Just on a quick break at work and decide to pickup some Cracker Jack's out of the vending machine. Admittedly it's been years since I've tasted the sweet popcorn and nuts, but my has the product itself changed. I'm not just talking about the packaging, which instead of a box is in a chip bag for dispensing, I'm referring to the product and Cracker Jack Surprise.
If my memory serves me right, not only was Cracker Jack full of carmel covered popcorn, but also plenty of peanuts. Well my friends, if there were 3 peanuts in the entire bag they would have been lonely. Seriously, a complete lack of peanuts, which basically meant they robbed me of the Jack in my Cracker. But teh salt in the wound came in the form of the shitty Cracker Jack Surprise.
Usually I remember getting super cool rub on tattoos in my Cracker Jack boxes or maybe some little x-ray tool, mini coloring book, or something interesting. Today I was greeted with a pencil topper, that's it, a crappy paper cutout pencil topper.
This Cracker Jack experience basically ruined my entire day, thanks to a $.50 snack.
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- No Peanuts
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- Crappy Pencil Topper
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- Surprise In Action
I have been so bummed to see another damn pencil topper that I googled “crackerjack pencil toppers suck” and I found your blog
I cracked up,I agree totally 
I know, isn’t it frustrating.
Good luck with that next box, hopefully you will get something good.
I just got a cracker jack bag yesterday and got a decently cool piece of paper with a crab on it that, when folded along the perforated lines properly, turned into a crab with a mouth that actually talked! Not bad. I have fallin victim to the pencil topper though.
I’m eating cracker jacks right now and you are right!!!! The prizes SUCK. I remember the mazes, tattoos, etc. The prizes now are pencil toppers and fold-able faces of presidents! LAME!!!
Yes! I got this last night and searched “Cracker Jack prizes suck now” and got this blog! All the prizes are PAPER now days! I remember getting the plastic glass a lot as a kid, or the maze and if you found Tats it was like GOLD
So, My 3 year old son just learned the song “take me out to the ballgame”, and I bought him a few boxes of CrackerJacks. I was hoping the surprise would be a sticker or something (I remember when I was a kid in the 80′s, they used to be something tangible, like a plastic top or airplane or SOMETHING) There were 3 peanuts in the box (ugh) and the ‘prize’ was a foldable Susan B. Anthony. UGH. I’m gonna swap out the ‘prizes’ with cheesy things from the machines at the local supermarket – CrackerJacks are overrated, nostalgia prevents us from seeing that…I think he’d rather have a plastic spaceship or something. Better then “Surprise- it’s a picture of an old lady! WHEEEEE!
I got a box the other day. When I saw the prize was so flat i was happy as hell because I thought it was a tattoo. It was some fold up pic of Ben Franklin – yippee! they cut a page out of a history book! And lets face it, unless its on a $100 bill no one wants to see Ben Franklin. They could do a lot better – even if it’s cheapo paper. A tiny airplane or helicopter – or play money – if nothing else say its a sticker you lick – even with no glue it’d stick if you get enough spit on it. Despite the sucky prize i did enjoy the 3 peanuts in box.
I just bought 3 boxes of cracker jacks today and all I got was a stupid pencil topper,I remember good prizes back in the day.What a bummer
I have been buying 3 packs and lost count of how many I have eaten. Can’t say I care about the peanuts but the prize. Pencil topper. Each and every…damn…time.
When folded along the perforated lines properly, turned into a crab with a mouth that actually talked. I’m eating cracker jacks right now and you are right.
I just got a cracker jack bag and got a decently cool piece of paper with a crab on it that. Can’t say I care about the peanuts but the prize. Despite the suck prize i did enjoy the 3 peanuts in box.
I love Cracker Jacks but they sure are not what they used to be. I have gotten boxes with NO peanuts and some boxes with just a few. The prizes are so cheesy….. I would rather pay more and get nicer prizes and more peanuts!!! Hope you Cracker Jack folks are listening…..
