What do snowmen eat for breakfast?

This chilly little riddle is a perfect example of a pun hiding in plain sight. The humor hinges on the delightful double meaning of the words "frosted" and "flakes." For us, it’s a sugary breakfast cereal. For a creature made of packed snow, however, it’s a literal description of its very being—flakes of snow covered in a layer of frost. The joke works by taking an absurd question seriously and providing an answer that is both silly and surprisingly logical within the world of living snow-people.

The joke cleverly mashes together two completely different cultural touchstones. You have the temporary, cheerful snowman, a universal symbol of winter fun that has been built in yards for centuries. Then you have Frosted Flakes, the breakfast table staple championed by the eternally optimistic Tony the Tiger. By imagining one consuming the other, the joke creates a simple and memorable image that has made it a favorite winter groaner for decades.