The Leggo of My Kellogg Expertease

Welcome to the podcast today, my happy listeners. We are very excited to have Danno Sullivan. And Danno, our audience tonight is composed of serial lovers. And since the Kellogg empire is your expertise, we're going to probe it naturally. You're listening to Expertise, spelled wrong. The podcast where the world's most expert experts discuss their areas of expertise, expertly. Expert comedy writer, Clare Sera, and expert comedy writer, Danno Sullivan, bring their expertise to other unrelated expertises. Danno. Ahoy, matey. Ahoy, straight from Battle Creek, Michigan.

Straight from the cover of a Captain Crunch box, my friend. Everyone in America loves their morning cereal. And you are an expert on Mr. Kellogg, the most famous of all. Jim Kellogg, the cereal inventor who, because of his own poor health, moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, where the air was pure, the springs were available, and there was a bizarre collection of animated creatures that would serve as the spokes characters for his cereals for decades to come. Now, is that right? Is that where animated creatures were first found in America, at least? This was the first time they'd been discovered naturally.

So you've got your animated Trix rabbit, your Count Chocula, you got your magical Lucky Charms leprechaun, Tony the Tiger. And I mean, it must've been animated and cute, but still a little frightening to see a tiger. Oh, Tony the Tiger was ferocious before he was tamed, sedated. The cereal itself, Sugar Frosted Flakes, was based on the diet they used to subdue Tony. Oh, is that right? So what would that comprise of? Bullets. So Dano, you mentioned that Jim Kellogg was his name? Jim Kellogg. They called him Jumpin' Jim Kellogg because he was so full of feist, and that was due to the power of his delicious cereal program.

It wasn't just a bowl of cereal like we often have of a morning nowadays. It was a whole program, Clare. You really had to dedicate yourself to the healthful style of life that Jumpin' Jim Kellogg promoted. Now, it's interesting to me. I've always found it kind of fascinating that he chose corn, the very first cereal being Corn Flakes. Now you say that with a knowing tone in your voice, like, isn't that ironic? Because we all know about the side effects of corn. But this was not corn that was made into flakes. This was actual corn flakes, which is an ingredient which is only available in Battle Creek, Michigan.

So how do you harvest Corn Flakes? It's not as complicated as it seems, Clare. Jim Kellogg came from a family of farmers, and they had been growing Crunch Berries for some time in their family. And he was familiar with the ways of tree-based grain sweets. So using his knowledge, he was able to graft branches from a Crunch Berry plant onto a corn plant, and that's how the Corn Flake was initially grown. And really wonderful, wonderful for cereal, and we've all benefited from his experiments. But isn't that also part of what got him in trouble when he started experimenting with hybrids beyond grains?

People said that he was toying with what God never intended man to interfere with. Well, to me, it seemed the line was crossed when he grafted a part of one of his animated creatures with his son. Yes. So he had the cutest nickname. Jinky was the son's name. He was Jim Jr., but they called him Jinky. That is a cute name, Jinky. Can we just reflect on it for a second, how cute that is? I mean, I don't know why he didn't call one of his cereal Jinkies. Well, he did, but that's where the trouble began. So Jinky was the boy, and Jinky was also the name of one of the animated characters.

Right. That they sort of named him after the boy because, you know, it's like you find a little pet and you name it after your son. Don't you do that? Oh, I think that's not that common, but it sounds like why wouldn't that be a thing until you really think about it and you go, that's not a good thing. To honor the boy, they named the creature after the boy. So you had Jinky the boy and Jinky, the animated figure. I'm sorry, but just for a moment, I have to think about how that young boy would feel as he's always been known as Jinky. He's the Jinky of this community.

And then now they've got a little animated lemur or whatever. I'm not sure what the animal was. It was a lemur. A lemur. And now everyone's going, oh, Jinky the lemur. I loved, oh, Jinky. And I don't know, that boy, that might be a little bit of trauma. Yeah. Then that's exactly what it was. The boy did not take kindly to having a lemur named after him. A lemur that overcame him in cuteness and popularity. Animated lemur, my goodness. And representing a delicious breakfast treat. So Jinky the boy represented none of those things. He was a particularly hideous child.

