History Main / FreePrizeAtTheBottom

* ''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'': When Matrixis dealing with becoming an Earth Angel, she discusses her situation with [[ComicBook/{{Superman}} Clark]] over a box of Cracker Jack. He mentions that he and Pete Ross used to guess what the prize was, until x-ray vision took the fun out of it, but swears he hasn't x-rayed this box. After he's gone, she finds that the prize just happens to be a pendant shaped like an angel.

* ''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'': When the Matrix version of Supergirl is dealing with becoming an Earth Angel, she discusses her situation with [[ComicBook/{{Superman}} Clark]] over a box of Cracker Jack. He mentions that he and Pete Ross used to guess what the prize was, until x-ray vision took the fun out of it, but swears he hasn't x-rayed this box. After he's gone, she finds that the prize just happens to be a pendant shaped like an angel.
* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': Issue #226 had Superman exposed to [[KryptoniteIsEverywhere red Kryptonite]] found as the prize in Jimmy Olsen's cereal box, which turned him into King Kong.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBeavers'' featured Norb and Dag competing over a variant: the boxtop prizes. Dag would reach in and grab the prize at the bottom, but Norb would clip boxtops and mail them back (and receive a much better prize in return).

* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10'': In the episode "Washington B.C.", Ben uses Grey Matter for the first time to go digging through boxes of Sumo Smacks cereal to try and get a rare gold Sumo Slammers trading card.
* In "I Am Collecting a Collection" from ''Literature/CharlieAndLola'', Charlie pours all the cereal out of a box and gets the second-to-last dinosaur he needs for his collection of plastic dinosaur figures.
* ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'' Dexter and DeeDee each get a decoder ring for their respective favorite medias (Loose parodies of G.I Joe and My Little Pony) that they have to use to fulfil a list of tasks to join the fanclub. Due to a mix up, they grab the wrong code sheets.

* The episode "Tag Yer Ed" from ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'' begins with the Eds obtaining a box of Chunky Puffs, which Eddy points out has a prize inside (a giant marshmallow). Ed, being Ed, reads the "Low in Fat" label and assumes the fat is the prize.

* ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'': The episode "Sally's Comet" has a variant of this where Arnold and Gerald need to collect box tops in order to win a telescope before Sally's Comet passes by. They end up getting their friends and various boarders to help, during which Harold accidentally eats a prize from one of the boxes.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' episode, "Lunch Break", a flashback is shown where Mordecai and Rigby, who were pre-teens at the time, are trying to find an action figure of [=RGB2=], one of their favorite TV show characters, inside a box of "[=RGB2iOs=]". Unlike other examples, there is not a prize in every box; only 1 in 5 boxes. Mordecai and Rigby buy 5 boxes of the cereal, but Rigby's father catches them sifting through one of the boxes just to get the toy, and forces them to eat the entire box of cereal before opening another box. Mordecai and Rigby DO end up eating each box of cereal they open but end up not finding the action figure in either of the boxes and get food poisoning from eating too much cereal after eating four of the five boxes. Mordecai and Rigby are sent to a hospital, where they are given the action figure by two representatives of "[=RGB2iOs=]". Turns out the action figure was defective.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow'' showed Stimpy's preferred method for getting at a Muddy Mudskipper cereal bowl caddy: He just gets a very big bowl and pours all of the cereal into it. After he claims his prize, he stuffs the cereal back into the box.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' episode "No More Bunny Business" the boys make working X-ray specs and use them to look into cereal boxes to figure out which boxes contain the good prizes.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' episode, "Lunch Break", a flashback is shown where Mordecai and Rigby, who were pre-teens at the time, are trying to find an action figure of [=RGB2=], one of their favorite TV show characters, inside a box of "[=RGB2iOs=]". Unlike other examples, there is not a prize in every box; only 1 in 5 boxes. Mordecai and Rigby buy 5 boxes of the cereal, but Rigby's father catches them sifting through one of the boxes just to get the toy, and forces them to eat the entire box of cereal before opening another box. Mordecai and Rigby DO end up eating each box of cereal they open but end up not finding the action figure in either of the boxes and get food poisoning from eating too much cereal after eating four of the five boxes. Mordecai and Rigby are sent to a hospital, where they are given the action figure by two representatives of "[=RGB2iOs=]". Turns out the action figure was defective.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow'' showed Stimpy's preferred method for getting at a Muddy Mudskipper cereal bowl caddy: He just gets a very big bowl and pours all of the cereal into it. After he claims his prize, he stuffs the cereal back into the box.
* ''WesternAnimation/Rugrats1991'': In "[[Recap/RugratsS3E14PrincessAngelicaTheOddCouple The Odd Couple]]", when Tommy stays at Chuckie's house for the weekend, he and Chuckie are served Dummi Bear Sugar Lumps for breakfast. As Tommy tells Chuckie that in his house, he has Reptar Cereal for breakfast, Chuckie tells him that Dummi Bear Sugar Lumps are the cereal brand that his dad buys. He also shows Tommy the Dummi Bear whistle he got in his box of Dummi Bear Sugar Lumps, to which Tommy tells him that he gets a free dinosaur in Reptar Cereal. An annoyed Chuckie blows his whistle at Tommy.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** An early episode had Bart trying to find a police badge at the bottom of his cereal. It turns out Homer got to it first.
** Another episode features a box of Krusty-O's brand cereal that comes with a free jagged metal O at the bottom. Bart accidentally eats it and wins a court settlement of $100,000 from the company (of which Lionel Hutz takes all but $500 as his "legal fees"), which he then spends [[spoiler:on something for Lisa, [[BecauseYouWereNiceToMe because she was the only one who believed he was sick]].]] He plans to get another settlement from the new Krusty-O's prize - flesh-eating bacteria.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' episode "No More Bunny Business" the boys make working X-ray specs and use them to look into cereal boxes to figure out which boxes contain the good prizes.
* At the start of the ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "Shanghaied", [=SpongeBob=] is shaking his cereal box to find the toy inside. Just then, a giant anchor crashes into his house, leading to the line: "Squidward! The sky had a baby from my cereal box!"
** Also, in the episode "Waiting", [=SpongeBob=] misreads a "Free Prize Inside" message by ignoring the small print advertising a "free prize offer inside". After sending in the offer, the titular wait is [=SpongeBob=]'s wait at the mailbox for the prize to arrive.
* ''WesternAnimation/TazMania'' once had a bit where Taz went to insane lengths to get the prize from a box of cereal...which turned out to be one of those baking-powder propelled submarines.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/CowAndChicken'' is about Chicken finding a ''[[CreditCardPlot credit card]]'' in a cereal box (which only has a limit of 25 cents). Also, in the episode where he gets insomnia after eating coffee-flavored cereal, he finds a pair of underpants for a prize.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'', this trope is {{exploited|trope}} by a race of super-cute aliens, who use their charm to take over other planets by making the inhabitants of said planets want to [[GottaCatchEmAll buy more]] Giggle-Pie "merchandise".
* In ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'', Creator/JeremyIrons is adamant to point out there is no prize at the bottom of his cereal.
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TimothyGoesToSchool'', Nora decided to forego her normal breakfast cereal in favor of something called "Weeds and Seeds" so that she could get the prize of emerald slippers at the bottom as a birthday present for Yoko. And she was such a good little girl that she actually ''ate'' the stuff, only to find that to her disappointment, there was only one slipper, and it was some dinky little thing. Her mother suggested making a necklace out of it and she did but thought her gift was lame and didn't want to give it to Yoko at first. When she finally did, Yoko was delighted, as the slipper was the mate to one that she already had. In the book version of the story, "Buried Treasure" from the anthology ''Timothy's Tales from Hilltop School," Yoko says that she ate 49 boxes of the same cereal trying to find the other slipper.

