Crunchy Loops

A week ago, I found a reference on Twitter to a whistle that was available in the 70s as a prize inside boxes of Cap’n Crunch cereal. It could be used to hack phone lines and I thought this was such an interesting bit of trivia that I retweeted it. I found this tweet based on a search on the phrase “Cap’n Crunch” and I thought to do that search not because of a huge fondness for the cereal itself (I’m actually more of a Fruit Loops man) but because I admin and code for an online text-based adventure game named 3Scapes and years ago, I helped a friend write an area based on the Cap’n and his assorted friends and enemies.

So what? You might ask. Well, a few days before I retweeted that bit of obscurity, I tweeted that I’m reading and thoroughly enjoying Ernest Cline’s debut novel, Ready Player One. It’s a fantastically entertaining futuristic yarn about a boy that's hunting for a treasure left behind in cyberspace by a now-deceased game-coding mastermind. That mastermind just happens to have been a major fan of the 80s and the puzzles the boy must solve all involve obscure trivia from around that decade. Last night I reached page 176 and what do I discover? I find that one of the puzzles the boy must solve is based on a clue involving that very same Cap’n Crunch phone hacking whistle.

Mind = blown

My guess is that some of my readers will simply roll their eyes at this short tale of coincidence, but I find it extremely intriguing. Like troubleshooting code or eating your favorite cereal, you never know when you’re going to stumble upon a crunchy little loop.