Finally, finally: a licensed cereal willing to do at least the very bare minimum to relevantly connect its composition to the property it’s promoting. I mean, a Sonic the Hedgehog cereal…shaped like golden rings! Not since Buddy the Elf’s syrup-slathered slop have we seen such a thoughtful not entirely thoughtless movie cereal.

Sure, a cereal based on the Blue Blur could’ve gone for a slightly more inspired flavor—blue raspberry and cherry Sonic Popsicle flavored clusters, anyone?—but at least honey-flavored rings are better than some bland birthday cake or vapid vanilla. And sure, the marbits could be shaped a little more lovingly—the green Chaos Emeralds I get, while the blue ones “representing Sonic swirling around” are a little iffy—but I’m ready to call this upcoming release a red-sneakered step in the right direction (and hopefully the Genesis of a new, tastier era for movie cereals).

Interestingly, this isn’t Sonic’s first foray into the breakfast aisle. From appearing on Honey Nut Cheerios boxes alongside Buzz the Bee to getting a FunkOs variant, an odd Golden Rings promo seemingly sent only to journalists, and…whatever this one is, Sonic is well travelled at the breakfast table, but this is his first time headlining a mainstream supermarket cereal.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 will hit theaters this April 8th, while Sonic the Hedgehog Cereal will hit stores in March.

EPISODE MMXX: THE PHANTOM FAD

It is a time of indoor inertia and slow-digesting creativity. General Grievous’ great-grand-droid-child Mills has assumed his ancestral rank and inherited a diabolical plot: to pump the galaxy full of cloned cash-grab cereals offering little flavor and even less timely appeal. His defenses only loosely fortified with intergalactic vitamins and minerals, it’s up to White Squadron to douse Mills’ plans before it’s too late. But the General has come prepared, for he’s surrounded himself with a belt of razor-sharp corn asteroids, which even sogginess can’t make much worse….

Let’s be honest: Star Wars cereals haven’t been good for a while. Not since the days of C3POs, a double-hooped cereal that was later charmingly reborn as Winnie the Pooh’s Hunny B’s, have we seen the omnipresent series done crunchy justice beyond the tried-and-truly boring formula of corn pieces and marshmallows. While I love marbit cereals as much as the next Rodian, to take the graces of Lucky Charms and neuter the oat component is a tragedy most unwise.

Baby Yoda Cereal is the latest example. While I’ll throttle my own personal opinion on the itty-bitty alien muppet itself—I’ve kind of fallen off the Star Wars train since around the time in the early ’00s that my parents wouldn’t upgrade our dial-up internet solely so I could play Star Wars Galaxies—I can’t say I’m excited about Baby Yoda’s cereal. Since The Mandalorian Season 2 doesn’t drop until October, it feels strangely timed. Plus, it doesn’t even appear to have the fruity flavor of its General Mills predecessors. But since that fruit flavor was also chemically cringeworthy, maybe comparative corny blandness isn’t such a bad thing.

Whether this is the cereal you’re looking for or not, expect it in stores this summer.

No.

Uh-uh.

Absolutely not.

We just…can’t…keep…doing this.

I mean, how many times in this past year have I been forced to fluff up otherwise tepid blog posts about blandly flavored vanilla and/or birthday cake products that likewise taste like coagulated marshmallow fluff? Worse yet, how many times over the course of the last decade have I been compelled to write about the Minions franchise as if it isn’t the worst thing to happen to Facebook memes since the birth of JPEG compression?

What we have here is a perfect storm: a new corn-based Minions Cereal, with unimaginative marshmallows and a flavor that makes no sense for its licensed property. Vanilla Cake Minions Cereal, releasing to promote The Rise of Gru movie, is particularly tragic because there has been an actual good and creative Minions Cereal before! No, not that one, but the original Minions Banana Berry Cereal, a uniquely tropical blend of flavors that not only did justice to these pitiable creatures’ favorite fruit but also called to mind the long-extinct likes of Urkel O’s.

Aside from this poignant loss of potential, I have nothing much to say about this Vanilla Cake Minions Cereal, first reported on by Cereal Life. Maybe, just maybe, it will have some potential to bring intrigue to this world when stale, discarded half-boxes of the stuff mutates in toxic sewer ooze with similarly chucked-away bags of Baby Shark Cereal, producing a toothsome Twinkie-shaped cereal leviathan that will stymie local vigilantes for decades. Maybe.