Quotes / Adjacent to This Complete Breakfast

I am curious about the expression, "Part of this complete breakfast." The way it comes up is, my 5-year-old will be watching TV cartoon shows in the morning, and they'll show a commercial for a children's compressed breakfast compound such as "Froot Loops" or "Lucky Charms", and they always show it sitting on a table next to a some actual food such as eggs, and the announcer always says: "Part of this complete breakfast." Don't they really mean, "Adjacent to this complete breakfast", or "On the same table as this complete breakfast"? And couldn't they make essentially the same claim if, instead of Froot Loops, they put a can of shaving cream there, or a dead bat?

—Dave Barry, "Tips for Writers"

Somewhere along the line parents learned that starting the day with half a pound of refined sugar just jacked up your kid like a lemur on a hot plate, and made them crash around 10. This lead to the invention of the "Balanced Breakfast" concept, where a bowl of Sugar-Sparkled Cocoa Nodules would be photographed with toast, orange juice, a monkey wrench, a copy of Newsweek, and other items that could theoretically be part of a balanced breakfast, but would be ignored in favor of another bowl of Nature's Crack.

—James Lileks, "Sugar-frosted Frosted Puffsweets!"

Purpleberry Puffs are the sweetest part of your complete breakfast, along with juice, toast, ham, eggs, bacon, milk, cheese, liver, waffles, and a big horse vitamin!

— Futurama, "Saturday Morning Fun Pit"

Warning: Video games are part of a completed breakfast, assuming that your breakfast, of course, includes two or three grapefruits, a giant bowl of cereal filled to the brim, a few bran muffins, one loaf of bread (possibly with peanut butter) and, y’know, if you’re feeling a little festive, a banana. Thank you.

—raocow, "CRAZ'D - NINETEEN - ECHOPRAXIA"

Galactic: another thing... wtf is up with cereal being "A part of this complete breakfast"
Galactic: last time -I- checked, cereal WAS breakfast
Galactic: they show a big ass bowl of frosted flakes next to a waffle, a pancake, toast, a banana, a fuckin grapefruit... who the FUCK eats a breakfast that big

—This Bash.org quote

Calvin: Look, it says right on the box, "part of a wholesome, nutritious, balanced breakfast."
Hobbes: And they show a guy eating five grapefruits, a dozen bran muffins...

—Calvin on the nutritional value of Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs, Calvin and Hobbes