via Cereal Life

It’s 2020, and as if you didn’t already have enough to worry about, we’re about to see the most pointless cereal war of the century come to a head: yes, I’m talking about The Great Fun–Dunk Dispute.

Bad vanilla and birthday cake cereals aren’t uncommon—in fact, I feel like I have to mention the burgeoning blight of them in every other blog post at this point. But with the recent announcement of Funfetti Cereal, things have gotten…confusing. See, many traditionally associate Pillsbury and its giggle-some Dough Boy with General Mills, who do indeed manufacture many of the brand’s most familiar products, like cinnamon roll tubes and those shaped holiday cookies. But when General Mills first acquired Pillsbury, anti-trust laws required that they sell off the rights to Pillsbury dry goods—rights that have since been secured by Hometown Foods, makers of other peripheral grocery store mainstays like Sunny D and Hungry Jack.

So Hometown Foods—who, to my knowledge, has never made a cereal, a fact made more complex when you remember that General Mills did make a Pillsbury Cinnamon Roll Fillows Cereal—is making Funfetti Cereal, potentially with the help of Post, who also made a very similar looking cereal for Tim Hortons. I know this because I was (somewhat curtly) told so by a General Mills representative when inquiring over email.

But now that Dunkaroos are back, and acting as a banner nostalgic reboot for General Mills, it only makes sense for it to be turned into a cereal inspired by the iconic cookies & frosting duo, right? Or could it be that General Mills’ upcoming Dunkaroos Cereal is a direct clapback to Hometown Foods for weaving sugary layers of uncertain breakfast brand ownership?

Maybe it’s both, but what matters is that, according to Cereal Life on Instagram—who appears to have a very close and very trustworthy contact in General Mills’ cereal production wing—Dunkaroos Cereal is coming soon. While this is labeled as a rumor here, we can pretty confidently say this stuff will hit shelves, probably just with different box art—hopefully box art that brings back Duncan the Kangaroo, who has a history of obscurely interacting with cereal mascots.

Just as Hometown Foods’ Funfetti Cereal strongly resembles Timbits Cereal, so too does this first look at Dunkaroos Cereal call to mind General Mills’ Holiday Sprinkles Cookie Crisp. And as someone who has long begrudged that stuff’s existence despite its mediocre presentation alongside the vastly superior Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch, I sure hope Dunkaroos Cereal can bring a whole lot more authentically iced flavor to the breakfast table. Because if it doesn’t, it’ll just be another forgotten facet on the faceless, tastelessly saccharine mass that is vanilla cereal’s past.

History’s watching, Duncan.