I Met The Real Count Chocula. I'll Never Work With That Bastard General Mills Again!

This is probably going to come as a shock to most of you, but here goes...

Count Chocula is a real person. Actually, a real vampire, if you want to get specific about it. We met in the seventies. I was his advertising campaign manager.

Unlike most vampires who stayed in Transylvania due to monarchistic duties, he chose to reside in Belgium where better chocolate could be found, although he visited France and Germany frequently as well. He was a connoisseur of the stuff - chocolate, that is. But he also enjoyed a glass of blood with dinner, and a nightcap at bedtime. For the anti-oxidants, he told me once.

It was on one of those frequent trips to France that he met a representative from a cereal company looking for a new mascot. General Mills.

There’s nothing quite like working with a vampire, and Count Chocula was no exception. I met him at the General Mills head office where the head marketing manager was holding a meeting. I came in as an outside consultant, but I was soon hired on full time.

“Mr. James, I want you to meet our newest asset. This is Count Chocula the fourth,” Mr. Scotson said, gesturing to a man in brown and purple robes. It was the seventies so of course he had massive sideburns and what would be considered today to be a ridiculous up-do - split right down the middle like Shemp and then drawn upward into spikes which looked like brown horns made of hair.

I shook hands with the tall, strange-looking man. He had two very large, sharpened buck teeth which gleamed white in the bright light of the conference room.

"I love vhat you did vith the Frosted Corn Flakes campaign," said The Count. "That tiger gets me everytime! Ah, ah, ah!"

His belly laugh sounded very vampiric. But other than that he looked like your friendly, run of the mill mascot. Not the cartoon, of course, that creation was simply styled after his look.

"So here's what we were thinking, James," Mr. Scotson said, pointing to a presentation board. "Count Chocula cereal - they're CHOCK full of cinnamon!"

He looked excited and paused for my response. Count Chocula waited with a big smile on his face for my approval.

"Nobody is doing cinnamon! Nobody! We'd be the first ones with a cinnamon-based cereal! Big clumps of it that are crunchy at first but they dissolve in the milk and get deliciously soggy! What do you think, Mr. James? Is that a winner or what?"

I tried not to burst the man's bubble too brutally but the idea stank. It was right there in front of them, how could they not see it?

"Tell him the catch-phrase," someone said from across the table, sensing my reticence.

"I vant to cinnamon your blood!" The Count said enthusiastically. Everyone grinned wide and looked at me with expectant eyes.

"Did you guys ever consider…. Count Chocula being made with… chocolate?"

Everyone's jaws dropped. Spontaneous applause broke out and I was lifted up on several people's shoulders as they sang songs of my great idea, carrying me on a chair around the office, being careful not to be too specific in the lyrics of their impromptu celebratory songs, since spies from Kellogg's could be anywhere…. There were suspected moles in the office.

"Brilliant idea, Mr. James," said Count Chocula afterwards, clapping me on the back. "I vant this man in charge of all advertising for my brand. He's my guy, understand, Scotson?"

The old manager grudgingly agreed (I didn't come cheap, after all) and the three of us shook on the deal.

It was the beginning of a strange partnership and an even stranger friendship.

The start of the seventies was upon us and we began things off with a bang. Regulations were loose back then, and it showed in the ingredients. Or, rather, it didn't show. FrankenBerry's run in with the law for using a banned indigestible pigment resulting in "FrankenBerry Stool" (pink-coloured poop for the lay-person) wouldn't happen for a few more years and we were all living the good life. Riding high on a wave of profits. The FDA had bigger fish to fry, at least for the time being.

As sales of our sugar and cocoa-laden cereal began to skyrocket, I was touted as a king of the cereal advertising industry. Our chocolate cereal idea was the envy of every other brand. The Count was happy to stay hidden in the shadows and collect his cash, people believing he was just what we claimed he was, a loveable cartoon mascot. Nobody knew the darkest truths yet, not even me.

We were doing great at the beginning - with wealth and power that few people could dream of. I used to keep boxes of cash in my closets, in my cupboards, all over my house. I didn’t trust the banks. I still don't - not after what they did to George Jung.

We had women, cars, yachts, you name it. We'd hit a chocolate goldmine. Kids weren't used to that level of sugar in their cereals back in those days. In order to get even close to the taste they wanted, kids had to heap it on themselves by the tablespoon, and parents didn't like to look at that. Not one bit. Not with the price of sugar as high as it was...

But what they didn't see didn't hurt them. A market was out there sitting wide open for a cheap, sweet, somewhat digestible breakfast cereal. So we pumped those toasted oats full of sugar, fat, dye, and cocoa powder, and set them loose on society.

With all that money came power and freedoms we never could have imagined. All of us pretended not to know what The Count did with his share of the cash. But sooner or later we all knew. We all found out one by one, in our own ways.

