May 10, 2016 4 min read

Did you hear the sound of the final nail being driven into the coffin of the American Dream?

Although 2016 is an election year, I speak not of the withdrawal of Ted “Eddie Munster” Cruz from the presidential race. Nor do I refer to the seemingly doomed efforts of old white men to keep the presidency out of the hands of an uppity woman. Rather, I speak of something much more crucial to the fabric of the United States: the end of every child’s dream of finding a crummy plastic toy inside a box of Cracker Jack.

On April 21, PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay division announced it has replaced what the company calls the “Toy Surprise Inside” packages of Cracker Jack with a cardboard QR code. Is nothing sacred?

Next thing you know, Playboy magazine will stop publishing pictures of naked women.

One second … my proofreader informs me that – also in April – Playboy did, indeed, stop publishing pictures of naked women. Well, T.S. Eliot told us April is the cruelest month. Now we know why.

For 125 years, Cracker Jack included in its concoction of caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts a small prize – maybe a tin whistle shaped like a bird, or maybe even something really cool. A temporary tattoo, perhaps. Whatever lay buried, kids excitedly tackled the task of finding it. Although the toy itself wasn’t all that great, the thrill of digging through all that tooth-destroying sticky goodness was. But in a nod to millennials – whose attention spans already are shorter than Tyrion Lannister – Cracker Jack has decided to provide yet another digital distraction.

Each QR code (rather like a square Rorschach blot) allows users to play four baseball-themed mobile games on a smartphone via the Blippar app. Savvy marketers, Cracker Jack knows that baseball – America’s Pastime and the World’s Most Boring Sport according to the “Guinness Book of World Records” – is no longer watched by the majority of fans sitting in ballparks.

Rather, they are texting and taking selfies.

Said Frito-Lay in a press release: “The new prize inside allows families to enjoy their favorite baseball moments through a new one-of-a-kind mobile experience. …” Which is, I guess, digging through a Cracker Jack box, then using your smartphone to play “Dance Cam” – successor to PepsiCo’s short-lived, but wildly popular, “Michael Jackson’s House of Flaming Hair” side-scroller of 1984 – which allows you to “show off your dance moves on a simulated jumbo screen on your phone.”

Cracker Jack also has overhauled its Sailor Jack logo, “contemporizing” the 100-year old Jack and his adorable pet dog, Bingo. Rather than being clad in drab navy blue bell bottoms and blouse, Jack now sports a jaunty dress whites, making him look as if he just stepped out of auditions for the Village People’s 2016 reunion tour.

And Bingo now looks more like a fluffy cocker spaniel than a pit bull that, given the choice between your Cracker Jack and your throat, would not hesitate one bit.

“We are a brand that authentically reminds people of simpler times, childhood memories and family experiences,” Haston Lewis, senior director of marketing for Frito-Lay, said in the press release announcing the changes. “With this redesign and new mobile game experience, the Cracker Jack brand embraces a modernized, young-at-heart attitude while keeping that treasured feeling of childhood wistfulness.”

Merriam-Webster defines “wistful” as “having or showing sad thoughts and feelings about something that you want to have or do and especially about something that made you happy in the past.”

Somehow, it’s hard to envision today’s adults-to-be waxing nostalgic about a QR code.

Christmas, 2046: “Remember when we all rode in the ambulance with Jimmy after he got beaned while playing ‘Dance Jam’ at the 2016 World Series?”

Good times.