What will the cereal of the future look like?

Long dubbed the ice cream of the future, Dippin’ Dots’ (I’m gonna need to order another box of apostrophes) famous evolution was both the atomization and flesh-ripping frostification of the classically amorphous dairy treat using dry ice.

Since there’s already been cereal with freeze dried ice cream bits, any truly revolutionary cereal will have to up the ante from there.

Micro-chipped cereal for GPS-powered “Breakfast Go” mobile games? Zero calorie Diet Cereal (or at least translucent Crystal Cereal?)?

Ooh, or maybe a 100% All Beef Hot Dog Cereal…you know…to compete with Dippin’ Dots’ at the ball game?

Regardless, General Mills’ new Dippin’ Dots Cereal is here, to the delight of many and the frustration of one, and I’m going to see if it’s as innovative as its namesake by first trying the flavor that fits with this week’s theme of banana  madness: Banana Split!

(If I die of a potassium overdose, blame whichever Banana in Pyjamas has a higher net worth.)

Right off the bat, Banana Split Dippin’ Dots look an awful lot like Cocoa Puff Ice Cream Scoops—albeit this time the puffs are a bit bigger and they’re accompanied by giant craggy asteroids made of mineralized sprinkles—and as it turns out, the base puffs taste nearly exactly the same.

As in Sonny’s own misguided take on the now-burgeoning ice cream cereal niche, Banana Split Dippin’ Dots’ more yin and yang puffs have their flavor snuffed by the strawberry puffs’ comparatively more potent (though still overtly corny) candied fruit flavor.

Granted, it’s a pretty decent strawberry base taste, but I definitely expected equal showing from chocolate—who tastefully appears only in wisps of cocoa dust—and a prevailing flavor from the banana split’s titular fruit. I can taste ghosts of hazy banana air if I really align my taste bud chakras, but overall it’s just a Strawbery Field.

Pretty much Forever.

Because the much-hyped clusters here—fascinatingly crispy–creamy textured globs of faux Dippin’ Niblets, some of which are mutantly monstrous—also taste like strawberry, as they appear to be a coated blend of the cereal’s three base flavors.

And they taste like strawberry yogurt, to be specific—exactly like Yogos, to be extremely and nostalgically specific. With a sour-creamy tang and a sweet strawberry finish, these clusters have the oddly compelling mouthfeel and bite as most dried yogurt products. And like the puffs, they taste good, but slightly blasphemously when compared to their namesake ice cream ancestor.

Shame, shame upon your spherical family!

Much like Banana Almond Honey Bunches of Oats, Banana Split Dippin’ Dots Cereal and milk form a Janus-faced beast.

On one hand, milk brings better flavor balance by amplifying the meeker cocoa and banana flavors, but it’s not until the cereal has nearly reached Critical Sog that it’s potent enough to interestingly blend with the stronger flavors.

Ultimately, in milk and out, the banana forms at best a generic smoothie partnership with the strawberry puffs, leaving behind a fruit cocktail of a cereal that, when paired with the nearly cheesy sharp creaminess of the clusters, makes this taste more like Trix Yogurt Cereal than Dippin’ Dots.

So while I probably won’t buy Banana Split Dippin’ Dots again soon, I have high hopes that Cookies & Cream Dippin’ Dots Cereal, if it follows this one’s trend of off-base flavor replicas, will taste something like an Oreo Cheesecake.

And if my childhood birthdays were any indication, that’s how you preserve and elevate your family’s honor, without chilling anything to a single-digit degree of Kelvin.

The Bowl: Dippin’ Dots Banana Split Cereal

The Breakdown: Suffering from the sins of its Cocoa Puffed heritage, this strawberry-spearheaded cereal can taste like a pleasantly fruit yogurty surprise—if you leave your ice cream/banana/chocolate expectations at the pantry door.

The Bottom Line: 6.5 mummified Yogo catacombs out of 10