Life is a breakfast cereal made of whole grain oats, distributed by the Quaker Oats Company. It was introduced in 1961.[1] The cereal's advertisements currently sport the slogan "Life is full of surprises".
Life was popularized during the 1970s by an advertising campaign featuring "Mikey," a hard-to-please four-year-old-boy portrayed by John Gilchrist. The commercials featured the catchphrase "He likes it! Hey Mikey!" The ad campaign ran from 1974 to 1986,[2] becoming one of the longest-running television advertisements since. A subsequent commercial repeated the identical dialog and scenario, using lumberjacks instead of children.
In 1978, Cinnamon Life was introduced, followed shortly thereafter by Raisin Life. Today Cinnamon Life accounts for a third of total Life sales. Raisin Life wasn't as popular and was discontinued sometime in the early 1980s. In 2002,[3] a short-lived version called Baked Apple Life was released. Honey Graham Life was introduced in early 2004, Life Vanilla Yogurt Crunch in late 2005, and another new flavor, Life Chocolate Oat Crunch, in 2006. All 3 were eventually discontinued in 2008. Finally, in 2008 Life introduced another new version, Maple & Brown Sugar Life. In Canada and certain areas of the United States, there is also Multigrain Life.
Original Life has been reformulated several times since its introduction. The most recent event took place in 1998, when Quaker introduced a "New and Improved" version. Consumer response was unfavorable, and Quaker quickly reverted to the original formula.
In 2010, Life was featured on the "Eat This, Not That" website. It was categorized as a healthy cereal but was negatively criticized for its content of Yellow #5.