I have a funny story related to the Mikey commercial. I worked for the FTC in the late 70s when it was considering a rule regulating advertising of heavily sugared cereals to young kids (I didn't work on that project). Every December, the FTC had a holiday office party in the cafeteria, which featured skits created by staff. One year, there was a video skit with 2 staffers and the FTC Chair, Mike Pertschuk (who died last year), in which they took the roles of kids, wearing beanies on their heads. The 2 staffers look at a bowl of cereal and say "It doesn't have any sugar - and it doesn't even have a toy in the box." They both say, "I'm not gonna try it." But then they decide to let "Mikey" try it and push the cereal bowl in front of him. Pertschuk starts eating the cereal. The 2 staffers exclaim "Look, he likes it!" The camera pans back to Pertschuk, who's finished the cereal and is leaning back in his chair, now with a cigar in his mouth (Pertschuk was known to like cigars). The camera pans back to the staffers, who exclaim, "Boy what an a**hole!" [Don't know if AC lets me fully spell that word].
Pertschuk agreed to be in the video on the condition that it be destroyed immediately after it was shown at the office party. Sure enough, the next day at least one of the major cereal companies filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the (now nonexistent) video.
