--- title: Meet the Prince of Tarts on the 50th Anniversary of Pop-Tarts | TIME description: It's Pop-Tarts 50th anniversary and no one is better to celebrate with than this Pop-Tart collector. canonical: https://time.com/video/6CpKmRwx/ og:title: Meet the Prince of Tarts on the 50th Anniversary of Pop-Tarts og:description: It's Pop-Tarts 50th anniversary and no one is better to celebrate with than this Pop-Tart collector. og:url: https://time.com/video/6CpKmRwx/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/6CpKmRwx/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Meet the Prince of Tarts on the 50th Anniversary of Pop-Tarts twitter:description: It's Pop-Tarts 50th anniversary and no one is better to celebrate with than this Pop-Tart collector. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/6CpKmRwx/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Meet the Prince of Tarts on the 50th Anniversary of Pop-Tarts > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Meet the Prince of Tarts on the 50th Anniversary of Pop-Tarts [Watch (HLS stream): Meet the Prince of Tarts on the 50th Anniversary of Pop-Tarts](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/6CpKmRwx.m3u8) (3:13)  _Published 2014-02-26. It's Pop-Tarts 50th anniversary and no one is better to celebrate with than this Pop-Tart collector._ --- Jul 27, 2023 4:15 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Behind-the-Scenes with our 50th Anniversary Hummingbird Cake](/video/PrKURn2r/) ### Behind-the-Scenes with our 50th Anniversary Hummingbird Cake [Subway's 50th Anniversary Could Have Come At A Better Time](/video/aAXi41yj/) ### Subway's 50th Anniversary Could Have Come At A Better Time [How Does A Pop-Tart-Flavored Beer Sound?](/video/aKVkQpYz/) ### How Does A Pop-Tart-Flavored Beer Sound? --- ## Transcript >> I was about 8 they invented pop tarts. The back of my head blew right off. >> How could you eat an entire box of pop tarts and still be this hungry? >> Pop tarts have invaded pop culture from stand- up comedy, to feature films, to, well, space cats with rainbows coming out of their butts. This year, the famous toaster pastry celebrated their 50th anniversary and some people are really excited. >> I've always loved pop tarts since I was a kid and still love 'em today so I thought what a great thing to collect. So, it'd be different unique. So, why not? I remember when they came out. I remember seeing the commercial and it would show kids on a merry- go- round. They'd be having fun eating pop tarts. -[ Music Playing ] >> I remember my mother 'em for us and I had two brothers, so we got to eat quite a bit of pop tarts back in the day. In 1963, General Foods, which also has Post Cereal, developed a process of keeping food in the foil package, so they came out with a toaster pastry that was wrapped in foil. And the problem was they called them country squares. Now, this is 1963 and the word square was sort of like a derogatory thing. >> I swear. >> No. >> So Kelloggs jumped on the bandwagon a year later and the big thing at that time was pop art while they got the idea to call 'em pop tarts and it just kicked up and it just went through the roof. It has been the major brand since that day. The coolest thing about pop tarts back in the day was Milton the Toaster. The story I was told by William Schallert who did the voice of Milton the Toaster, they did a commercial where Milton had gotten sick and he had a fever and the little girl touches the toaster and she says to him, you do feel warm. And they were scared to death the kids would start touching toasters and all that, so they just sort of just canned the whole Milton campaign. >> Kellogg's pop tarts toasted pastries. >> Milton wasn't the only thing burning up. In 1993, Kellogg battled a lawsuit involving flammability of pop tarts in toasters. After a Texas A & M professor recreated the pastry pyrotechnics, Kellogg added a warning to the pop tarts box about leaving toasters unattended. They also tried to cool the tarts down by having them swim in milk. >> Pop tarts crunch was a-- Basically, they wanted to get in to the cereal market. And it's-- You know, to be honest with you, as much as I love pop tarts and everything, it was just awful cereal. And then they tried the pastry swirls and the pop tart sticks and then mini pop tart. I thought the idea of the ice cream sandwich was a good idea. I thought that was kind of neat. The large majority of them never seemed to work. You know, people trying for, you know, a time or two and they just don't go over. >> Those ideas might not have won pop tart fans over, but Dennis has something that might. >> Well, the first thing, I think, they're gonna wind up doing is they're gonna-- there should probably be a new package design coming out. They had this basic blue design for quite a while now. I think another thing they should do, and I've often wondered why they don't, is wrap the pop tarts individually instead of two to a pack, single packs, you know. I never could understand why they don't do that. >> When it's time, we're double [ unk ]. 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