* In "Franklin's Fossil" on ''Literature/{{Franklin}}'', the title character and his best friend Bear have been collecting a series of colored spinning tops that they're using as models of the solar system. The last one that they need is a purple one that's supposed to represent Pluto (this being back when it was still a planet) and when Mr. Mole sees them playing with them, he mentions having found the purple one in his cereal box. Later, when Mr. Mole gives it to them, Bear is thrilled that they can finally start eating some different cereal.

* In "I Am Collecting a Collection" from ''Literature/CharlieAndLola'', Charlie pours all the cereal out of a box and gets the second-to-last dinosaur he needs for his collection of plastic dinosaur figures.
* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10'': In the episode "Washington B.C.", Ben uses Grey Matter for the first time to go digging through boxes of Sumo Smacks cereal to try and get a rare gold Sumo Slammers trading card.
* In "The Masked Mouse Rides Again" from ''Literature/IfYouGiveAMouseACookie'', Oliver and Mouse find a tiny toy telescope at the bottom of their cereal box. Oliver gives it to Mouse, who is inspired to create a pretend galaxy.
* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'': In a flashback to Donald's childhood growing up with his lucky cousin Gladstone Gander, Gladstone finds $20 in the bottom of a cereal box. His luck can even spontaneously generate $20 bills within a reality entirely controlled by a villain, so it's a safe bet that the manufacturer didn't intentionally put that in the box.

* In "Super Trolley" from ''WesternAnimation/MrBeanTheAnimatedSeries'', Bean gets a action toy prize from his POP cereals. However, when he's ran out of cereals, he goes to shopping to purchase Mrs. Wicket's needs especially cat litter and the POP cereals. After Bean goes back to his house, he got lots of action toys thanks to his POP cereals he brought.
* ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'': The episode "Sally's Comet" has a variant of this where Arnold and Gerald need to collect box tops in order to win a telescope before Sally's Comet passes by. They end up getting their friends and various boarders to help, during which Harold accidentally eats a prize from one of the boxes.
* ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'' Dexter and DeeDee each get a decoder ring for their respective favorite medias (Loose parodies of G.I Joe and My Little Pony) that they have to use to fulfil a list of tasks to join the fanclub. Due to a mix up, they grab the wrong code sheets.

* ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'' Dexter and DeeDee each get a decoder ring for their respective favorite medias (Loose parodies of G.I Joe and My Little Pony) that they have to use to fulfil a list of tasks to join the fanclub. Due to a mix up, they grab the wrong rings.

* ''Videogame/ChexQuest'' is a game that was given out in Chex cereal boxes in 1996. It's a Doom reskin with more family friendly action and custom levels. It has since gained quite a [[CultClassic cult following]] and has received multiple sequels.

* ''Literature/TheSerialGarden'' by Creator/JoanAiken: On packet of Brekkfast Brikks cereal, there is a beautiful model garden which can be cut out and assembled. Mark discovers that if he sings a verse printed on the side of the cereal packet, the garden grows to an enormous size, and he can enter it. When he finds out that there are six sections to the garden altogether, he offers to do extra housework, to earn enough pocket money to buy the remaining five packets.