Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cereal

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Fans of edible, crunchy cartoon heads: rejoice!

That’s right, General Mills’ new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles joins the proud lineage of cereals shaped like grinning faces, which includes Kaboom, Cabbage Patch Kids Cereal, and even another Canada-exclusive TMNT cereal from back in the day.

There’s something about carnivorously devouring cereal smileys that’s sadistically satisfying. It’s probably the fact that these faces tend to be nightmarishly creepy, so pulverizing them with a molar guillotine feels like I’m doing the world a service.

General Mills surprisingly dropped this TMNT cereal on shelves without any announcement, like a heroes in a half-shell bombshell. I’m not upset, though: walking into the supermarket and seeing this cereal was like finding a prize at the bottom of a cereal box…except in this case the box was the prize.

That sentence made no sense, so let’s just dive—or maybe ninja flip—right into the review.

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It wasn’t until after I poured a bowl that I noticed how General Mills actually colored the pieces to match each Turtle’s iconic headband color!

This is a neat touch, although General Mills’ recent commitment to remove artificial colors from their cereals hits Leonardo the hardest. Instead of a vibrant, Froot Loop-blue Leo, we get a sad little fella who’s only a few hues away from looking like a certain “chocolate soft-serve ice cream” emoji. 💩

Speaking of Froot Loops, let’s talk taste. If you’ve ever had Cascadian Farm’s Fruitful O’s, trust me when I say that TMNT cereal tastes exactly the same. If you haven’t, allow me to put it in more generic cereal terms.

Every spoonful of turtle noggins is half-Froot Loops, half-Trix—they have some of Toucan Sam’s popping tropical fruitiness, but they also have some of the Trix Rabbit’s noticeable notes of oozing, tangy citrus. As far as actual fruit goes, there are hints of banana, grape, orange, and lemon.

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But the secret of this ooze isn’t in the fruit flavor: it’s in the corn and rice base. I know texture isn’t what most cereal eaters are concerned with, but TMNT cereal has a great mouthfeel. These smirking faces have a pleasantly smooth exterior and a hearty crunch, so they caress the roof of your mouth instead of keelhauling it.

Note: don’t read about “keelhauling” unless you’re A) a scurvy pirate or B) ready to “reunite” with your breakfast.

Also present is a generic, starchy root vegetable taste, probably from the vegetable juices GM used for coloring. Coupled with the baked-in fruit flavor, at times this cereal feels close to a solidified version of a V8 V-Fusion.

That may sound gross at first, but personally, I just wish general Mills had dialed up the tomato flavor. Maybe then we’d get the pizza-flavored cereal the Ninja Turtles deserve.

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Milk makes the textures and flavors a little more gummy, but it also gums all the different fruit tastes into a satisfying blend. To mix my cartoon snack references: it’s a bit like a handful of Scooby-Doo fruit snacks.

I really have no reason to love this cereal as much as I do. I wish the fruit taste was stronger, I wish the rice base was more flavorful, and I wish my dreams weren’t haunted by the ghosts of the cackling turtle heads I ate the night before. But the fun shapes, fun colors, and fun texture keep me happily munching anyway.

Because Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cereal is just a straight up fun cereal. It’s the kind of cereal I would have looked forward to eating in the morning as a kid, preferably while I watched a certain cartoon starring adolescent reptile karate fighters.

And better yet: it’s the kind of cereal I would have used as edible alien bad guys for my action figures to stomp into the carpet. Don’t worry, my cat would take care of the crumbs.

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Oh, and according to the back of the box, I’m a mutant bullfrog by the name of “The Masked Hyper Shadow” who practices the Screaming Eagle Dive in an abandoned subway car. Radical!


 

The Box: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cereal

The Breakdown: Despite a ho-hum flavor, these turtles are redeemed by a massive fun factor. And since there are no Shredder pieces, it won’t shred the roof of your mouth.

The Bottom Line: 8 rejected names for Donatell-O’s cereal out of 10

(Quick Nutrition Facts: 120 calories, 1 gram of fiber, 7 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein per 3/4 cup serving)

 

13 responses »

  1. Hi,

    My name is Debbie and I’m a social video producer and editor for Thrillist, an online media publication (www.thrillist.com). I’m currently producing a show called Noshtalgia, which will air on our Facebook page. For one episode, I would like to take a look at the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cereal and would like to ask your permission to use your photo in the video. Our host of the show will be talking to the camera, and we will overlay what she’s saying with pictures of the cereal. We will credit you in the video. My email is dwong@thrillist.com.

    If this is acceptable, please respond to this message with a confirmation that you own all of the rights to this content, and if you do, please also provide your authorization for us to use your content. The project would be displayed worldwide, online, in perpetuity.

    If you don’t own all of the rights to this content, we would appreciate it if you could put us in touch with the rights holder.


    Best,
    Debbie

  2. Found today here in Western Canada…unfortunately bi lingual packaging is the same on both sides ,except for the french text !
    Taste….eeegads …I just had a couple of spoOnfuls …feels like I just ate half a bottle of vitamins…

    Like the box …thats all from this cereal loving camp !!!

    PeaCe ..

    • I found them at Meijer, a midwest grocery chain. Unfortunately, I don’t know of anywhere else they’ve been spotted. I wish you luck, though!

      • Totally forgot about Crispin and the mixed corn and rice version (that’s btw why you are the cereal expert ^^)
        I was already trying to find a corn&rice chex cereal, but there is none. Maybe of obvious reasons… 6 out of 10 isn’t a good rating. 🙁
        But maybe it’s ’cause the two bases are still separated and not used like in the turtle cereal (hope dies last ^^)

        Thanks for your reply Dan! (as always)

  3. I know texture isn’t what most cereal eaters are concerned […]
    Then they are no real cereal connoisseurs! Texture and the cereal base is soooooo important! It’s the reason I love coco pops (cocoa Krispies) over cocoa puffs, the reason the discontinued kosmostars had an unique and for me best texture that was amazing to chew on and will be dearly missed though the pieces were a bit too big and probably the reason why every version of some kind of krave cereal is not able to create cereal milk and therefore the reason I hate them so much (as cereal, the are still too addicting as a snack without milk ^^)

    Since this turtle cereal base is rice and corn (my favorite cereal bases) I’m sure I would love it texturewise, but you already know Fruity cereal is not my kind of cup (At least front loops aren’t and the only “fruity cereal” I really looking forward to finally try is oops all berries), so despite I still am a huge turtles fan (even the “nosey” Michael Bay version couldn’t change this fact) I’m dissapointed. But I would have gone for the pizza favored versions! 😉

    BTW: fun looking faces? Those are the creepiest and most vicious looking cereal faces I’ve ever seen, and yes I know the kaboom and patch kids cereal faces ^^

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