Make your own Toucan Sam!
Before today, it’d been a long time since my last box of Froot Loops.
Don’t get me wrong. Froot Loops is great, but for me, it was always a rebound. If one of the cereals I really liked did something to piss me off, I’d slide back to Froot Loops for a bit, and then, when I was ready, try something new.
It’s tasty stuff and it’s been around forever, but there’s only so hard I can fall for a smug bird with a nose obsession. Noses are gross.
Still, I had a good reason to hop into Toucan Sam’s nest again. Look closely at the latest Froot Loops box, and you’ll spot it.
“You can make your own Toucan Sam.”
That’s how you do it, Kellogg’s. Toucan Sam may be an icon, but he’s also eerily similar to Generic Grandpa. This guy needs the boost, and I don’t need to consult Merriam-Webster to know that making Toucan Sam out of cut up cardboard is the exact definition of “boost.”
With the aid of scissors and the patience of Saint Monica, you can fashion your very own Toucan Sam “blockhead.” On the other hand, if you leave the box alone, Toucan Sam looks like a deranged moose. Decisions!
Even if Toucan Sam got top billing, he isn’t why I bought Froot Loops again. I did it for the Iguana.
I’m sure Iguana has been in a few Froot Loops commercials, but I haven’t seen them. He could be a friend of Sam’s, an enemy, or something in-between. I really don’t know, and I really don’t care. He’s a mean-faced aquamarine lizard, wearing a Froot Loops necklace for what are sure to be darkly religious reasons. No matter where his loyalties lie, Iguana rules.
Making Froot Loops blockheads is neither easy nor fun. The box suggests parental supervision, but I believe this transcends merely finding someone who is more capable with a pair of scissors. Creating my cardboard Toucan Sam bordered close to impossible. He’s covered in enough Scotch Tape to have my fingerprints forever protected within his seams.
Admittedly, I’m not perfect at this sort of thing. I did the best I could, and “the best I could” amounted to the monstrosity pictured above. If the version shown on the front of the box looked like a neatly rectangular Toucan Sam, mine looks like some kind of Sam-themed bird feeder.
If Toucan Sam is the type to pull seed from a container that looks like him, I’m glad I buy Froot Loops so infrequently.
Saving the day is my pal, Iguana. He was just as hard to make, but the rewards were so much greater. I think back to when I was a more appropriate age for cereal box art projects, and I know I would’ve been absolutely hell-bent on keeping my Iguana blockhead safe. This wasn’t one of those things that I’d create, look at and sit on in the span of two minutes.
I’m sure that half of what I write seems like a put-on, but this isn’t: I really, really want to make a little house for Iguana. I could use a shoebox or something. If this is something that you absolutely do not want to see on Dinosaur Dracula, you might want to speak up. If left to my own devices, the next post will almost certainly be a tour of Iguana’s new shoebox house.
It would only take a minute to Google “Froot Loops” and find out if these guys are friends or enemies, but I don’t want to. I’ve decided that they are enemies, fighting over Froot Loops cereal. Toucan Sam wants to save it for his young friends, because he’s a secret jerk with an insatiable need to be the hero. Iguana just wants to make a lot of jewelry.
I’m rooting for Iguana. I know that all of you are, too.
