Number 450


Terry gives it away


Who made Popped Wheat? If it's anything like Puffed Wheat, which was produced by my father's employer, the Quaker Oats Company, then Popped Wheat was basically packing material in a cereal box. In the 1940s and '50s, before sugared cereals became common, cereals like Popped (and Puffed) Wheat were more common. I hated those cereals. The only taste I could determine from a bowlful of those products was from the milk and sugar I poured on them to disguise their disgusting consistency.

Ah, but enough about my youthful culinary dislikes. Popped Wheat gave out Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates as a premium, part of a series of weekly 16-page comic books. Sig Feuchtwanger is listed as publisher, producing comics from the Chicago Tribune syndicate, which included Little Orphan Annie, Dick Tracy, Terry, and Smilin' Jack. I bought a set of the four in the mid-1970s for $6.00. I believe someone made a warehouse find. As far as I know, the four I have are the only four issues produced. Even though the copyright date is 1938, the Popped Wheat giveaways were put out in 1947.