Big things are coming soon.
Big. Spooky. Things. pic.twitter.com/Ms7inUgxUz

— Cerealously (@cerealouslynet) September 5, 2016

(Update: My annual review of Count Chocula for 2016 is here!)

It’s September, which means I can finally start using the term “Halloweeny” in public without sounding like I’m talking about a cheddar hot dog that tragically came without any cheese filling. Though trust me: I will be making a lot of those crescent roll mummy Halloweiners.

So what better way to kick off the boo-na fide Halloween season than with everyone’s favorite spooky trilogy? No, I don’t mean a marathon session of all three I Know What You Did Last Summer movies: I’m talking about Count Chocula, Franken Berry, and Boo Berry cereals!

While these monster cereals have already been spotted in stores like Target, Big Lots, and Walgreens, I want to thank General Mills for generously sending me the spooker care package you see above, which contained the cereals themselves and so, so much more. I know what you’re thinking, and I agree. Couldn’t they have thought of more creative sequel names than I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer?

But enough about murderous fishermen. Let’s start researching for an I Know What You Ate Last Autumn screenplay instead.

This box is absolutely packed with election materials. And white paper squiggles that’ll probably be stuck in my couch cushions until Christmas. If you aren’t already eagerly riding on the campaign bandwagon, let me refresh you on the details. Since news channels and the Internet alike will be flooded with presidential election news from now until infinity, General Mills decided to give us a bit of satirical reprieve by pitting their three most famous cereal monsters against each other in a mock election of their own.

You can vote for your preferred monster party at the online election headquarters and see your state’s current political lean. The candidate with the most votes will be named America’s favorite monster (Chocula is currently flying ahead of the competition) on October 31st, but we at home can win too, as randomly selected voters can get t-shirts, headphones, free cereal, or sweet cash money—which can be spent on more cereal, of course.

Here’s the full lot of what I was blessed with. Clockwise from the top, we have:

Standing cardboard placards – Each has a glossy print of the monsters’ campaign banners. I intend to put these at the front of my desk on the first
day of university classes, just like the teacher made us do with our name tags back in elementary school. This way, people will know my fictional cartoon cereal monster political affiliation and that they should probably steal my lunch money first.

Campaign flags – Perfect for hanging on the back of your car, dog, or personal Mario Kart. Ironically, the Count Chocula flag is pointy enough to stake into the heart of a real vampire should emergency strike.

Buttons – Wear your devotion to your favorite monster. Or better yet: wear all three on your shirt at once so that they clank together loud enough to attract wild, hungry cattle to your location.

Hats(!) – I’m definitely most excited about these. Now I can keep my noggin warm in the coming fall, flip the hat around backwards during impromptu Pokémon battles or ’90s hip hop music videos, and even catch foul balls in the cap to make it on ESPN’s highlight reel.

More squiggles – Jump in ’em like leaves, throw ’em at coworkers, give your cat something to play with. Or boil ’em, mash ’em, stick ’em in a stew: it’s up to you.

But I’m sure you didn’t click on this post to see corrugated paper mountains—but if you did, I’d love to meet you and hear your story. So let’s dive into the cereals themselves. I don’t want to exhaust the Halloween season so soon, especially since I already reviewed every new pumpkin cereal, so I hope you’ll understand if I spread out my in-depth analyses of each monster’s offering between now and the Big Day itself. If you’re too bloodthristy—err, I mean hungry—for more monster cereal action now, you can browse this site’s “monster cereals” tag for all of last year’s fun.

What I will review today is a very special monster cereal. It’s something you’ve also probably done 1,031 times during childhood: mixing all three monsters together into one wonderfully marshmallowy tornado of brown, pink, and blue!

I call it “Dr. Breakfastein’s Frankly Boo-tiful Cereal: Choc Full of Taste You Can Count On!” After carefully balancing my cereal proportions, howling with delight, and assuring my upstairs neighbors that I wasn’t actually a Lycan, I dug in.

How does it taste? Strangely wonderful. Sure, many flavor complexities are lost when three cereals jockey for power in the same bowl, but since there’s a 2:1 fruity to chocolatey ratio, the end result tastes like a Halloween fondue party, with chocolate-covered strawberries and blueberries intermingling in a corny primordial milk soup that ends up turning a sinister blackish purple.

Seriously, this endmilk looks like Ghoul-Aid mixed with mashed blackberry puree. And it kind of tastes like it, too.

But the pervasive flavor note is an underlying current of marshmallow fluff, as the many-colored marbits glob together into sweet, milk-soaked colonies of festive sugar. Speaking of marshmallow fluff, that makes me think: why hasn’t General Mills made a peanut butter-flavored monster cereal yet? They could call it “Fluffer Nutcase,” and have the mascot be a psycho with a PB-smeared hockey mask that traps vacationing teenagers in jars.

It writes itself!

Oh, and speaking of other monsters, I wouldn’t hold out any hope for surprise 3rd party runs by Frute Brute or Yummy Mummy. Both appear on the back of these monster cereal boxes as charming silhouettes. Oh well, maybe they’ll return next year, alongside the Fluffer Nutcase and another monster cereal I’ve always dreamt of: Vanilla Godzilla.