So he wasn't cute. He didn't really live up to his name. He needed a nickname. He needed a nickname to just sort of distract people from the awfulness of his presence. There was a smell associated with little Jinky. There was just kind of a, do you ever read Victorian ghost stories? Oh, all the time. Yeah. And it seems like there's always, there'll be like a moldering. Moldering. Sensation. Yes. And that was how people would describe the presence of Jinky the boy. Like more of a smudge than a person. Yeah. That's a good way to say it. Yeah. So Jinky the boy was physically an unpleasant presence.

Mentally okay until this lemur incident occurred and it sent him right over the edge, Claire. My goodness. Well, a lot of people thought that it was the sugary cereals that was causing the character change and personality change in the boy. But years and years of psychoanalysis have definitely revealed it to be sort of a competitive disgust with Jinky the lemur. And now this, this mascot was doing nothing wrong. The Jinky lemur was just being it's bubbly, charming little self. Yeah. Promoting Jinky cereal. Rice Krispies, Claire. Oh, you are kidding me. Good old innocuous Rice Krispies.

Those were originally a lemur flakes. Lemur flakes. That's, that's a little bit of a tough sell. I'm going to say, I think they were smart to go with the name Rice Krispies. Yeah. And even the slogan was snap, crackle, and That's the sound a hybrid lemur makes. What a night that must've been. Imagine being, jumping Jim Kellogg, coming home to kiss your little smudge goodnight, and all of a sudden they're snarling fangs and the smell of rice. I imagine that would create a bit of a conflict. Well, it was more than a conflict. It drove Jim right around the bend.

And so he moved from Kalamazoo to South Bend with his second family, he completely deserted. But wait, so he moved to Kalamazoo from Battle Creek and then to South Bend? Oh, sorry. All right. Let me set up my whole joke structure again, because this is a winner. So it drove him right around the bend, whereupon he moved immediately from Battle Creek, Michigan to South Bend, Indiana, where he bought a new mansion, set up with a second family and completely left little Jinky and the factory behind. This is so interesting because I had read in my research before having you on that there had been brothers, John and Will, but now I'm learning there was really only one man, Jim Kellogg, who lived a double life and later sold his story as being brothers.

And Claire, he came up with the cleverest little corporate restructuring you can imagine. He'd spent decades of his life presenting the untruth that there were two other brothers in his family who co-owned the Kellogg business with him. So when he moved to South Bend, he was able to sell his own shares to his brothers, in quotation marks, thus buying the company from himself. You could call him a serial Kellogg. He was, he was a serial version of himself. This is a dark history of a fruity, good taste in time of most people's morning. This is exactly why I only eat eggs and English muffins for breakfast.

Every mouthful to me tastes of ash. If I have a Kellogg cereal, when I reflect on what happened within the family, lives destroyed, animations unseen. What ever came of Jinky, the half lemur? Well, Claire, it's funny that you should mention that because it was exactly 50 years ago today on a night, almost exactly like tonight, when Jumper Jim Kellogg stepped into the woods for the first time, only to discover that what he thought was an animated, adorable creature was in fact, a stray dog that had been missing in the neighborhood for nearly a week. He was able to snatch that dog by the collar.

And lure it back to civilization where he was able to return it to the family who had lost it nearly a week before. And sometimes when the light is just right, you can sense the concern of a family who's been missing their dog for several days. That's not really, that's not a ghost story. That's a story of some mild concern. Well, that's what happened. Well, Dano, this has been a fascinating insight into our morning breakfast cereals. It's interesting. You know, next week we have a expert coming in on various types of milks that we have these days. Mr. Oatnut and Mr.

Almond will be coming in to discuss the stories, the beginnings of how cereal has made a comeback because of these new and exotic milks. That sounds wonderful and kudos to you for being able to get those two in a room together. Oh, what are you saying? One of their hands is a look. The Expertise, spelled wrong, podcast is free and like the Amish, all are welcome. Be sure to sign up for our email announcements at funnypodcast.co and follow us in your favorite podcast app, like the expert podcast listener we know you are. Well, Claire, it's been a real pleasure being on your podcast today.

I would encourage everyone to always start the day with a well-balanced breakfast, whether that balanced breakfast be eggs and English muffins or the half human remains of a small boy from Battle Creek, Michigan.