General Moods: Psycho-Foods for a Better YOU

The General Moods staff after a rousing breakfast.

[Note: Da-da wrote this ten years ago, but it still seems relevent, so...]

Product evolution often involves the collision of many things coinciding to create new things -- many of which impact Da-da and Mr. Moms in general, who are... well, the word BORDERLINE about covers it. In corporate parlance, these collisions fall under the heading MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS. Some collisions are stranger than others.

Given the near-shutdown of the FDA, three powerful corporations came quietly together today to create something stranger than fiction. Foodmakers General Mills and General Foods Int'l inexplicably merged with drugmaker Eli Lilly, producing a new corporate entity dubbed, “General Moods,” to be based in manic Silicon Valley. During the event, freshly minted General Moods’ CEO John Schadenfreude (a former friend of Da-da's) waxed optimistic:

"Freud remarked that unrestricted satisfaction of every human need drives people’s motivations," said Schadenfreude, "but that also means putting enjoyment before caution. Well, by entering the pharmaceutical food game, we’ve brought enjoyment to a whole new level."

"The market clearly has a need for a company that can not only meet the needs of food- and drug-loving consumers," he added, "but also one that can successfully subvert state and federal laws with impunity, vectoring with a sheer force of will unheard of since the Pharaohs." The smiling Schadenfreude concluded his comments by driving a Cat D-series bulldozer east as part of a 50-state tour.

      Highlights of General Moods New Product Family:

• The world’s first Ritalin-laced baking mix, called “Bisquicker” – an integral ingredient to “Suddenly Salad”
  
• A new Lithium-laced cereal shaped like little ones and zeroes dubbed, “Binarios” – for the chronically bipolar
  
• The world’s first mood-altering laxative: “Prolax”
  
• A high fiber/petrolatum mix dubbed, “FiberDammit” – marketed as “JiffyPlop” in France
  
• A Zyprexa-based, paranoia-reducing breakfast cereal called, “CHEX WHO GOES THERE??” (a favorite in Silicon Valley)
  
• A Ritalin- and Viagra-laced gelatin dessert called, “HELLO!”
  
• A Kervorkian-approved, strychnine-based confection named, “Hershey’s Kiss of Death”
  
• “SmackUms,” an opiate-laced cracker
  
• “FlopTarts,” a Percocet-Valium breakfast mood recliner
  
• A yummy Ativan-Valium-laced cereal called, “Dream of Wheat”
  
• “SNOREOs,” a barbituate cookie
  
• A contraceptive breath mint called, “Wifesavers”
  
• A Paxil-Prozac, psycho-lipid obsessive-compulsive breakfast spread called, “I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY BELIEVE IT’S BUTTER I DO REALLY”
  
• A post-millennial, Vicodin-enhanced breakfast cereal called, “SpecialY2K”
  
• A methamphetamine-Prozac-antacid combination designed specifically for IT administrators called, “Network Helper.”

A spokesman said FrootLoops, Frosted Flakes and the new-and-improved fluoxetine hydrochloride- and Humatrope synthetic-human-growth-hormone-laced Cheerios will remain unchanged.

"Through our internal scientific programs and dozens of research-based partnerships worldwide, we are targeting pharmaceutical-grade dietary solutions for many of the world’s most urgent and unmet medical food needs," said Dr. John Parrot, minister of cafeteria science for General Moods and Morvalia Polytechnic fellow in pretty good standing. "Our deep research and clinical expertise have prepared us to take advantage of this Golden Age of psycho-food discovery on behalf of patients who are soon-to-be veeeery dependent on medical innovation -- even more than before!"

"A lot of people have asked why we’re doing this," said Dr. Sidney Taurel, chairman and CEO of Eli Lilly, while munching the new "growth" Cheerios and getting very, very large. "The truth of the matter is, what with all these recent behemoth under-the-counter psycho-pharmaceutical food mergers, we all felt like giggling little children amid big giant toothed earth-moving machines and there's all this noise and it's just the coolest forest ham is FANTASTIC and felt just right in fact it felt great is this thing on? Hellooooooo?" Taurel concluded by growing to a height of 12 feet 3 inches and trying to catch his own hand while being pursued by authorities and the Miami Heat.

Evolution, it seems, can prove convoluted and unpredictable.

A vintage ad, precursor to today's multi-billion-dollar medicated youth market.