Cookie Crisp

Cookie Crisp is a cereal made to recreate the taste of chocolate chip cookies. It is manufactured by General Mills in the United States and Cereal Partners (under the Nestlé brand) in other countries. Introduced in 1977, it was originally manufactured by Ralston Purina until they sold the trademark to General Mills in 1997, who soon after changed the recipe.
Varieties.
From its introduction in 1977 until the early 1990s (while under Ralston ownership) Cookie Crisp was available in three flavors. The old Cookie Crisp mascot, Cookie Jarvis was used on three versions of Cookie Crisp: Ralston’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Crisp, Vanilla Wafer Cookie Crisp, and Oatmeal Cookie Crisp.
Peanut Butter Cookie Crisp was introduced in 2005. It was phased out by 2007.
Double Chocolate Cookie Crisp was a double chocolate-flavored variety of Cookie Crisp introduced in 2007.
In July 2009, Cookie Crisp Sprinkles were introduced. They are vanilla cookies with small sprinkles on them. The cereal is said to be gluten free. In Summer 2009, Nestlé released new packaging for the UK version of Cookie Crisp with sprinkles.
Cookie Crisp Brownie was introduced in the U.K. in 2013, which has the flavor of brownies,
In March 2018 Birthday Cake Cookie Crisp was introduced to the U.S. market.
Imitations.
In 1997, Ralston sold their cereal line to General Mills, who soon after changed the recipe, prompting many Cookie Crisp lovers to seek the original taste in knock-off and foreign brands.
Keebler Cookie Crunch was introduced by Kellogg’s in 2008. This cereal has cookie pieces that represent Chips Deluxe and are strikingly similar to Cookie Crisp. It also includes round O shapes that represent Keebler’s popular fudge stripe cookies.
Advertising.
Cookie Jarvis.
Introduced in 1977, the first Cookie Crisp mascot, Cookie Jarvis, was a wizard in the Merlin mold, who with one wave of his wand, magically turned cookie jars into cereal bowls, usually chanting rhyming incantations along with it. He was voiced by Lennie Weinrib.
Cookie Crook and Cookie Cop.
Cookie Jarvis was joined by Cookie Crook, an anti-hero robber who attempts to steal the Cookie Crisp, in the mid-1980s, followed by his opponent Cookie Cop (full name Officer Crumb), a police officer (reminiscent of the Keystone Cops) with an Irish accent who thwarts the Cookie Crook's attempts to steal the Cookie Crisp.
A typical ad would begin with the Cookie Crook attempting to steal the cereal from a live-action breakfast table; often he and the Cookie Cop were portrayed as no larger than mice, so their pictures on the cereal bowl were “life size". The Crook would have some new gadget or scheme to steal the cereal, but then the Cookie Cop would arrive and save the kid’s cereal in the nick of time. Eventually, the format of the ads changed to full animation, and the duo was portrayed as the size of normal humans; an even more slapstick approach (similar to "Looney Tunes") was used in these commercials.
Chip the Dog.
In 1990, the Cookie Crook was given a sidekick named Chip the Dog. Chip would howl the cereal's name ("Coo-"ooooooooooo"kie Crisp!") in each ad before he and his master were inevitably foiled by the Cookie Cop.
After General Mills bought the Cookie Crisp trademark Chip the Dog continued to be the mascot with the Cookie Crook and Cookie Cop from 1997 to 2005. In the format of the advertisements, Chip was a friendly pooch, no longer wearing a mask, who offered Cookie Crisp to a group of kids. Typically an adult would interfere on the grounds that cookies are not breakfast food. Near the end of the ads, the adults would change their minds once Chip gave them a taste of his Cookie Crisp.
Chip the Wolf.
In 2005 Chip was redesigned into a wolf which possessed the same thieving characteristics as Cookie Crook. His commercials have Chip attempting to steal Cookie Crisp cereal from children only to be foiled every time. 2005 is also the year the cereal was introduced to Europe.