Artist/Maker
General Mills
(American, founded 1856)
Team Cheerios cereal box signed by the Warwick Munchkins
1998
Cardboard
Overall: 11 1/2 × 8 × 2 1/2 in. (29.2 × 20.3 × 6.4 cm)
The Women’s Sports Foundation Records
2019.75.7
General Mills first featured athletes on the boxes of its Wheaties brand in the 1930s. Later the company began courting athletes to promote its Cheerios brand. It launched a new flavor, Team USA Cheerios, to coincide with the 1996 Summer Olympics. The following year, the cereal was simply renamed Team Cheerios and began a “Team of the Year” promotion, which focused on middle and high school athletes and examples of teamwork and academic excellence. This box features the Rhode Island-based Warwick Munchkins figure skating club, a squad of 11-to-15-year-old girls who won the 1998 national championship in the team sport of precision figure skating. The cereal was discontinued in 2003.
Description13.7-ounce Team Cheerios cereal box; front printed with white General Mills logo in top left corner; yellow Team Cheerios logo with photographs of male football player, female basketball player, and male soccer player above it; green banner with text in black and white: “TEAM OF THE YEAR! / FEATURED ON THE BACK OF THIS BOX!”; background design references U.S. flag with red and white stripes and field of blue; photograph of bowl of cereal in bottom left corner. Back of box has yellow Team Cheerios logo above yellow banner with blue text: “TEAM OF THE YEAR”; blue and white Warwick Figure Skaters logo in top right; team photograph in the middle; lower third has yellow headline “THE WARWICK MUNCHKINS!” and body text discusses the team’s achievements.ClassificationsEPHEMERA
