Basic Trope: Mostly sugar sold to children as “breakfast cereal.”
- Straight: Sweetie-Os Cereal is just over half sugar.
- Exaggerated:
- Sweetie-Os Cereal is almost all sugar, with only trace amounts of grain.
- Sweetie-Os are literally sugar cubes that are meant to be eaten as cereal.
- Downplayed: Sweetie-Os Cereal is considerably sweeter than any adult cereal, but compared to other kid cereals sold in Tropeland, it’s practically health food.
- Justified:
- Kids like sugar, and Sweetie-Os is just giving them what they want.
- There are no rules about what can and cannot be sold to children in this jurisdiction.
- Inverted: Healthy-Os Cereal contains no refined sweetener whatsoever, being made from “health-food” ingredients.
- Subverted: “Sweetie-Os” is an Artifact Title. After public health watchdogs complained about how Sweetie-Os was ruining children’s minds and bodies, the company switched to a more healthful recipe.
- Double Subverted:
- …that was laced with lethal poisons.
- Later, they switch back to “Classic Sweetie-Os,” which is as unhealthy as ever.
- Parodied:
- Sweetie-Os Cereal is literally refined white sugar.
- A reading of Sweetie-Os’ Long List of ingredients reads: “Fructose, Glucose, Dextrose, Lactose…” and every other type of sugar yet discovered.
- Sweetie-Os advertises itself with the slogan “It's Diabetes in a bowl!”
- Zig Zagged:
- Some cereals are overly sweet, others are not.
- Sweetie-Os itself changes with the times, being incredibly sweet when people demand it but not so sweet when that becomes the norm.
- Lampshaded: “This cereal is nothing but sugar!”
- Averted: No super-sweet kids’ cereal appears on the show, or if it does, Alice and Bob don’t let their children eat any.
- Invoked: A cereal manufacturer sweetens its product to make kids want to eat it.
- Exploited: The Merch gets sold with Sweetie-Os.
- Defied: Heidi decides not to let Sweetie-Os or any competitor go to market. “I’m a mother; I wouldn’t feed that to my own kid.”
- Implied:Amy: What are you eating?
Ben: Cereal.
Amy: [Tries some] It’s really, really sweet. - Deconstructed: Sweetie-Os makes many children overweight, gives them ADHD and diabetes, and those factors combine to shorten their life expectancy dramatically.
- Played for Drama: Children die from ailments incurred by all the sugar in Sweetie-Os.
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