The breakfast cereal aisle in most American grocery stores is littered with sugar cereals. And many of those cereals have recognizable mascots. Frosted Flakes has Tony the Tiger. Trix has the Trix Rabbit. Cap'n Crunch has Cap'n Crunch. (His full name is actually "Captain Horatio Magellan Crunch.") Froot Loops has Toucan Sam. And Lucky Charms has Lucky the Leprechaun, as seen above.

Lucky, as anyone who follows the lore of sugar cereals (or has seen the TV ads) knows, is magical. He's often using magic in Lucky Charms ads -- here's a compilation of modern ads featuring Lucky -- and his catchphrase is "they're magically delicious!," a reference to the cereal. And for a brief moment in the 1970s, Lucky pulled off the ultimate magic trick: he disappeared. 

But only from New England. And only for about a year. 

Let's go back to the beginning, though. Lucky Charms has been around since 1964 and, from day one, Lucky the Leprechaun was its mascot (albeit as "L.C. Leprechaun" originally). In the early years, Lucky wasn't the nicest of characters. Early TV ads for the product showed Lucky holding a box of the cereal and guarding it, much like you'd think of a leprechaun from folklore guarding his pot of gold. A few children come looking for Lucky and his cereal and, instead of sharing it, Lucky uses his magic to flee and, at times, comically injure the kids. In one ad, for example, two kids try to trap Lucky in a cage; he responds by transforming some wood into a horse and gallops away, but the kids trick the horse into giving up its rider. In another, Lucky teleports into a cave to avoid the kids, and while in the cave, uses his magic to knock the kids off a stalagmite and then summons some bats to terrorize them. Lucky just isn't a very nice leprechaun.

For the marketing folks at General Mills, the maker of the cereal, that opened a door to a question: was a mean leprechaun really the best way to sell cereal? In the early 1970s, marketers at the company's ad agency had developed a new character, Waldo the Wizard, for a new cereal that never launched. Waldo, like Lucky, was magical, but unlike Lucky, he used his magic for good. He was a forgetful wizard who was always misplacing his cereal, and as seen in the cartoon below (via Atlas Obscura), would use his magic to bring more to the eagerly waiting children.