I have been buying a bag of Cracker Jacks every weekday for the past few months. There are exactly 10 paper “surprises” in Cracker Jacks today. That’s it. I’ve bought about a hundred individual bags so I’ve hit every surprise several times. There are 3 pencil toppers, several “moving mouths”, and the remaining surprises are all famous people where you fold the picture of the young person to see the picture of the adult version of that person. Yay. How lame.
I also googled “cracker jack prizes suck now” and found this blog. I got the $2 bag. It tasted way too fresh and all 12 peanuts (large bag) had settled to the bottom. I bought popcorn AND peanuts, I got popcorn THEN peanuts. The old boxes were so cramped the nuts didn’t ALL settle. Also, the prizes in the boxes were wedged in there a bit, the new prize was on top. Struggling for the prize or having the patience to eat my way to it, built character and made a simple sticker seem so much more. Before I bought the last bag, I read something written on it saying something like “All new surprises!” I thought to myself “Man, the stuff made me happy the way it was… this is gonna be awesome!” No luck. Same goddamn pencil topper with mountain climbers. Not even a frickin sticker… paper with slits in it. I tried to spin it to see if it looked like they were moving… nope. Same on both sides. What a load of crap. I was surprised all right. Surprised I fell for that BS. Cram that @#%$ in a cardboard box, so it is stale and tastes like the box. Never got a lot of nuts anyway, but sprinkle em in so I get one every now and then, not all at the end. All I buy this crap for is the prize. The popcorn is only a means to that end. What happened to flat plastic trinkets, puffy stickers, stickers that move when you tilt em, skill games with the little metal ball, and tats? Can’t someone at least get creative with the paper “toy”? Maybe optical illusions? Hey, I know………………maybe they can put an extra peanut in the envelope. That’d make my Friggin day. Kids can’t be falling for this, they are taking advantage of us folks that remember Jack from back in the day. I wonder if kool-aid tastes like pee now too.
Wow this really takes me down memory lane. I haven’t had a Cracker Jack since like forever! Kinda surprised to hear about all the sucky surprises now. I used to love those rub on tattoos. Man, we surely had it great back then!
Couldn’t they just charge more money and come up with some GOOD prizes. I think if they include little pieces of plastic crap like whistles or key fobs it would do the trick. Now it’s like they’re laughing at you every time you open the prize packet
I just put my ant pencil topper prize up for sale on EBay for $10,000. It is entitled. Worlds Worst Cracker Jack Toy ***posted in protest*** Thanks.
It’s August 2011 and I just had a bag of Cracker Jack for the first time in 20 years. My bag has the exact same pencil topper and NO peanuts as well. This is a travesty!
I’m eating my last box of Cracker Jacks for the rest of my life. The super-crappy prizes are depressing compared to what I got in each box as a child (I’ll be 60 yr old next month).
Please Cracker Jack company, close your factories. I;m done with you and the Cracker Jacks in my final box for life are soggy and not very good either. Your product is soggy and your prizes sure are poor.
Raise you prices if you must, but stop this nonsensical paper prize mania. I keep getting the same 5 or 6 stupid paper prizes and I sure am sick of your pencil topper, which is probably the best of a really bad lot.
Get out of this business. You are a sham company!
-Larry
PS My final crap-prize was another paper President Abe Lincoln repeat. I’m finished with Cracker Jacks no matter how long I live!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good bye foever.
I’m half Larry’s age but just like him today I’ve had my last Cracker Jack “bag” for the rest of my life…
1) There are more peanuts in a Nestlé chocolate bar than a bag of Cracker Jack.
2) Cracker Jack prizes make children cry! Bazooka Joe comics are national treasures compared to Cracker Jack’s shit.
3) Worst product ever! It ruined a childhood memory!
A stale bag of plain popcorn without peanuts and no prize would be infinitely better than what I had!
at least you got a surprise in your’s, my bag had only corn and no peanuts
oh well I think I’m over it
I have been eating crackerjacks for 30 years or more and the prizes and lack of penuts really suck any more