Cracker Jack Prizes Suck
27 Aug
Once upon a time in 1893 Frederick William Rueckheim and his brother Louis, mass produced and sold at the Chicago World’s Fair, “candied popcorn and peanuts.” Which would later on garner the name of Cracker Jacks.
Now Cracker Jacks aren’t chocolate, but they are candied and well, it’s time someone said something about them. I enjoy caramel popcorn immensely and I like the candied peanuts as well. Not crazy about the totally lopsided peanut to popcorn ratio, but I’ll live. What I can’t live with is the promised “prize” inside.
Last night at a baseball game, enjoying the traditional Cracker Jacks, I pulled out my prize. Fully expecting a temporary tattoo, sticker or joke card, which to be fair, pales in total comparison to what they used to put in: tiny metal compasses, plastic trucks, holographic stickers, glow in the dark creature cards, whistles, plastic animals and other tiny miniatures, I found this instead.
What is that? Well that my friends, is the worst prize in Cracker Jack history. Worse than any temporary tattoo or joke of popsicle stick grade. It’s Susan B. Anthony as a young woman, complete with a guess who I am history lesson on the left side. On the back side, the history lesson continues, informing you to look for the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin.
So what was the prize part? Young Susan folds up to show you….Old Susan! Oh, hooray! And old lady fold up. What a prize.
OK, history comes alive, I get it. Yes, Susan B. Anthony did a lot for woman kind. But was this really the best prize to make from this concept?
She belongs on the dollar coin, not in my Cracker Jacks!
Now a good prize would have been the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin. Like that’ll ever happen.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
My theory – too many unattended children choking on random cracker jack toys. Parents give to their children forgetting what is inside or not removing it first and are ASTOUNDED that their children put everything in their mouths and swallow. I’m not bitter, really. Just disappointed that those silly parents have ruined cracker jacks for the rest of us!
August 27th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
hah! well if you want good treats, you have to get kinder eggs! (Are they still banned in the U.S?)
February 10th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
I got the exact same prize today and i said the same exact thing, i mean do you remember when they used to give stickers and tattos and such. i looked up prizes and there this was.. what can i say… what happened to the good old days?
February 12th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Agreed, bring back the REAL prizes of Cracker Jack!
May 19th, 2009 at 11:46 am
What a buzz kill it was at the ballpark the other night! I could feel the prize from the outside and just knew I was in store for some tattoos! I opened the package only to find some lame cut out deal with a picture of ants that you slide over a pencil. When you are done, it appears the cartoon ants are walking on the pencil. The girlfriend just doesn’t understand my disappointment. Oh well, at least the beer was cold!
May 19th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Ants on a pencil? Perhaps it’s time that adult Cracker Jacks were invented. The same tasty treat but with a real prize inside.
June 9th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
I couldn’t agree more. Crackerjack prizes are nothing but a disappointment.
August 7th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
I’m 45 years old and still don’t know how to fold the “new” face properly.
August 14th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
I’m 11 and my Grandma remembers the fun toys.New prizes SUCK eggs!
August 18th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Suck eggs and then some!
August 31st, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Parents give to their children forgetting what is inside or not removing it first and are ASTOUNDED that their children put everything in their mouths and swallow. I’m not bitter, really.
September 1st, 2009 at 10:37 am
Preaching to the choir sir!
August 16th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Well Like everything else,All good things in this life must come to an end. Iam just glad that i had the great fortune of being born when i was in 64. What a GREAT time to grow up and witness SO many wonderful and memorable things that truly signified what we really were as a country… And even though my life is probably more than half over Im glad of that too, because the world has gone to HELLl in a Handbasket anyway!..
DREAM ON KIDS AND WEILD A BIG SHOVEL-YOUR GONNA NEED IT!!
August 25th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
I said the same exact thing this afternoon when I opened a box of Cracker Jacks for the first time in about 25 years. The prize was some stupid folding thing with a face on it. Talk about sucking. My son will never know the joy of finding a neat surprise inside his Cracker Jacks. It’s more than likely the fault of idiot parents who never watch their children and the sue happy culture we live in. Once again, mankind’s greed destroyed something innocent and fun. CJ might as well not even put anything in the box except the treat.
August 25th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
Amen Doug. Amen.
November 18th, 2010 at 11:39 am
I totally agree!! I got the exact same prize in my Cravcker Jack and I was like WTF!! I wanted a whistle or a decoder ring or I don’t know something else that wasn’t Susan B Anthony( btw originally I thought it was Benjamin Franklin) I want to write an anrgy letter to Cracker Jack cuz they owe me a better prize!!!!
