Category Archives: News

News: Another Cereal News Round-Up!

New Nutty Buddy Cereal

Just as the world keeps spinning, the new cereal world keeps on spooning—whether or not I’m able to keep up with it! Here’s a quick look at the big headlines that’ve cropped up (get it, because…grains?) these past couple weeks.

First up we have the obvious headliner above. For awhile, I’ve wondered whether Little Debbie and Kellogg’s would expand their line of snack cake-inspired cereals that started with Oatmeal Creme Pies Cereal and Cosmic Brownies Cereal—and if so, which of Deb’s iconic processed goodies would get the spotlight next.

Now, thanks to @steelbookobsessed on Instagram, we have the likely answer. While it’s still in the unconfirmed sampling phase, Nutty Buddy Cereal seems like a smart choice, and hopefully one that will evolve the shallow cocoa powdery taste of the Cosmic Brownies Cereal. Yes, CBC was pretty mediocre and sparsely flavored, while OCP was an agreeable, heavily powdered cinna–molasses affair, so there’s no telling where Nutty Buddy may land on that continuum.

One thing’s for sure, though: the pieces look like (fittingly dairy-ready) Milk Bones. Continue reading

News: Frute Brute’s 2022 Return

Frute Brute 2022

Are you hungry like the wolf yet?

No? Well you’d better start huffing, puffing, and ruining some porcine architecture, because by the time this Halloween rolls around, our dearly departed Monster Cereal Frute Brute will be back on shelves with a cherry-flavored vengeance. Not counting his half-hearted marbit cameo in last year’s Monster Mash Cereal, it’s been almost 10 years since we last saw this ’70s cereal icon get his own spotlight spooky-time cereal.

And I’m so excited, I don’t even care that the cereal will still be corn-based, and that Brute’s only been reanimated as part of a Monsters x KAWS promo contest. KAWS is an artist and designer known for parodying pop culture icons and putting Xs over their eyes. He’s already gotten his own Reese’s Puffs box, so this General Mills collab isn’t a total surprise. The full nature of the Monsters promo isn’t clear yet, either, except that you’ll be able to enter to win a KAWS prize on the (not yet live) site kawsmonsters.com.

The other thing that’s abundantly (and abominably) clear is that Fruity Yummy Mummy, Frute Brute’s ’80s Monster Cereal counterpart, is no where to be found in this KAWS campaign. As someone who prefers both Yummy Mummy’s design and orange flavor to Frute Brute’s (it’s too similar to Franken Berry), I’m disappointed, but hey: I’ll take the fan service I can get in this lifetime. Maybe next year, Mummy.

The above Monster Cereal variety 4-pack should be hitting Sam’s Club stores any day now, while individual boxes at major retailers will soon follow as summer wanes. Let’s just hope hypebeast scalpers don’t poach our big bad wolf entirely off shelves before the rest of us can grab a box.

News: Apple Jacks Nickelodeon Green Slime Cereal

New Nickelodeon Green Slime Apple Jacks Cereal

What could be more patriotic than saluting a bowl of emerald ooze? Grilling a T(urquoise)-bone steak with seafoaming juices? Squelching the last chartreuse dregs of Shrek-edition Heinz EZ Squirt on a peridot dog? However you celebrate, I hope your Independence Day doesn’t end without a heartily viscous display of slime, sludge, or otherwise slurry.

Sorry if all my imagery is making you green around the gills: I’m simply so excited that Kellogg’s and Nickelodeon are teaming up for a green slime edition of Apple Jacks. Bafflingly, this isn’t even the first Nickelodeon Slime Cereal to ever exist. General Mills did one too back in the early 2000s—back when Nickelodeon’s cultural impact was far more pervasive, and the threat of getting serendipitously slimed whilst going about one’s daily business was a serious one indeed.

Aside from the obvious benefit of turning your milk green, these upcoming Apple Jacks also come in a bold “Green Apple Flavor.” This may sound strange, since it’s already called Apple Jacks, but for many years Apple Jacks didn’t even contain apple ingredients and was merely a cinnamon cereal. Recent reformulations have amended this, but I think most can admit that when eating AJ, it’s usually cinnamon that leads the palate-pleasing charge. So I’m excited to taste what an ardently sour apple’d edition of Apple Jacks like this Nickelodeon Slime one will taste like.

If there’s any good left in this world, I will be left both puckered and giddily repulsed by the slimy, limey (at least in color) spectacle before me.

 

Another Cereal News Round-Up!

Obi-Wan Kenobi Light Side Dark Side Star Wars Frosted Flakes

Hi there, it’s your favorite terminally inconsistent cereal blogger here with a quick look at all the latest and crunchiest cereal headlines from the past week or so.

First up we have limited-edition Star Wars Frosted Flakes, releasing this July to commemorate the new Obi-Wan Kenobi series releasing later this month. The actual constituent concept behind these Frosted Flakes isn’t particularly groundbreaking—mixing Chocolate Frosted Flakes with like, yogurt or honey-coated ones would be more exciting than this, which will inevitably just taste like diluted Chocolate Frosted Flakes—but I gotta give props to whoever did the box art: imagining Darth Tony slaughtering younglings is one heckuva visceral mental image. Continue reading

Cereal News Round-Up!

