This Vintage Cereal From The '80s Was Inspired By A Classic Ice Cream Flavor

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Over the years, plenty of breakfast cereals have come and gone. Many of them have had fun gimmicks or flavors based on sweet treats (Cookie Crisp cereal comes to mind). Another great example is one General Mills cereal from the 1980s, Rocky Road Cereal, inspired by the classic ice cream flavor of the same name.

Rocky Road Cereal was released by General Mills in 1986. It's made of "sweetened corn cereal with marshmallows covered with a chocolate-flavored coating and nuts" to quote the box. The flavor profile combining chocolate, marshmallow, and nuts is designed to mimic its ice cream namesake (potentially putting it up there with some of the unhealthiest cereals you can find in the grocery store). What kind of nuts are in the cereal are not specified, though actual rocky road ice cream typically uses almonds.

Like many breakfast cereals, Rocky Road had mascots — a trio of characters named Choco, Van, and Marsha that formed a rock band. It also followed the trend at the time of offering prize coupons that you could send in for fun toys or games, in this case a trucker hat with a built-in radio. Unfortunately, none of it was enough to save it from being discontinued in 1989, adding it to the list of discontinued '80s cereals we'll never get back. The only way to find it today is to strike gold browsing sites like eBay that just might have one for sale, and even then they're just empty boxes.

Exact sales numbers for General Mills' Rocky Road cereal are not publicly available, but given that it only lasted three years before being pulled from shelves, we can assume that it did not sell very well. It doesn't come as a surprise given that most cereals are discontinued within five years. It's likely that General Mills shifted focus to more successful products like its Cocoa Puffs cereal.

Perhaps one factor that contributed to Rocky Road's cancellation was an incident in August of 1986 where a man in Charleroi, Pennsylvania discovered pieces of glass in his cereal that cut his mouth, which prompted stores in the area to briefly pull it from shelves. A few days later, it was determined that it was an isolated incident and that the glass did not enter the box during the manufacturing process. How it happened is still unknown, but the incident and accompanying news could have had an impact on Rocky Road's sales.

Despite everything, Rocky Road cereal is remembered fondly by some adults who may have eaten it themselves in 1980s kitchens. Some have even started online petitions for General Mills to bring it back, though they haven't had any success.