Ever since the first cereal was produced by John and William Kellogg, a whole host of weird and wonderful cereals have decorated shelves for a limited amount of time. Here are 20 of the best cereals time forgot (but the internet hasn't).

This little mascot was a creation of Jay Ward and Bill Scott – the same brains behind American favourites Cap’n Crunch and Quake’s sister product Quisp. Quake himself resembled a stocky cartoon builder with a miner’s hat. The cereal tasted the same as Quisp, except in the shape of the letter Q. In 1972, Quaker asked the public to decide which of the two cereals they liked the best and Quake, having lost by some distance, vanished from shelves within a year.

There were seven Freakies who lived in the tree: Hamhose, Gargle, Grumble, Cowmumble, Goody-Goody, Snorkeldorf and BossMoss. These characters promoted the cereal from the off, on boxes and in commercials, making them appealing to children. They were little rings in shape, exactly like Cheerios. By 1976/77, the Freakies and their tree had vanished.

General Mills produced the first cereal pillows with a creamy filling – either chocolate or vanilla. However, during transportation, the pillows tended to burst, leaving the creamy filling (the ‘surprize’) to harden at the bottom of the box. Perhaps unsurprisingly they disappeared a while later.

Playing on the assumption American kids love fighter pilots, Sir Grapefellow was a British World War I pilot who came and dropped grape-flavored (yes, grape) cereal with grape marshmallows into bowls. He was the ‘grapest’ of them all and especially better than fellow product and enemy Baron von Redberry. Until they both crashed and vanished.

A year after Quake was discontinued, a big red Quangaroo was on the scene promoting an orange-flavored cereal. Some people liked it, with orange being the go-to juice flavor at breakfast time. Others weren’t so sold on the idea and deemed it to have a metallic aftertaste. And Simon the Quangaroo met his maker in 1978 when Quaker yet again asked the public to vote for the best cereal and Quisp (yes, it was still around) claimed another competitor.

This sweet cereal is definitely a candidate for the most bizarrely-named food, if nothing else. The premise of the cereal was the four characters had to make Cecil the Robot laugh so much that he vomited out treats. Hmm.

These waffle-shaped pieces were sweet cereal with maple syrup flavoring. Maybe it was the unnecessary misspelling of ‘waffles’ or perhaps because the talking horse failed to grab attention but, whatever it was, the product was gone by 1984.

Cashing in on the growing popularity of pastries for breakfast, this three-grain cereal purported to taste like donuts. In reality, they looked like fat Cheerios dipped in powder and didn’t last very long at all, disappearing some time during the decade.

Pac-Man grew into a huge gaming phenomenon with a cereal rushed out to capitalize on the success. Scattered within the corn crispies were marshmallows in the shape or Pac-Man himself and the four game ghosts: Clyde, Blinky, Pinky and Inky. However, just two years later, Pac-Man the cereal shuffled off the shelves and into the cereal graveyard.

Shortly after the release of the third Star Wars film, Kellogg’s released a tie-in cereal shaped like little figures of eight. They were promoted by C3PO actor Anthony Daniels in accompanying commercials and some boxes contained collectibles – from cards to cut-out masks and send away offers. It’s not quite known when C3PO's disappeared from Earth's supermarkets, but they did.

This cereal was a peanut butter-flavored chocolate crispy in the form of ‘E’ and 'T’ letters. The product tasted a little like Reese’s Pieces and it was suggested that this was an intentional reference to the product's mention in the 1982 E.T. film.

At the height of the popularity of the toy figures, these star-shaped grain and oat shapes each came in a different box with drawings of the military men. It’s not known when the cereal disappeared, but they did – presumably with the figures.

One of many slightly unusual ideas the folks at Ralston had. Much like the famous candies, Nerds cereal had two sides with different flavors – orange/cherry and strawberry/grape. The only problem with this was that it presented kids with either a slightly sour tasting breakfast or a majorly sweet one and the cereal disappeared shortly after it debuted.

Because who doesn’t want ice cream for breakfast? Apparently, a lot of people. These cone-shaped flakes and round ‘ice cream’ scoops were discontinued within a couple of months after their introduction in 1987. The cereal was available in three flavors: chocolate, vanilla and chocolate chip, the latter only introduced in 2003 for General Mills’s 10th anniversary.

This wasn’t just a cereal but a ‘system’ – a game, of sorts. Inside the box were two bags of cereal. One bag was full of fruity-tasting cereal in the shape of anything found in the immensely popular Super Mario game. The other bag contained berry-flavored shapes of The Legend of Zelda. Each box contained a Nintendo character sticker and the back of the box transformed into a collectible trading card when cut out.

While The Addams Family TV series was enjoying its peak, it too birthed a cereal franchise. The wheat-and-corn cereal pieces were shaped like headless dolls, skulls and dismembered limbs and apparently offered what has been described as a tasteless crunch. The packs often came with free mini-flashlights shaped in the form of popular characters and the back of the cereal box was a portrait of The Addams Family. The cereal vanished after riding out the show’s peak.

Another cereal tie-in product – except this one bore no resemblance to the film that was around at the same time. The drawings on the box were in no way portraits of Kevin Costner (who played Robin Hood in the film) and the fruit-flavoured arrows with green sprinkles were somewhat unusually shaped. It quietly disappeared.

Anything with sprinkles attracts children so, by that logic, these star-shaped corn puffs should have been flying off the shelves. A genie promoted the product in commercials, appearing in front of hungry kids to give them sprinkled stars for breakfast. In reality, he couldn’t magic up good sales and the product was gone by 1998.

Pop-Tarts Crunch were ‘Pop Tarts for your spoon’ but failed to latch on to the success of their parent product. The cereal was available in strawberry and brown sugar cinnamon flavors for about a year before disappearing.

No, I’m not sure I’d fancy a bowl of that for breakfast either. Green Smile – the ‘slime shaped’ corn puffs – appeared on shelves when General Mills partnered up with kids’ channel Nickelodeon for the 2003 Kids’ Choice Awards. The marshmallows in the cereal were sort of shaped like the channel's logo. Sort of. They looked a bit more like orange fish.