There was panic on the soggy seas earlier this week when rumors swirled that Cap'n Horatio Magellan Crunch was being quietly forced into retirement by the corporate overlords who sign the checks for his intrepid adventures.

It all started when Daily Finance noticed that the Cap'n "is nowhere to be found" on the Quaker website, and Quaker's corporate parent, PepsiCo, acts as if he doesn't even exists. The last time Crunch's exploits were trumpeted in a press release was four years ago, in a survey that found that 83% percent of kids thought it would be fun to be a pirate. We've been unable to reach the Cap'n for comment—and what's worse is that First Lady Michelle Obama was implicated in his disappearance.

Obama has been pressuring PepsiCo. and other food companies to make their products healthier and stop marketing sugary foods to children. And it began to look like her crusade had left the Cap'n stranded on some desert isle. "Our research shows that PepsiCo is no longer marketing Cap'n Crunch cereal directly to children," Jennifer Harris, director of Marketing Initiatives at the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University, told Daily Finance. "In a sense, you could say that they have retired Cap'n Crunch, and that's a good thing."

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