These Pokémon Eggo Waffles Will Have You Feeling Nostalgic
Pokémon turned 25 this year, and as kids' fads go, the Japanese-born video game, trading card, movie, and TV phenomenon has been amazingly enduring. The power of Pokémon got a boost in 2016, with the introduction of Pokémon Go — the augmented-reality version of the monster-catching game. But as the BBC observed a year ago, Pokémon might still feel fresh because the arrival of all those cute "pocket monsters" in our Nintendo Game Boys in the late 1990s introduced us to what our society would become — a bunch of people addicted to interacting with each other digitally.
But nobody feels a bond with Pokémon today more strongly than those who were caught in the whirlwind of Pokémania at its peak: people who were 5 to 12 years old around 1999 (via The New York Times). Kids that year caught "Pokéflu" so they could skip school and catch the first Pokémon movie when it premiered, on a Wednesday. Seems everyone in that age group was following the Pokémon mantra: "Gotta catch 'em all!"
Just eight months later, in July 2000, the second Pokémon movie arrived in the U.S., and by then the craze was in full swing. Kellogg's introduced Pokémon Eggo waffles that same summer, to coincide with the movie (via WARC). Two decades ago, untold numbers of kids were playing, watching, dreaming, and eating Pokémon.
Fans remember Pokémon Eggos fondly but wonder why some characters were featured
By the time the first Pokémon movie came out in late 1999, there were 154 pocket monsters in the Pokémon universe, according to The New York Times. Now, there are maybe 893, per GGRecon. Five special Pokémon were chosen to be imprinted on the Eggos: Pikachu (of course!), and four relatively obscure monsters: Togepi, Marill, Gengar, and Elekid (via Dinosaur Dracula). Reddit's nostalgia page took a moment to remember Pokémon Eggos. "Kind of a weird selection of Pokémon," one Redditor commented, "but I realized they're all pretty circular, aside from Pikachu."
A commenter on the Dinosaur Dracula blog's reminiscence didn't trust that the powers-that-be at Kellogg's made informed monster choices. "The people working for the companies doing the tie-ins have absolutely no idea about the show," the commenter said. "They probably knew about Pikachu, but faced with the choice of 150 other Pokémon ... they just closed their eyes and pointed."
These limited-edition Eggos came in two flavors, by the way: chocolate chip and blueberry. Not that the waffles' flavors mattered as much to the kids as the characters imprinted on them. We're sure those kiddos dutifully obeyed Kellogg's slogan, which was a variation on Pokémon's: "Gotta eat 'em all!"