Trix Trax Cereal Box

We have a favorite saying over at The Empty Bowl podcastwhen it grains, it pours. Which is just a cheeky way of saying that after long bouts of little new cereal news, the milky floodgates tend to open all at once, and my ever-slowing bloggin’ fingers have especially struggled to keep up lately. So instead of fumbling my way through filler-some 200-word posts for every topical breakfast blurb, I figured I’d just wrangle ’em all into this post and blaze through each headline—so you can spend less time reading and more time zooming to whichever grocery store, doughnuttery, or Foot Locker has the line item you’re most interested in. Continue reading

News: Tropicana Crunch Cereal

New Tropicana Crunch OJ Cereal

Look, I know I’m a little behind on posting all the latest cereal news to come out of the last week—and I’ll get to it, don’t worry—but I think you’ll forgive me for jumping the queue here: because this is a code orange, folks.

Long squeeze short, on May 4th, Tropicana is releasing Tropicana Crunch—the first cereal designed to be eaten with orange juice instead of milk—exclusively at TropicanaCrunch.com. Apollonianly blasphemous, I know.

There are a lot of problems here, foremost of them being, who asked for this? Tropicana’s justification is a survey they held, boasting that 15 million people out there have tried OJ and cereal before, and “Half of the adults who poured OJ over their cereal did so because they thought it looked like it would taste good,” while “more than one in three who tried it did so because they love OJ and thought it would be a good combination.” The key operating word in both data points, of course, being thought, with conspicuously little evidence that any of these people actually enjoyed it.

But yeah, taste, texture, and possible pulp problems aside, I’m also just curious what makes this a cereal designed to be eaten with OJ. You want me to believe that the folks at Tropicana, who really only make juice, have the industrial machinery and gastro-engineers to develop a high-tech juice-complementing cereal? No, I think it’s far more likely that Tropicana Crunch, billed as a honey almond clusters cereal, just pulled a Timbits and had Post send them a butt-ton of leftover Almond Honey Bunches of Oats to reskin.

Assuming I can get my hands on a box, I’m prepared to be disproven, if not pleasantly surprised, though—a lot of people in my Twitter replies attested to having tried and enjoyed OJ in cereal after all, plus Cap’n Crunch’s Orange Creampop Crunch was one of my all-time favorite cereals, so anything’s possible.

What do you think? Will this be a juicy breakfast revolution, or a Sunny D-saster?

News: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Rolls Cereal

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Rolls Cereal

Alright, I think we’ve heard about enough from the Cinnamon Toast Crunch folks. They’ve clearly stopped trying.

Granted, it’s probably our collective fault for still buying these “new” cereals, but am I the only one who’s getting a little sick of seeing the same Cinnamon Toast Crunch flavor basted onto some newfangled breakfast geometry? Cinnamon Toast Churros was one thing, Cinnamoji Toast Crunch was merely a cosmetic re-dusting, and CTC & Lucky Charms Mix was….Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Lucky Charms mixed. If all those sound like lazy releases to you, then I doubt these Cinnamon Toast Crunch Rolls will be any better.

Not to be confused with actual Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cinnamon Rolls, of course, Cinnamon Toast Crunch Rolls Cereal just seems like General Mills’ take on Kellogg”s Cinnabon Cereal. I expect nothing more than classic CTC flavor glazed atop a crunchier, airier, and ultimately less satisfying cereal shell.

Is it really too much to ask for another Apple Pie Toast Crunch, or dare I say, the return of the Tiny Toast model of cute lil powdered bread slices? I don’t know, y’all—as cereal innovation continues to flatline, it’s getting harder and harder for me to care. Anyway, Cinnamon Toast Crunch Rolls will arrive on shelves this May. Otherwise, defibrillate me if you hear from my ol’ pal Peanut Butter Toast Crunch.

News: Froot Loops Waffles Return

New Froot Loops Eggo Waffles

Ahh, I understand now why they changed the Toucan Sam’s design from a weird man-fingered abomination back to a logically feathered fella.

Because if Sam still had fingers, I could threaten to break them if he’s lying to me.

See, the official Eggo Facebook page posted about the return of Froot Loops Waffles—a cult favorite Eggo release from way back in 2003. But they did it on April Fools’ Day. Now typically, brand April Fools’ Day jokes are corporately mandated to be so ridiculously unbelievable that no one could take them seriously and like, sue or something. I’m talkin’ Eggo Motor Oil or Eggo Cat Litter.

So it feels like, at least to me, it would be cruel to tease a very real-looking product like these Froot Loops Waffles, just to have it be a sickening prank. So I’m gonna go ahead and believe that Froot Loops Waffles are actually making a comeback.

2003 Froot Loops Waffles

Personally, I just wish the old boxes were coming back. Look at how appetizing that golden-age old yeller goldenrod looks compared to the sterile sunniness of today’s Eggo boxes. And look at how young and whimsical Toucan Sam looks! I want that design of him tattooed next to my navel.

With a Froot Loop tatted around said belly button, of course.

No word on when these Waffles may or may not drop yet, but I’ll keep you posted when I learn more.