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The Frosties Kid Is Dead
Status: Urban Legend
image A recent ad for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes shows a blond-haired kid dancing around singing "They're going to taste great!" I think this is a British ad. At least, I've never seen it here in America. And all the references to it I've found occur in the British press. For instance, David Whitehouse writes in the Guardian:
Pity the poor Kellogg's marketing department... all they wanted to do was make an advert in which a chirpy young scamp would skip his way through the streets of a suburban town attracting other children like a Pied Piper with a silly ditty about his breakfast. So, they set out to hire an angelic young choirboy with a voice so beautiful it could shatter the beaks of songbirds. Then disaster struck. It appears that, on the way to the shoot, this choirboy's balls dropped with quite monstrous results. They wanted Aled Jones, but they got Mick Jones. And what we're left with is a jingle being sung by a boy at the exact moment his voice breaks, in a tone so monotonous it appears to be operating at a frequency which toys with people's bowels. It is, quite simply, the worst soundtrack to an advertisement ever. His voice is so oppressively dull that prolonged listening is like having every orifice systematically packed full of wet bread by a politician with no facial features.
Evidently this is the kind of ad that people love to hate. And this dislike has inspired a rumor that the kid in the ad is dead. (Google 'Frosties Kid' and you pull up page after page of rumors of his death.) There are two versions of the rumor:

1) That the kid committed suicide on account of the bullying he received since the ad aired.
2) That the kid was a cancer patient whose dying wish was to star in a Frosties ad.

I don't know who the Frosties Kid is in real life. So I can't prove that he's alive. But there's absolutely no evidence to support the claim that he's dead. Plus, the 'Frosties Kid Is Dead' rumor seems to be a new variation of the 'Death of Little Mikey' rumor (which alleged that Mikey, of the Life Cereal commercials, died after eating Pop Rocks). So I think it's safe to assume that the Frosties Kid is still alive. (Thanks to Dave Tolomy for telling me about the rumor.)

Update: As Dead-Eric noted in the comments, Scott Mills of BBC Radio 1 recently discussed the 'Frosties Kid Is Dead' rumor on his show. Mills received the following official statement from Kelloggs about the rumor:
"The current advertisement has been well received by the vast majority of our customers. We would also like to take this opportunity to confirm that the lead boy within the advertisement is well and continues to live in his native South Africa."
You can listen to an mp3 clip of this portion of the Scott Mills show here.
Categories: Advertising, Death, Urban Legends
Posted by Alex on Thu Jul 06, 2006		 Comments (102)
More from the Hoax Museum Archives:
Comments
I didn't find his singing that bad at all. The Guardian seems to think that his singing is very dull, but the only singers I find dull are the perfect voices of major pop singers, who all sound exactly the same, largely due to the fact that their voices have all been run through the same computers. The best singers all have distincive voices, which are often not "perfect". I'm not suggesting that the "Frosties Kid" is a good singer, but he certainly is neither as bad nor as dull as the Guardian claims.
Posted by Dano  on  Thu Jul 06, 2006  at  11:09 PM
I've never seen this ad in Britain, but I probably watch the wrong TV channels and anyway I mentally zone out during commercial breaks. The only Frosties ads I recall seeing have a cartoon tiger roaring "They'rrrrre Grrrreat!". Guess I'm just getting old. Maybe the kid was so irritating that the rumour was wishful thinking.
Posted by Louise  on  Fri Jul 07, 2006  at  12:25 AM
BBC Radio 1, ran this story a while back on the Scott Miles Show, they received a statement from Kelloggs saying the Frosties Kid is alive and still living in South Africa.