November 18th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
LOL. Ok- the Ben Franklin crack is excellent and sad. Excellent because it is true, but sad also because it’s true. BRING BACK THE DECODER RING!
December 28th, 2010 at 10:33 am
I’m 13, and I wish I COULD have x-ray specs, decoder rings, or glow-in-the-dark stickers. Like the taste. Hate the “prizes”
January 15th, 2011 at 10:47 pm
I remember when my boss pulled a small magnifying glass out of a Cracker Jack box and that was only in 1997!!! And since the doctor recommended age for children eating popcorn is 4 years then there should not be a problem with popcorn having small toys!!! Either that or raise the age for Cracker Jack consumption to “Adults Only!” and give us back our cool prizes!!!!!
January 17th, 2011 at 11:35 am
Agreed! I really wish they’d go back to regular prizes. Cereal boxes still do it.
April 4th, 2011 at 10:46 am
Today, being the Brewers home opening day, the boss came around with bags of peanuts and boxes of Cracker Jacks. I tore into my box right away, and boy was I disappointed! I got a picture of Alexander Hamilton. I’m sorry, this is NOT a prize! I’d like to think that kids nowadays are just as smart as we were and knew better not to eat the prize. I’m guessing that the real reason they changed to the truly cheapo junk is because it costs them a lot less. A postage stamp size piece of paper is a lot cheaper than a plastic ring, or those cool magnifying glasses!
Oh yeah, and I think I had maybe 5 peanuts in the entire box! Cheap, cheap, cheap!!! It’ll probably be another 35 years before I open another box, and I hate to think what will be in it then.
April 5th, 2011 at 12:43 pm
The prize will probably be a wish for peanuts. That’s all. I really hate Cracker Jack prizes now- they’re not even trying anymore.
April 5th, 2011 at 2:20 pm
You get what you get. Move on, the world is at war, oil is getting us into wars food prices are high . Lots of things are getting bad .
April 24th, 2011 at 9:13 am
I was reading for info on what people are getting as Cracker Jack prizes now for a feature I’m doing about baseball traditions for my website, http://www.americacomesalive.com Readers might be interested to know that presidential trading cards were among the early prizes. While I totally agree that a miniature toy is a lot more fun than a Susan B. Anthony card, it’s interesting to note that the company is actually reviving something that’s close to an old tradition.
June 19th, 2011 at 11:15 pm
They still suck and its cheap, I bet its walmart fault. I got the same piece of paper except with a cow on one side and a duck on the other. A REAL JEM
June 26th, 2011 at 6:59 pm
I bought one the other day and our prize was worse than yours… it’s a little piece of paper with a slit cut at the top and bottom. On the paper is a printed piece of pencil and a couple of bugs. The idea is you feed your pencil (you provide) through the slit.
Yup. That’s it.
July 18th, 2011 at 7:42 am
I wrote to them. Told them how disappointing those prizes are. Told them that they should change the words on the box which were “fun surprise inside”. I said these paper fold ups were neither fun, nor surprising since that is all they ever put in there. Now it says, “prize inside”. There you have it.
July 18th, 2011 at 9:51 am
Agreed and thank you for taking the time to notify them what a total suckfest their “prizes” are.
August 10th, 2011 at 3:39 am
when I was about 6 years old I had to have massive invasive surgery on my eyes, to top it off, I was one of those unlucky rare people where the anasthesia paralyzed me and made me unable to talk but I was still awake and felt every thing throughout the entire surgery, (it’s a real thing, look it up) which needless to say messed me up psychologically for the rest of my life, afterwards while I was healing from the surgery I was completely 100% blind for about 2 weeks, when we were released from the hospital and were driving back to Colorado (the surgery was done in Houston) my mom stopped and bought me a little treat, a box of cracker jacks, when my eyesight came back, that was the first thing I saw, was that box of cracker jacks, ever since then they’ve been something of an important symbol for me.
tonight I picked up a box for that very reason, open it up expecting, as you said a glow in the dark sticker or one of those little games where you have to get the little beads into the holes and I got the same thing you got only it was Alexander Hamelton,
I broke down and cried
September 11th, 2011 at 1:55 pm
They are just being cheap. It can’t be because it is a choking hazard. Peanuts and popcorn are a choking hazard!!!
September 27th, 2011 at 3:00 pm
bring back those cool prizes so I can show my kids what the REAL fun about Cracker Jacks is all about!