Toy prizes- where have they gone?

Remember when cereal boxes used to come with cool prizes?  Now they seem to be either watches, CDs, or some mail order merchandise.  Where have all the cool prizes gone?

I'd love to see the "toy and candy" snacks seen in Japan.  You'd get a little plastic figure on one end and a packet of gum or chocolate balls on the other.  It made the snack seem more permanent.  You could display your figure as a sort of trophy for eating that snack.  All forms of licensed kid friendly anime make their way as snacks, or at least rice toppings. 

"have you been to mexico?
you should go. almost everything has some kind of cartoon figure or PPG."

Mexican candies also test very high for arsenic, cyanide and various metals (mmmm... mercury...)  Have a nice death Pedro ^_^

Yeah, like >>3 said...  We don't get cool toys in the US because our kids are so fucking stupid they'll jam anything into their mouths.