Monster Cereals return for 55 years with new Jim Henson puppet boxes

Count Chocula, Franken Berry and Boo Berry are back for Halloween 2026 with new packaging built around puppet designs from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.

The spookiest cereals in the grocery store are coming back for another Halloween.

General Mills announced that Count Chocula, Franken Berry and Boo Berry are returning to shelves for the 2026 season, once again dressing up new limited-edition boxes featuring the puppet versions from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.

The cereals are turning 55 this year. Not bad for three cartoon monsters who mostly show up for six weeks a year and then vanish until fall.

Jim Henson’s Creature Shop returns for a second year of Monster Cereal boxes

This is the second year for the Henson collaboration.

Last year, they partnered with The Jim Henson Company to reimagine the three monsters as puppets, turning Count Chocula, Franken Berry and Boo Berry into characters you would find somewhere on Sesame Street.

“Fans loved” the puppet versions last year, said General Mills cereal director Megan Brooks, so the two teamed up again for fresh designs this time around.

The Jim Henson Company is the perfect partner to bring these characters to life.

This year the boxes can be turned into puppets!

For 2026, the boxes can be transformed into physical puppets for fun that lasts long after the cereal is gone.

On October 1, a limited-edition fuzzy Count Chocula cereal box, made to replicate the fleece-like texture of the puppets, will be available exclusively on Walmart.com for $7.76.

Monster Cereals started in 1971 with Count Chocula and Franken Berry

The story goes back to March 1971, when General Mills rolled out two brand-new cereals: chocolate Count Chocula and strawberry Franken Berry.

At the time, they were the only chocolate- and strawberry-flavored cereals on the market, which helped them quickly win over cereal lovers.

Here’s a fun bit of trivia. The artist who drew the first Count Chocula, George Karn, was the same guy who’d sketched the original Trix Rabbit back in 1959.

Boo Berry, the first blueberry cereal anywhere, joined a year or two later, with General Mills dating the debut to 1972 and going national in 1973. Those three have been the core of the lineup ever since.

Fruit Brute and Yummy Mummy are the monsters that got away

Two more monsters came and went, and they’re the ones collectors obsess over.

Fruit Brute, a werewolf with a fruit-flavored cereal, arrived in the mid-1970s and got discontinued by 1982. Yummy Mummy replaced him in the late 1980s and lasted only a few years before disappearing himself.

Both monsters have returned from the dead for occasional limited runs over the years, including a 2013 return and a spot in the 50th-anniversary Monster Mash box. But they’ve never returned to permanent status.

From year-round cereal to a Halloween-only tradition

Here’s the shift that turned Monster Cereals into a nostalgia event instead of a regular grocery item.

For decades, you could buy these things any time. That changed around 2010, when General Mills pulled them from year-round shelves and made them Halloween-season only, showing up in September and vanishing after October.

That scarcity is the whole reason they’re a big deal now. It also means consumers grab them up quickly, even at sometimes higher prices.

General Mills has leaned all the way into that, running celebrity and artist collaborations on the boxes over the years, from DC Comics artists to the KAWS crossover to now a second year of Jim Henson puppets.

The cereal usually shows up in September, but sometimes you can find it sooner.

Good luck!

Article compiled with the help of the Pirates & Princesses newsroom.

Pirates and Princesses is your destination for Disney news, theme park updates, and the pop culture you love. From Disney cruises and travel tips to Disney fashion, food, collectibles, and movie news, PNP covers it all. Visit us at piratesandprincesses.net for daily coverage. Follow PNP on Facebook and Instagram, and listen to the Pirates & Princesses podcast on Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

Hat Tips:

• General Mills (July 2026), the official 2026 announcement, the Jim Henson Creature Shop encore collaboration, and the Megan Brooks quote
• General Mills company history, the March 1971 debut, the George Karn/Trix Rabbit detail, and the shift to Halloween-only in 2010
• Wikipedia (retrieved July 25, 2026), the full Monster Cereals timeline, the Franken Berry dye incident, and the Fruit Brute and Yummy Mummy discontinuation dates
• The Retroist and PopIcon (2021-2023), the Fruit Brute Tarantino-film appearances and collector history
• TV Tropes (retrieved July 25, 2026), the 2013 and 50th-anniversary Monster Mash revivals and the DC Comics and KAWS box collaborations