Stars & Stripes Forever – in My Brain

Little did John Philip Sousa know that his iconic
“The Stars and Stripes Forever” would be used to sell cereal

Over the recent July 4th holiday, a chance encounter with a John Philip Sousa march on TV reminded me just how deeply our memories are linked with television.

The tune was “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” and during one part of it, I found myself mouthing lyrics that included the words, “...and all sorts of craa-zy shaaaapes.”

“Where did that come from?” I wondered. I knew it was some old TV commercial that I had seen as a kid but I had no idea what product it was. But it showed how savvy the advertising agency was that produced the commercial, because it was still stuck in my subconscious a half-century later thanks to the iconic music.

I knew this was going to bug me until I figured it out.

I had a hunch that it might have been cereal. What other product came in a bunch of different shapes? And I was also guessing that there were other people out there who remembered the commercial as well.

It didn’t take too much Googling to find out what product it was.

On the “Memorable advertising jingles for defunct products” on the Straight Dope Message Board, I found my answer: Post Alpha Bits!

The whole ‘crazy shapes’ thing was part of a temporary promotion in the mid-1960s during which pieces of cereal shaped like stars, planes, etc. were mixed in with the usual letter-shaped Alpha Bits pieces. It’s a strange idea that would seem to dilute the special quality of the brand – so maybe that’s why the gimmick didn’t last. (The cereal is still around, however.)

Courtesy TheImaginaryWorld.com

Anyway, there were a couple Alpha Bits commercials with the “Stars & Stripes Forever” music during the promotion, so it’s not surprising that it was imprinted on my brain. You can see them (and possibly get it stuck in YOUR head) in this YouTube collection of POST cereal commercials. There’s also one for the V-RROOM engine cartoon contest that I wrote about here.

I probably have dozens of other obscure cereal commercials rattling around in my brain (such as the one for the Quaker Puffed Cereals that used the 1812 Overture as background music). But it’s nice to know that I’m not ‘crazy’ when it comes to remembering this one.

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To hear “The Stars & Stripes Forever” in all its glory and learn the story behind it too, visit this link on the Marines website. Or, play it on YouTube below.