Toward a Theory of the American TV Commercial, Vol. 4: Songs in the Key of Cheerios

This is the fourth entry in a new recurring feature in which Believer Commercials Correspondent Ian Dreiblatt travels back in time via YouTube.com to review and examine the cultural phenomenon that was Television Commercials. Commercials featured here will mostly be old, and have, in many cases, already left an indelible mark on America and its culture. Read the first entry here, the second here, and the third here.

If you lived in America in the mid-eighties, you knew for sure which cereal was loudest: it was Rice Krispies, in a blowout. Rice Krispies was so loud it’d spawned a trio of magical sound elves: Snap, Crackle, and Pop, decibel sprites who camped out in kitchens to save kids from the tedium of a quiet breakfast. A bowl of Rice Krispies could wake a pirate or enrage a sensitive dino. This was cultural knowledge bordering on lore. Earlier generations too, since the Depression, had heard the gospel roar and waxed operatic in reply. Even the Rolling Stones had sung about it.

But breakfast is a war of all against all, and in 1988, a fleet of sleek commercials heralded the arrival of a new cereal: Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. In the flagship ad, we meet a nuclear family. “Have you heard what Cheerios has been up to?” Father asks, with the studied rigidity of a vaudeville straight-man, as the sound of funky synth-drums appears to slice up some apples. “Heard about a new Cheerios?” Mom spunkily adds, followed by a shot of cinnamon being grated to the accompaniment of drum-machine record scratches. In case we haven’t got the point yet, an adorablish child then appears, leaning in toward us and urging, “Listen!”, as our perplexity crests a theme song whose lyrics exhort, “Listen to the sound of a whole new O: new Apple Cinnamon Cheerios!”

The music isn’t amazing, but it manages to believe in itself, which is all you can really ask of anyone. Processed guitar chords surge, and some post-Graceland drum samples lend a faint islandiness. More interesting, though, than the music itself —which is not incomparable to the “Sinkable? Unthinkable” Theme that had been swiveling through Cheerios commercials for years—is the fact that it’s being used to direct our focus to the aural properties of the Whole New O in question. Throughout the spot, the claims on our attention are enthusiastically auditory. Which is baffling, actually, since Apple Cinnamon Cheerios don’t sound like anything, and silence in food is not generally thought a weakness.

In waking life, Cheerios say nothing, no matter how closely we listen, but this commercial conjures, and exults in, an expressive soundscape that has no...