For the first time in 35 years, General Mills is reportedly rolling out a new monster for their beloved line of monster cereals. Carmella Creeper is a new, young character who appears to be a zombie. The cereal itself is caramel apple-themed, and Carmella herself represents the first time there has been a girl character in the monster cereal universe. According to the Twitter user who first revealed the apparent box art, it appears as though General Mills will also be rolling out a new version of their Monster Mash cereal, a flavor medley originally released as a 50th anniversary limited edition.
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The new Monster Mash will include Carmella along with Count Chocula, Franken Berry, Boo Berry, Fruit Brute, and Yummy Mummy. The thread from @NLogan77 actually has a pretty good breakdown of the rollout of Monster cereals. As an added aesthetic bonus, Carmella wears headphones on her own box art, and shows off her slick DJ skills on the front of the new Monster Mash.
UPDATE – June 7, 2023, noon ET: General Mills has confirmed the launch of Carmella Creeper, and provided some new details about the character and this year’s Monsters Cereals promotion. You can see those here.
You can check it out below.
Count Chocula and Franken Berry launched in Marcy 1971, according to the General Mills website. George Karn, who designed the original Trix Rabbit in 1959, also designed Count Chocula. In 1972, Boo Berry joined the party. Those three cereals have remained on the market since then, although in 2009, the cereals became seasonal items that are available during the spooky season. It isn’t just October when you can get them, though; in recent years, they have been showing up on store shelves in July or August.
In 1974, Fruit Brute debuted, then was retired in 1982. In 1988, they tried another new berry flavor with Yummy Mummy. That one lasted only four years before being retired in 1992. Both Fruit Brute and Yummy Mummy returned in 2013, marking the first time all five cereals were on the shelf at once.
Over the years, the Monster cereals have had a number of highly visible (and usually thematically appropriate) crossover marketing pushes, including working with Scooby-Doo and introducing Casper-shaped marshmallows to promote Casper Meets Wendy. In 2014, comics artists Jim Lee, Dave Johnson, and Terry and Rachel Dodson redesigned the main three monster cereals, and they got another fresh look from special effects artist Karlee Morse in 2020.
General Mills recently rolled out “hidden dragon” cereal in its Lucky Charms boxes. The traditional charms will wash away in milk, revealing the limited-time dragons who we assume are the second-cousins to these monster mascots, even if they’ll never meet. As yet, there is no official announcement from General Mills, so we won’t find out until then whether and when fans can get their first taste of a new monster flavor.
