(Image via General Mills)

Keep your eyes peeled everyone, because it would be a real slip-up if you missed a chance to monkey around with the best banana cereal since sliced bread.

There, I think I got all the requisite banana jokes out of the way: now I can split the real story wide open. Wait, no! That one hardly made any sense!

I really shouldn’t have trusted that Monkey’s Paw to grant my wish for an always appealing style of humor—that damn, dirty ape must’ve heard “a-peel-ing”—but at least my other wish is coming true: Banana Nut Cheerios is back for the merry conclusion of 2018.

Click the image to read our 2017 Banana Nut Cheerios review!

Don’t feel bad if you never even noticed it was gone: this equal parts banana bready and nut muffiny deligjy, which debuted in 2009 to a quick discontinuation and cult following, returned for a limited time last November, too, to the delight of comfy Pyjama wearers everywhere.

See, Banana Nut Cheerios are comfort defined. So while I’m glad to see them back, I also have one qualm: will this become a reliable Thanksgiving-time seasonal cereal? If so, it would be the first instance I can think of where a holiday essentially adopted a previously “perennial” variety.

It would also be a little disappointing. Much like Smash Bros fans who clamor over whether new characters “steal” slots that could otherwise be filled with fan favorites, I worry whether a seasonal Banana Nut Cheerios would keep more innovative Turkey Day cereal ideas—from Pecan Pie Reese’s Puffs to Stuffing Toast Crunch—from ever escaping my imagination.

There’s no sign of nefarious taste-repression yet, but let’s just say I’ll be enjoying my Banana Nut Cheerios with one eye open.

(Because I’m not getting milk up my nostrils again.)

Take that, Mother Nature!

Where old Momma Gaia only nurtured three main types of rocks—igneous and sedimentary are two of them, for those living under a metamorphic—Post has now released over 25 different varieties of Pebbles cereal since Fruity & Cocoa (the Pebbles family’s Adam & Eve) debuted in 1971.

It must have been wild for the Flintstones to be cryogenically frozen—which, for a cartoon, I presume involves lamination—only to be drawn back to life just in time to see their familiar bedrock culture made deliciously edible.

The new flavors, Tropical Fruit and Strawberry Banana, come hot off the heels of last year’s underrated Peanut Butter & Cocoa Pebbles, which were pretty much sweetly dandruffed Reese’s Puff clippings. Thanks again to Gorgnull, we have a clear look at Tropical Fruit, even if Strawberry Banana has yet to be visually leaked.

I’m not the biggest Pebbles fan, as I prefer my cereal to hit my stomach like an actual rock, instead of the nutritional equivalent of balsa rice, but these concepts have me intrigued. Strawberry Banana sounds like the (somehow) beautiful lovechild of Urkel and a Minion, while Tropical Fruit doubles down on the ‘nanner while boldly introducing twists of pineapple and mango, two flavors that have yet to debut in mainstream or American cereal aisles.

So while it’s innovative, I don’t know if I fully trust the pre-ice age Fred & Barney to pull off a tropical flavor yet. Maybe they can enlist the help of a pterodactyl who flew south for the winter.

Okay, okay, okay. I don’t have much time to finish this post—stop rushing me! There are only so many hours in a day and I’ve had four cups of coffee to prepare for this news and and and and and…sorry I was just writing to the beat of my heart and I don’t want Mavis Beacon to be disappointed if I don’t hit the right cardiovascular words per minute ahhhhh I’m sorry Mavis! Please don’t tell Mario.

Deep breaths, Dan. Deep breaths. And deep cups of water. You can do this.

While I sweat out this Caligulan caffeine rush, let your own eyes glisten tears of joy at the above box art. Yes, according to a trusted product surveyor under the alias Gorgnull (thanks!), we now know that Post and Dunkin’ Donuts are teaming up for an upcoming Caramel Macchiato cereal.

This is exciting for a number of reasons, in descending order:

5) We’ve already seen Dunkin’ Donuts collaboration potential with another cereal company—I guess their alliances are easily $wayed—so I have high hopes for what’s brewing here.

4) We’ve also seen that Post is amping up their collaboration game, with no respect paid to traditional cereal flavor boundaries. Truly a compliment, I hope this opens the foodie floodgates for the likes of (off the top of my tongue) M&M’s and Starburst to join the cereal fun.

3) There have hardly been any coffee cereals, let alone a caramel one, so this is a deliciously un-spelunked niche.

2) Dunkin’ Donuts already had a cereal, and it is lovingly remembered by doughnutheads (is that the right term?) everywhere, so this could be a quasi-nostalgic, quasi-innovative groundbreaker.

1) It’s caffeinated, duh! Unlike General Mills’ Mocha Crunch, DD’s Caramel Macchiato Cereal could revolutionize the way I get energized and dehydrated before 9am. If I eat it with almond milk, that’s practically water, right?

It remains to be seen what the actual taste would be—the cereal’s geometry reminds me of Malt-O-Meal (aka Post)’s best cereal of the year so far—or how its risky twist will work with cereal-loving, already-naturally-caffeinated children. But all I’ll say is that if a mom buys this cereal without knowing about its caffeine content, she’s welcome to mail it to me (a human dumpster) instead of a real dumpster.

Because I’m already eyeing that fifth cup of joe, and if it doesn’t have a marshmallowy crunch, I might have to eat the lid.

(Update: We reviewed it!)

I always love seeing a wacky cereal rumor come true, but at what cost? Seriously, you could tell me a Brain-Eating Bacteria Bran cereal was coming out, and I’d probably still excitedly debate about what flavor it would be.

(My money’s on the muted savoriness of a cooked noodle.)

While we may still be a few degrees of silly separation from total cereal annihilation, Post’s now-confirmed Sour Patch Kids Cereal definitely pushes the cereal aisle’s typically sturdy border between sweet flavors and anything else flavors. E

Compared to the imagined bite of a cerealized Sour Patch Kid, even mainstream raspberry cereals are about as “tangy” as lemonade Kool-Aid.

But I won’t let my mind’s tender taste buds stop me from trying Sour Patch Kids Cereal. Leaked but unconfirmed by Candy Hunting, the cereal now has photographic identification via a Facebook cereao fan community’s detective-ry. And despite early public outcry, I haven’t given up on it since trying Apple Raspberry Otees. If that cereal can pull off a convincingly potent sour–sweet flavor, Sour Patch Kids’ iconic gummy blend of various blue raspberries, watermelons, and loose gobs of sour powder could have a better shot than we think.

So until it pops up on shelves around me, I guess I’ll just have to train my palate: with some controlled experiments involving a fishing pole, sour gummy worms, and a farm-fresh milk bucket.