NB:
An other variation was that his family killed out of embarassment.
Posted by Dead-Eric  on  Fri Jul 07, 2006  at  06:41 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODxNcZWxU5E&search=frosties%20kid

It's not really THAT bad.
Posted by Sakano  on  Fri Jul 07, 2006  at  08:16 AM
Oops, I totally missed the youtube link in the article! Sorry, Alex.
Posted by Sakano  on  Fri Jul 07, 2006  at  08:19 AM
well his voice is annoying, but still ok...
it's rather the song that makes me nuts, just listen to it 3 times and you feel so angry!!
Posted by frank  on  Fri Jul 07, 2006  at  09:09 AM
I see othing wrong with the kid's voice, really. He may not have a singing career ahead of him, but he sounds like a fairly normal (normal in the sense of being imperfect, not that all the people I know sound exactly like him) kid. It's an annoying song, but that's not his fault. Honestly, three year olds could write better lyrics.
Posted by Dracul  on  Fri Jul 07, 2006  at  02:40 PM
Actually he's blond and has straight teeth, so he can be moulded into a famous pop star yet! Plus, he's allready been trained to sing songs with repetitive tunes and words that have to be twisted unbelieveably in order to fit the rhyme scheme. Pie-rate. Oh god no. Add a couple "baby"s and "you're so hot"s with the existing lyrics, and you've got yourself a hit! And that's only pop music! Imagine what we could do if we turned this into a rap!
Posted by Dracul  on  Fri Jul 07, 2006  at  05:52 PM
I guess by now a lot of people have "died after eating Pop Rocks." As far as I know, though, none of them died BECAUSE they ate Pop Rocks.
Posted by Big Gary  on  Fri Jul 07, 2006  at  06:45 PM
I hate, hate, hate this advertisement. The song grates on me, the prancing makes me want to punch him, and the lyrics, as Dracul says, could be improved upon by a three year old. Plus, and I know I'm pedantic, when he sings about 'the sound of Frosties hitting your plate' it drives me insane.

*takes a deep breath*
YMMV, of course.

Despite all this, I wouldn't wish him dead.
😉
Posted by Boo  on  Sat Jul 08, 2006  at  04:08 PM
"His voice is so oppressively dull that prolonged listening is like having every orifice systematically packed full of wet bread by a politician with no facial features."

😏

Okay, I can't even lie. Regardless of it's inaccuracy, that's just effin' funny.
Posted by EJWise  on  Sat Jul 08, 2006  at  04:12 PM
And furthermore, I am happy to say that even after having heard the little angel sing, my orifices do remain essentially breadless.
Posted by EJWise  on  Sat Jul 08, 2006  at  04:14 PM
By the way, MythBusters proved that you can't die after eating Pop Rocks and pop. They expanded the pig's stomach (just a stomach, no pig) quite a bit, which was kinda cool in a gross way, but no bursting stomach - hence no death.
Posted by Seamyst  on  Sat Jul 08, 2006  at  07:11 PM
To add more to the wierd rumours of the Frosties Kid apparently he is not real and is nothing more than a CGI character.

The article stating this fact is with the following link
http://frosties.i8.com/

I found this link from the following forums http://forum.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=17442&highlight;=


So now I'm wondering if the kid is real if he actually lives in South Africa, if he is dead and if he is a CGI character so I wonder if we will ever learn about him at all. ❓
Posted by Anto103  on  Sun Jul 09, 2006  at  10:08 AM
I sincerely doubt that the kid is CGI. Even the most realistic CGI has a certain quality to it which gives it away. Not that I'm saying it won't become more realistic as time goes on, but I have yet to see a CGI character look THAT real. And if I did, I would expect it in an expensive movie, not a Frosties ad. What would having a super-realistic CGI kid benefit them anyway? It would probably cost more than hiring a real kid... And you would think that if it was a fake kid, Frosties would brag about their commercial saying "Oh, it was expensive but we thought having a computer rendered kid would" blah blah blah. It wouldn't pass up on the opportunity to talk about it.
Posted by Sakano  on  Sun Jul 09, 2006  at  10:20 AM
I heard he hung himself then i heard he was being bullied and he jumped of a building then i heard he was alive n south africa. He was really really reeeeaaaaaallllllllyyyyy annoying but why bully somebody over that. Think of the money he made. I mean i i would probally do it if i got paid - only if i got paid a lot. Hopefully hes alive but his parents should go on the radio and tell everybody the real story to stop all these crazy rumors. Jen
Posted by Jen  on  Sun Jul 09, 2006  at  12:05 PM
We have a similar story in Australia about the milky bar kid.

