While testing for a possibility to negate the cravings altogether, he had his first major breakthrough. Due to an accident during one of his experiments, he was somehow able to convert his lust for blood into a craving for chocolate breakfast cereals. This was a huge milestone but caused a slight problem: no cereal was ever good enough.
Cocoa Pebbles was all right, Cookie Crisp was just a joke, and, sure, Cocoa Puffs turned his milk brown with chocolaty goodness, but it was still missing something. Unsatisfied with the available options, Chocula took it upon himself to create the best chocolate breakfast cereal in existence.
This audacious endeavor had piqued the interest of Lieutenant Mills, a breakfast cereal connoisseur and businessman who would later rise to the rank of General. Mills recruited Chocula for a position in cereal research and development. With Mills’s backing, the count spent years testing and experimenting with new combinations of cereal until he eventually found the missing piece of the puzzle he’d been searching for: marshmallows.
A popular Irish cereal at the time was filled to the brim with marshmallows—rainbows, blue moons, and a multitude of various other colors and shapes. Chocula noticed this and experimented with a combination of chocolate-flavored marshmallows and frosted cereal, eventually creating the best cereal ever to be produced (figure 5).
Figure 5. Cereal + Chocolate + Marshmallows = YAAAAY.
Mills was so pleased with the results that not only did he name the cereal after the count, but he made him the mascot for it as well. Chocula never intended on becoming a mascot when he first set out, but he fit the bill amazingly well. He soon became one of the most popular mascots of all time, way better than an enthusiastic furry in a tiger costume.2
Chocula never let this newfound success go to his head. He remained humble and kept close relations with his longtime friends. He even used his connections to get some of them, such as Franken Berry and Yummy Mummy, their very own cereals.
Bluebeard
As we will later learn, particularly violent or cruel sinners were apt to return from the grave as vampires. Bluebeard was definitely no exception.
This dude was fucked up. Real name Gilles de Rais, Blue-beard was the alias given to him after he was convicted of infanticide—the torture, rape, and murder of children.
With a name like Bluebeard, one would assume him to be a pirate, but in fact he was nothing more than a European nobleman. Born in France in 1404, Gilles lost his father when he was only nine years old. After his mother died two years later, he and his brother were sent to live with his grandfather, a grouchy old man and total dick. His grandfather, in an effort to rid himself of the nuisance of taking care of “these ungrateful little shits,” tried to pawn Gilles off by arranging for him to marry a prominent girl. His first attempt was the heiress Jeanne de Paynol, but she was mysteriously killed before the wedding. The second was Béatrice de Rohan, who was also mysteriously killed. The third time, with Catherine de Thouars, was a success, but only because Gilles’s grandfather kidnapped her before anything could happen to her.3
Years later after his grandfather passed away, Gilles’s sick perversion began.
A boy would be lured into his castle under false pretenses. Once inside, the boy would be tied up and hung upside down from the ceiling by rope or chains. Just before losing consciousness, the boy would be taken down and reassured that no harm would come to him. Gilles would then rape him (see figure 6, next page).
It only got worse from there. The ensuing actions Gilles took part in have been deemed too foul to be re iterated in these pages. Suffice it to say, the actions perpetrated by this man make those of the most heinous serial killers and pedophiles look like mere child’s play. In addition to this, he was also known to smoke drugs and litter!
Figure 6. “Tricked you!”
Gilles’s obsession with the forbidden led him to become interested in black magic. An evil magician suggested he sell his soul to the devil to further his “journey.” But Gilles was a devout Catholic and his morals wouldn’t allow him to do such a thing. Instead, he raped and murdered some more little boys.
Gilles’s actions were soon discovered when the bodies of dozens of these boys were uncovered. With incriminating testimony from his servants, he was convicted and condemned to death. Because his actions were so heinous, the court sentenced him to be strangled and stabbed to death by the families of the children he had killed. Brutal.
Don’t forget, all of this happened before he ever became a vampire. These were the actions of a normal human being. Well, not mentally normal, but physiologically normal.
Amusingly enough, when he actually did become a vampire, he completely stopped pursuing his old, sadistic ways.
As a human, he was obsessed with the sinful aspect, the wickedness, of what he was doing. As a vampire, however, that sadism really paled in comparison to what all vampires did on a frequent basis. Sure, he was a little more violent than most when he eventually sought his revenge on the servants who had testified against him and the families who had condemned him to death, but mutilation and rape just seemed so passé.
The worst part of it all, though? His beard wasn’t even blue. What a fraud.
Lestat de Lioncourt
Lestat, the vampire famously portrayed by Tom Cruise in Interview with the Vampire and Stuart Townsend in Queen of the Damned, is known to be extremely vain, bold, arrogant, and reluctant to follow orders. Inside the vampire realm, he was chastised for this by his elders, often referring to him as “the Brat Prince,” a title he is quite fond of. However, outside of the vampire world, he’s much better known for his interest and aspirations in U.S. politics, which he pursued under his other name, Richard Nixon.
After serving in the navy during WWII, he was elected to Congress to be California’s twelfth district representative and later its senator. After unsuccessful political runs in 1960 and 1962, Lestat was elected to the presidency in 1968, becoming the thirty-seventh president of the United States.
“Tricky Lestat,” as he was sometimes referred to, had a strong first term and was reelected for a second. Things went south soon after, the turning point being the Watergate scandal. Five burglars were caught breaking into the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel on June 17, 1972, bringing to light several instances of phone tapping of journalists and administration officials, an assassination request of newspaper columnist Jack Anderson, and the cover-up of an investigation of the president’s possible vampirism (figure 7).
Figure 7. “I am not a crook. Or a vampire.”
Two reporters from the Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, began to pursue the truth behind the scandal. “Deep Throat,” the pseudonym given to Deputy Director of the FBI Linda Lovelace (who moonlighted as an adult film actress), acted as a secret informant for Woodward and Bernstein, supplying them with inside information regarding the scandal, internal Watergate documents, and copious amounts of oral sex.
With impeachment looming, Nixon resigned from office, never to return to politics again. He now performs in the rock band The Vampire Lestat.
Things Richard Nixon Is Also Not Besides a Crook
A serial killer
A tax evasionist
A petty thief
An arsonist
An Old West bank robber
A cat burglar