Cap'n Crunch Clean and Sober

From here forth, the Cap'n will simply be known as Crunch.

After 44 years, Quaker Oats and Ari Steinowitz, the man who has played the Cap'n since the popular breakfast cereal's debut in 1963, have decided an image change was long overdue, saying that cereal-eating children can now expect a calmer, more laid-back Cap'n.

This comes following a string of bizarre actions culminating in his arrest in January after showing up to a Connecticut casino drunk without his toupee and missing his captains trousers and hat while attempting to wrestle a stuffed coyote.

Steinowitz pleaded no contest to charges of public intoxication, indecency, disorderly conduct and assault of a law enforcement official. He was sentenced to 64 days in jail, fined an undisclosed sum and ordered into mandatory substance abuse treatment.

It was this treatment that Steinowitz and Quaker Oats
say was the biggest catalyst for change.

Officials at the cereal giant have since acknowledged privately a growing concern for years about the Cap'n's suspected amphetamine addiction which led to an increasingly hyper-aggressive and overly-energetic insistence on people eating his cereal.

They point out the visual change over the years on the cereal boxes, going from a stoic if not weathered seaman in the 60s and 70s to the recent eye-bulging buffoon, saluting and grinning while practically forcing large spoonfuls of his cereal on anyone from coworkers to passing motorists to infants and
toddlers.

Quaker Oats officials said the return to a more dignified persona would be gradual. While temporarily keeping the name Cap'n Crunch, Steinowitz will now appear on cereal boxes wearing a 'do rag in place of a bulky captains hat. He'll also sport more of a neutral, almost sedated expression to better reflect the attitudes of today's youth.