This Day in History, March 17, 1964: Lucky the Leprechaun, the mascot of Lucky Charms cereal, was introduced in print ads and animated television commercials on St. Patrick’s Day in 1964.

Product developer John Holahan created the cereal in 1964 by combining Cheerios with chopped-up pieces of

Circus Peanuts, his favorite candy. (I know, weird huh? How can Circus Peanuts be anyone’s favorite candy?)

Today’s Lucky Charms cereal includes oat pieces in various shapes, such as bells, fish, arrowheads, clovers, and x’s, along with marshmallows in the shapes of green clovers, pink hearts, orange stars, and yellow moons. The scientific name for those marshmallow bits is “marbits.”

Over the years, marshmallows have changed, with additions like blue diamonds (1975), purple horseshoes (1983), red balloons (1989), rainbows (1992), and unicorns (2018). Some shapes were retired or replaced to keep the cereal fresh and exciting for consumers. (Oh yeh, and in 1967 General Mills discovered that if they coated the oat bits with even more sugar, the cereal sold even better.)