I discovered the truth when he invited me to his castle in Belgium one summer. It was 73, I think, and we were riding high still, with nothing but hope and big plans for the future on the horizon. But I didn't realize The Count had different aspirations. Darker and much grander plans than simply cereal production.

His castle was located on a mountainous pass and was very difficult to reach. I rented a car and it barely made it up the steep slopes. Everyone in town seemed terrified when I told them where I was headed and said to be careful. They said there were rumors of a great monster that lived in the mountains. A huge, winged beast.

A storm was brewing when I arrived, a black cloud coming in over the mountains to my right as I pulled up to the giant castle.

I hurried quickly up the front steps, feeling as if there were eyes upon me, watching me from above.

There was a large brass knocker on the huge wooden doors at the front of the house, wrought iron and shaped in the face of a sharp-toothed bat. I used it to knock and the door swung open by itself.

"Count?" I called out, walking into the dusty castle foyer. There seemed to be nobody home. And yet I still couldn't help but feel as if I was being watched.

"Ah, Mr. James. A pleasure to see you here."

The Count was suddenly behind me, although I hadn't seen him on the stairs outside. All I'd heard was a flap and flutter behind me like a giant pair of wings.

"You surprised me! Good to see you, Count. How have you been?"

"Excellent. I've finally gotten everything I've ever wanted… All thanks to you."

He closed the door behind him and I realized I was cornered. His face no longer looked friendly. In fact, he looked quite upset.

"Is everything okay, Count? You don't look like yourself…"

He dropped his cape to the stone floor and unfurled a set of massive bat wings. They were ragged and torn, sewn together with scraps of flesh. I saw the remnants of human bodies sewn together with crude stitches - faces mid-scream, there were nipples and stretch lines and all the imperfections of the random unfortunate souls he had chosen to piece together to make his masterpieces - his fully functional bat wings.

"Holy shit, Count… Some people buy a private jet… I guess you took it a step further. How much did you pay for those things?"

I saw blood was dripping down his chin and onto his brown suit.

He didn't answer me.

"Oh no… Have you been blood-binging again? You know how you get when you're like that…. All grabby and bitey… I don't like it when you're like this. Can I go?"

His eyes blazed red with sudden fire.

"You are the one spying for Kellogg's! I got the call this morning from our man over there! He said it's for sure. You're the man on the inside."

My heart began to pound with fear as he stepped towards me. His massive wings blocked out the light and he looked tall and menacing, his sharp buck teeth dripping freshly consumed blood.

"Me?? Never!"

"You lie. They said you've been feeding them secrets all year!"

"They're just trying to drive a wedge between us! I came up with the idea of putting the chocolate in Count Chocula, remember? If it wasn't for me you'd be nothing! Cinnamon clumps that get soggy - that was your idea! Nobody wants to eat that! Nobody wants to eat cinnamon cereal!"

I realized I was making things worse and I quickly shut up.

His gaze darkened and he lunged at me like a wild animal, his wings drawn back as he closed the distance between us in an instant.

He grabbed me by the neck and began to choke me, squeezing my trachea between his fingers with so much force I could barely speak for weeks afterwards.

"It wasn't me!" I managed to squeak. "You can't kill me! I made you what you are!"

My hands were in his face, trying to push him away, and he suddenly recoiled, dropping me.

"Blah! Vhat is on your hands!? They taste terrible!!"

"Oh. There was pasta on the plane. Garlic bread too. Lots of garlic in all of it!"

I exhaled a stink bomb of garlic breath in his face and he backed away even further.

I'd also stuck two of the garlic breadsticks in my pocket and I took them out and made an impromptu cross with them.

"Blah! Vhy? Vhy? Don't do this to me Mr. James, we're partners!"

"Not anymore," I said, tossing one of the cold breadsticks at his forehead and burning him badly with it.

He crumpled to the floor and I raced past him and unlocked the door, leaving as quickly as I could.

I got back to my car and drove out of there as fast as possible. A shadow seemed to follow me as I raced down the steep mountain roads, blocking out the light of the moon. A huge bird, it looked like. But I knew it was something much worse.

Without a single stop along the way I made it to the airport and left my rental car just outside the front entrance of the hanger, not caring if it got towed.

I got on the phone with General Mills as soon as I got back stateside.

"I'll never work with that blood-sucking son of a bitch again," I told him. "I'll keep my agreed upon percentages and stay as a silent partner from now on. You guys are on your own with that lunatic."

"We're sorry to lose you," said the general. But he didn't argue. My mind was made up.

He relieved me of my duties and I went on to other jobs and other opportunities. Ten years later a new CEO was in charge and I pitched him an idea that he absolutely loved.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

You're welcome.

TCC