Barney! My Pebbles!I grew up wanting cereal, the really sweet cereal. My mom bought me Cheerios, Corn Flakes, Wheaties and Chex. I wanted Captain Crunch, Boo Berry, Cocoa Puffs, Fruity Pebbles and Lucky Charms. Adulthood has brought me many liberties the most important is the ability to walk into a grocery store and buy whatever junk cereal I want. Between the dentist and my waistline those liberties are rarely practiced.

What happen to Lucky the Leprechaun, the Trix rabbit, Sonny the coo-coo bird and Fred & Barney? If your of a certain age you probably never heard of any of these characters but the cereal is still on shelves in their very retentive state.

Back in the day there were Saturday morning cartoons. Smurfs, Thundercats and Gummi Bears were all hocking crunchy delicious milk sopped treats during the commercial breaks. There was always an interesting motif in these cartoon cereal ads that seemed to be universal. Either the main character wanted you to try his cereal and eat it every day or they loved their cereal so much that they didn't want to share it.

The first chapter in my Chronicles of Cereal is with characters from America's first mainstream prime time cartoon show 'The Flintstones'. Fred Flintstone had a cereal called 'Fruity Pebbles' that he would not share with anyone not even his friends.  

You see, Fred and Barney are best friends they bowl together, play hookie from work together. They've been friends since Before Christ ya know. Even after Barney crashed Fred's Rolls Rock, Fred got over it after a short comforting talk with Wilma. But noooo if you go near his Fruity Pebbles it's game on. So why is it that Barney has to trick Fred to get a bowl of his delicious fruity pebbles. Barnie's mantra in every advert is "Watch me trick Fred out of his Fruity Pebbles." Barney proceeds to put on a ridiculous disguise and sets up some sort of trap so he can trick Fred. I always felt that if Barney really wanted to be on the up in up he should come out with his own cereal like 'Barney Buds'. A little friendly competition never hurt. Maybe his cereal would be even more delicious and he would have some bargaining power with Fred.

It's my opinion that Fred is not a very good friend and should want to share his delicious treats. However, Barney is setting a bad example by misleading and stealing from Fred. Why is Fred such a stooge? Why is Barney so addicted to Fruity Pebbles? Simple. Fruity Pebbles are just that good and amazingly delicious.

Whether crunchy or soggy Fruity Pebbles are so good it will cause best friends to fight.