When you get right down to the rock bottom of it, there are really only two types of Pop-Tarts people: People who like fruity Pop-Tarts and those who prefer Chocolate Pop-Tarts. Yes, there some Pop-Tarts that can’t be easily sorted onto this continuum, but with the exception of fan-flavor-ite Brown Sugar Cinnamon (which really should be considered a member of the extended “brown sweetness” family alongside Cousin Chocolate), I can’t think of any Pop-Tart flavors beyond the choco-fruit binary that have a significant fan following. Yes, this includes Confetti Cupcake. And no, this doesn’t and in fact can’t include The Chosen One.
It was supposed to bring balance, which is why Kellogg’s destroyed it.
Long story short, I’m a chocolate Pop-Tart kind of guy. Chocolate Chip is probably my favorite of the O.G.s, while Milk Chocolate Graham forever has my heart for evicting that freeloading marshmallow from S’Mores Pop-Tarts. Yeah, I said it.
This is why, though I love classic Strawberry Pop-Tarts, I don’t think the likes of Blueberry, Cherry, and Raspberry—the latter of which I can’t remember ever having eaten more than once or twice. When Kellogg’s first tried to re-skin Raspberry Pop-Tarts as Spidey Berry Pop-Tarts, I gave them a pass. But now that Spidey Berries have been mashed en masse to produce an ocean’s worth of SpongeBob’s Sea Berries, I figured it was fate telling me to give the flavor another shot—or else the next time they came back it’d be as Beetle Juicy Pop-Tarts.
No need to beat around the ambiguously red-berried bush: Sea/Spidey/Raspberry Pop-Tarts taste about 5% different at best than Strawberry Pop-Tarts, which I already love for their no-nonsense approach to creamy fruitiness. Really missing their chance to emphasize the Pop-Tart element, these raspberry pastries bring a borderline collinear approach to fruity sweetness, with only a shy specter of raspberry twang wafting around the aftertaste. These Doppel-Tarts are consistently consistent: plain, toasted or frozen, they still feel like Vegas Strawberry impersonators.
And while this may be 1/20th of a good thing for raspberry lovers, I’m personally not the biggest fan of the berry’s flavoring—especially in something as synthetic as neon Pop-Tart filling. I know it’s hardly ever used in consumer foodstuffs nowadays, but ever since reading about a certain, technically “natural flavoring” called castoreum and the beaver gland it’s named after, I rarely give anything raspberry the time of day.
It was already a huge oversight to make a SpongeBob Pop-Tart so flagrantly uninspired—Kellogg’s puts so much effort into pastries no one asked for, let alone enjoyed, that this easily could’ve been Pineapple or gummy Krabby Patty—and the “printed fun” on each Tart only makes it worse. Each pouch contains one character Pop-Tart and one character’s pictogram Pop-Tart, and while I guess it’s to watch Squidward crumble under bicuspid pressure like a cheap transfer-papered t-shirt’s first time through the wash, the pictograms are lame and too easy. How dare they not make SpongeBob Frosted Sudoku Puzzles for the adults more likely to eat these?
Overall, I’m not a big enough fan of easily deciphered Bikini Bottoms or difficult to differentiate beaver bottoms, so Sea Berry Pop-Tarts are only okay in my book. I’m sure there’s a dedicated sect of Raspberry Pop-Tarts fans who would love a chance to texture-swap their cult favorite, but call me when they do a CHOCOLATE!! SpongeBob Pop-Tart. With or without nuts.
The Bowl: SpongeBob Sea Berry Pop-Tarts
The Breakdown: So similar to Strawberry Pop-Tarts that I don’t feel like messing with a good thing, these Disguised Raspberry Pop-Tarts lack creativity and distinction, but unless you’re a chocolate Pop-Tart purist, you’re not gonna hate ’em either.
The Bottom Line: 6 sandy rodent cheeks out of 10
(Quick Nutrition Facts: calories, grams of sugar, grams of fiber, & grams of protein per serving)
Want to read more? Click here for a totally random product review!