed. 

Win a Real Dalek! (September 1966)

This promotion coincided with the film Daleks-Invasion Earth, 2150 AD, sponsored by Quaker. The film features an early example of product-placement with an advertising poster for Sugar Puffs and a packet of the cereal on display in scenes in the film. The promotion was to win three of the Daleks from the film, plus 500 Marx battery-operated Daleks. 

(BTW, I have it on good authority from someone who has seen correspondence at the BBC, that one option considered early on was to give away Luminous Daleks, following the success of the Luminous Spooks! If this was seriously considered by Quaker, that would indicate that they were able to commission items for giving away with the cereal. Could they also have commissioned the Spooks then? If I find out any more, I'll post it here!)

See here for more details on the promotion.

Although there were no Luminous Daleks in 1966, such things have been produced more recently, following the highly successful renewal of Doctor Who in 2005!

Jan 2023 update:  

• while it seems there are no known complete examples of the promotional cereal box, part of one has recently surfaced on eBay from seller cazza177.  As shown below, it is very similar indeed to the comic ads accompanying the promotion. I was surprised to see a high quality photograph on a cereal packet of the era!

• there's also a lot of info.  on this marvellous Peter Cushing blog, including a photo of the packet back from what seems to be a publication of the time (Kinematograph Weekly). There was even supposedly a TV commercial to go with it! Now, I wonder what happened to that? 

April 2023 update:

• There are also some more pictures here of parts of the packet, including two small pieces not in the blog link above.

• In the above linked Peter Cushing blog, there is also an image of material about the promotion for supermarkets and grocers. Assuming that it is genuine, it seems that some 3.5 million promotional packs were produced! While I'd expect the Dalek promotion to have been bigger (to recoup the investment made by Quaker), perhaps the number of Luminous Spooks packs -  and actual Spooks made - could have been in the region of a million or so?

Farm Animals (1966)

This rather battered box was sold by eBay seller fluffyowl2 for £73 in January 2015! It dates from the year after the LS promotion and provides some additional clues as to the likely appearance of the LS box.

 Tiddlywinks (1965)

This picture is courtesy of 'Spooky' Steve, who tells me  They were at my parents house for decades. My mother dug them out and said they had been to France a few years ago on holiday with my brothers family and his then small children..... Anyway they came back safe and sound...The tiddlywinks as you can see are brown and green, odd colour choice. I expect they came in other colours too. I never lost any, the odd number of each was how they originally came.

Interestingly, he remembers these as coming right after the Spooks (Kim's research says 'June', i.e. before the Spooks): Seriously though,i remember them as being immediately after the spooks. my memory is of being mortified to realise that the spooks were no more and these were the next thing. i hadnt got all the spooks at this stage so mum suggested writing to quaker oats which i did. Thats how i finally got the full set.

Even if they had first come out in June, it was only a couple of months before the spooks, so perhaps there was some old stock, or maybe Quaker resumed the promotion?

Anyway, it's great to see these! Thanks to Steve for the picture and information. Here's the comic ad for the Tiddlywinks promotion.

You may have noticed the small picture of the packet in the comic ad. I suspect it was a mock-up. Here's a picture of the real thing from ebay seller webshed. The shape, size and position of the promotional graphic on the front are the same as the one for the Luminous Fish. Perhaps the same as the one for the Spooks as well?

Roman Gladiators (August 1964)

This comic advertisement comes courtesy of Kim. I remember this promotion from 1964, because of the great TV ad for it, which showed gladiators fighting in an arena, with the emperor giving a thumbs down sign as one of them lay defeated on the ground. I was thrilled by this and asked my Mum to buy a packet, but I vaguely remember being slightly disappointed with the figures when I first saw them, possibly because of the size. The ad says that there were 2 or 3 figures in each packet, and although the size is not stated, it is likely they were small ones of about an inch in height (HO scale). Multiple figures were also given away in 2 earlier promotions by Sugar Puffs - British soldiers in 1962 and Cowboys and Indians in 1963; these were all HO scale figures by Airfix. Airfix, however, did not make any figures with a gladiator theme, or in a similar style.

The Plastic Soldier Review website has a page about some small figures which are believed to be these gladiator give-aways. I understand they have no manufacturer's mark, but Kim tells me it is likely they were made in Hong Kong, possibly by Giant.

Luminous Fish (May 1964)

This giveaway from Sugar Puffs is seemingly the least likely cereal promotion of all. However, on closer inspection, this is about bioluminescent fish, so the luminous feature is totally appropriate. Like the Spooks, these were made of thin plastic, were quite detailed and had 'eyes' for mounting onto surfaces. Presumably they were made by the same manufacturer. I don't remember the promotion at all and suspect they didn't capture the imagination in quite the same way as the Luminous Spooks. Still, no doubt they paved the way for the Spooks the following year (even down to re-using two of the names).

Fun fact: some glow-in-the-dark fishing lures are known as Spooks!

Here's an advert for the promotion, taken from Buster comic dated 9th May 1964, sent by Kim, and an example of the packet (again incomplete, but really after all this time, we mustn't complain!) that sold in July 2017 for ~£32, also from ebay seller thenaz66. There have to be some clues here as to the appearance of the Spooks packet!

Now meet a Gonostoma called George, courtesy of Stewart, Pete the Parabrotula from Nick Symes and Irene the Ipnops from Tom Cross:

Peephole Theatre (1963)

I remember this promotion quite well. By making suitable cuts and folds in the cereal packet, you could construct a 3D scene with foreground, middle ground and background. The one I remember is the Treasure Island one shown, courtesy of Nick Symes; as a child, I found it quite magical. The comic ad for the promotion is courtesy of Kim.

And here's the Moon peephole theatre, from an incomplete packet sold July 2017 for ~£28 by ebay seller thenaz66.

Jeremy's Cut-Out T.V. Theatre

Here is another promotion involving the cereal packet and scissors! The image is a scan of part of a newsletter called 'Crunch' from some years back and was sent to me by Kim (I would attempt to get permission from the editor of the newsletter, but I have no e-mail address for him). I'd date it to around the same time as the Peephole Theatre below. Clearly cereal packet construction projects were a speciality of Sugar Puffs. I wonder if there are any more waiting to be discovered? There's a nice picture of this in colour on the cerealoffers site here.

Blow Football

Thanks to Nick Symes for the following picture of the back of a Sugar Puffs packet, of similar vintage to the Spooks, by the look of it. Note the centre section with an eye-catching panel saying Free Sugar Puffs Blow Football, as you'd expect to also see on the front. Peter Watson and 'Spooky' Steve  have already suggested that the area above the Haunted Manor cut-out on the Luminous Spooks packet would have been similar to that shown above the Haunted Manor sketch in the comic advert (saying Free in Sugar Puffs Luminous Spook). On the basis of this Blow Football packet back, I'm inclined to agree.