Cap’n Crunch, also known as Horatio Magellan Crunch, has been viciously attacked by skeptics across the nation for having improper uniform markings. His uniform currently sports three horizontal stripes on the sleeve, which, according to the U.S. Navy, means he is a Commander — one rank below Captain.
Indeed, the Cap’n — a cartoon character — is being criticized for the number of stripes on his fake cartoon sleeves. What’s more, this is apparently important enough for an entire faction of our nation’s military to issue formal statements about it.
The nitpick was originally made by FoodBeast, a food blog based in Orange County, Calif. Since the discovery, the indiscretion has been highlighted across the web, drawing attention from NPR, Fox News and The Wall Street Journal.
The Cap’n has drawn so much attention, in fact, that a U.S. Navy spokeswoman told Foreign Policy that he is “wearing the rank of a U.S. Navy commander” and that the Navy’s “personnel records do not show a ‘Cap’n Crunch’ who currently serves or has served in the Navy.”
This “scandal” has officially gone too far. Whether the Cap’n has correct markings or not is negligible. He has been a true American icon since 1963, bringing smiles and sugar to children everywhere.
My question to the Navy and other skeptics is this: “Why now?” After all, the Cap’n’s uniform has changed multiple times over the past 50 years, sporting as few as one single stripe at times. The Navy didn’t seem to care then whether he was an actual Captain or not. If you ask me, there’s treachery afoot.
This, the year of our dear Cap’n’s 50th anniversary, should be celebrated across the nation, just as any other animated American icon’s semicentennial would be. Instead, major news agencies and factions of our nation’s military are outing him as a fraud and an impostor. Some have even posited that Crunch is a foreigner, a Frenchman or otherwise.
To these hecklers I say only this: How dare you.
As Americans, should we oust the Trix Rabbit because he’s an anthropomorphic representation of a rabbit, not a real one? Should we put Sonny the Cuckoo Bird into an insane asylum? Of course not. They are cartoons. They are drawings that appear on cardboard boxes meant to make children want to eat sugary cereal.
A good indication that this entire situation is ridiculous is that it’s reached the desk of satirical newsman Stephen Colbert, who joked that the Cap’n’s deception means that eating Cap’n Crunch no longer means supporting the troops, and that the whole reason he ate the cereal in the first place was because he believed the mascot to be an active-duty naval captain.
The Cap’n took to Twitter to defend himself, tweeting: “So much fuss about my name. O, be some other name. What’s in a name? That which we call Cap’n Crunch, by any other name would taste as sweet.” Crunch is right — no matter the name of the cereal, no matter his rank, the cereal will still be delicious, sugary bites of goodness. As with the majority of his Twitter followers, I’m on #TeamCrunch, and I support the Cap’n all the way.
Connor Tarter is a 21-year-old communication studies senior from Dallas, Texas.
