Marketing stuff to kids is pretty easy -- which is why the government prevented tobacco companies from doing it -- even subtly, supposedly accidentally -- a few years back. McDonald's Happy Meals are the latest to feel their knuckles rapped by this particular ruler -- the obesity epidemic among kids has caused San Francisco to consider banning them completely.

But weird salesmanship aimed at kids is nothing new -- and breakfast cereals have been among the most egregious since the dawn of the Television Age. Sometimes, these tactics make sense -- think sports figures on Wheaties boxes (sometimes, even that backfires.) And sometimes? Well, sometimes they make no sense at all.

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Attention Cereal Eaters: The following ten cereal mascots are wanted by the authorities for a variety of criminal activities. They are fugitives from justice and currently at-large. United States law enforcement agencies encourage the community to assist in the fight against crime by overcoming the three key elements that inhibit community involvement in the apprehension, arrest, and conviction of these criminal breakfast elements: fear, apathy, and morning hunger.

If you see any of these most-wanted cereal pitchmen, please do not approach. Contact your local FBI office, American Embassy, or grocer. And under no circumstances should you supply them with, or accept from them, cold cereal and milk.

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Total Cinnamon Crunch
General Mills
Rating: Two spoons out of four

Cereal description: Ridged squares that look as if they've been toasted and sprinkled with cinnamon -- although that last ingredient appears on the roster after a slew of other items. Some of the things in line in front of it make sense (whole grain wheat, rice flour, sugar) -- but it also trails a couple of elements with chemistry-class names. Would it have been more appropriate had General Mills dubbed this stuff Total Maltodextrin Crunch? Or Total Tricalcium Phosphate Crunch? Maybe so -- and that's frightening.

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Low Fat Granola with Raisins
Kellogg's
Rating: Two-and-a-half spoons out of four

Cereal description: What isn't in this stuff? There's whole oats and whole grain wheat, some of it fused together in random wads, like meteorites collecting fragments during the trip through space, other parts shattered into jagged fragments. Add raisins, almonds and rice and the results resemble an explosion at Whole Foods. Oh, the humanity.

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Leapin Lemurs
EnviroKidz
Rating: Two-and-a-half spoons out of four

Cereal description: Here's a partial list of ingredients in Leapin' Lemurs: "organic corn meal," "organic whole grain corn meal," "organic evaported cane juice," "organic peanut butter," "organic molasses," "organic cocoa," "organic soy oil" -- as opposed to "soy oil assembled in a lab using only unnatural ingredients made in other labs," I suppose. Based on this list, I'm guessing that the folks who market this brand want people to know it's organic -- but I can't say for sure.

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Cap'n Crunch's Race Car Crunch
Quaker
Rating: Three-and-a-half spoons out of four

Cereal description: This time around, the classic slab o' Crunch -- yellow in color, corn and oats in content, and shaped kinda like a piece of shredded wheat (but delicious, not bleeech!) -- is supplemented by Crunch Berry-like bits molded to resemble blue, red and light orange-ish sedans. On a real track, these alleged race cars would finish at the back of the pack. On the breakfast table, though, they win the trophy with space to spare.

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Corn Flakes Touch of Honey/Toque de Miel
Kellogg's
Rating: Two spoons out of four

Cereal description: Yes, they're flakes made of corn. But unlike other flakes made of corn -- or corn flakes, if you insist -- they give off a glossy bronze glow, as if they've been spending most of their free time by the pool, absorbing beams directly from the sun overhead as well as those bouncing off the artificially blue water. In other words, they're the George Hamilton of corn flakes.

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Graham Bumpers
Mother's
Rating: Three spoons out of four

Cereal description: Corn, oat and rice mashed together and then molded into thick, gently curved, boldly rippled rectangles. They resemble outdoor-recliner cushions made of wood, or perhaps swimming pool rafts destined to sink to the bottom in a matter of seconds. But no: They float.

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Total Cranberry Crunch
General Mills
Rating: Two-and-a-half spoons out of four

Cereal description: Brown wheat flakes of the sort that are typically described as "hearty" (presumably because they're supposed to prevent your aorta from exploding), supplemented by wads of oat bits typically described as "oat clusters" (because "wads of oat bits" isn't all that appetizing) and dried cranberries typically described as "dried cranberries" (because that's what they are).

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Cinnamon Chex
General Mills
Rating: Three-and-a-quarter spoons out of four

Cereal description: The familiar Chex shape -- puffy, square grids, like graph paper made for chewing -- is present and accounted for, as are the base ingredients of rice and corn flour. Some of the pieces are a light brown color, while the others are darker and bear the mark of delectable cinnamon sprinkles in both the relatively new original recipe and the even-more-recent "gluten-free" rebranding. However, there are subtle variances between the two when cereal hits mouth.

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