we had a few ads, with a blond boy who was replaced with an animated charictor.
the story is the boy had died, and had the sole contract for being the milky bar kid.

unlikely, as no advertising company would give a growing boy a permanant spot as a child actor.
Posted by D  on  Sun Jul 09, 2006  at  04:01 PM
:( i hape the frosties kid is still alvie and i wanna know who started the rumour please leave ure answers is the frosties kid really dead??
Posted by bob  on  Mon Jul 10, 2006  at  09:15 AM
That advert has to be the most irratating advert ever, but that rumer is just out of order, i hope its not true, noone deserves a rumer like that even if it is true 😠
Posted by Ki-Chi-Mi  on  Mon Jul 10, 2006  at  10:18 AM
i fink ur all snide cuz i dont fink es got a bad voice n if that is a fukin rumour is true i fink its jus snide coz hu eva made it up is just mean n sad n needs 2 get a lyf :(
Posted by lottie  on  Mon Jul 10, 2006  at  02:59 PM
Either the sound in the video is really out of sync or, and this seems more likely, the boy and the voice have nothing at all to do with each other.
Posted by Steve  on  Mon Jul 10, 2006  at  06:30 PM
"i fink ur all snide cuz i dont fink es got a bad voice n if that is a fukin rumour is true i fink its jus snide coz hu eva made it up is just mean n sad n needs 2 get a lyf :("

What?

You're right by the way Steve, apparently it was originally shown in South Africa. Wish I could find that version.
Posted by Tom K  on  Tue Jul 11, 2006  at  07:41 AM
Tom, not sure what difference it would make that it's from South Africa. Unless they show it on an Afrikaans-only TV station an ad would be very likely to be in English in SA.
Posted by Steve  on  Tue Jul 11, 2006  at  09:28 AM
you can see the frosties advert at this link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRl0XF229IY
Posted by scott  on  Fri Jul 14, 2006  at  12:28 PM
remixed version of the ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkeoFBMqO04&search=frosties%20advert

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQTbK1Xcoos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3btW2YQY_o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGBgZau-8qA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU_edt8_GgI
Posted by scott  on  Fri Jul 14, 2006  at  12:40 PM
:ohh: why pick on a kid who wanted is last wish to be on tv it is not nice you whould not like it if you had 1 last wise and people piked on you couse he has got cancer does not mean to pike on him
Posted by carly  on  Mon Jul 17, 2006  at  08:19 AM
Am I really the only person who absolutely LOVES that advert??? The guy is amazing and I was really truely upset when i heard the rumour!! I'm glad to know he's safe and well!!!!!

from
The frosties kid's biggest fan!!!!
Posted by Shaz  on  Wed Jul 19, 2006  at  01:01 PM
How can anyone hate that advert, or the kid? I think the ad is hilarious, and just feel tremendously sorry for the boy. I hope he lives a happy and fulfilled life, because seeing that ad just cracks me up and puts a grin on my face.
Posted by Molly McMolly  on  Thu Jul 20, 2006  at  12:18 PM
right i have heard hes alive and he is dead but im not sure what to believe. surely theres one thing that would set the story straight and there is the boy in the advert could make a tv announcement. i have heard that the boy had a dying wish and this was his wish, i have heard he got bullied and was stabbed, i have also heard he commited suicide. there is different stories all over the internet and i have heard his name is joe, james, steven and another name which i cant remember. so which name do i believ and which story is true. i hope he is alive. also before these stories were out people had been saying how they wanted to kill him and i dnt think thats nice coz if its true theres one less job for them to do and i think the people who have sed this are just jealous coz all he had to do was sing a song on a 3 minute ad and get loads of money for it.
Posted by amy  on  Sun Jul 23, 2006  at  10:51 AM
i also want 2 say that the boy was not at all bad in the ad and the people who have sed he is shite must have something to prove that there better and if they havnt got the guts to do that then they might aswell keep their mouths shut abt the frosties kid
Posted by amy  on  Sun Jul 23, 2006  at  10:56 AM
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