S12·E52 Cereal: History in a Bowl

Move over pancakes, step aside bacon! Cereal is arguably the true breakfast king, a $9-billion industry with an indisputable place in pop-culture history. Full of surprise, nostalgia, and fascinating facts, our special celebrates the colorful–and crunchy–saga of a distinctly American breakfast. We see how a Presbyterian minister-turned-health-food-fanatic–Sylvester Graham, of “Graham cracker” fame–turned his countrymen from fried pork breakfasts to grain- and bran-heavy diets in 1824. We reveal the rivalries, tricks, and accidents that turned cereal into a breakfast sensation. And we examine the amazing feats of marketing used to promote the product–from creating iconic characters for packaging, to ingenious prizes that drove consumers to the shelves in droves.