Tag Archives: froot loops

27

Aug. ’19

Review: Birthday Cake Froot Loops Cereal

Birthday Cake Froot Loops Cereal Review Box

Oof.

Ugh.

Yeugh, even.

Can I be real for a second? Wholly honest? I am sick of this sugar ring cereal “trend.” It’s lazy, it’s cheap, it’s boring, and it’s downright disrespectful to cereal fans excited for creative new spins on breakfast favorites. Kellogg’s is the primary offender here, spreading a plague of plodding fruity-ish riffs on the same vapid formula. It seems that ever since they got the cloyingly-hooped formula right with Pink Donut Cereal, they’ve been letting the idea decay and fester, with each imitative iteration outdoing its predecessor by dulling my taste buds even more—to the point where my sweet tooth has devolved into a salty tooth.

So even though Canada’s interpretation of Birthday Cake Froot Loops was pretty solid, every single American take on birthday cake for breakfast has flopped with the grace of a flip-flop stomping on Cookie Puss. So I had no excitement going into Kellogg’s stateside rendition of Birthday Cake Froot Loops—hence why I saved it for last out of all the new Kellogg’s Cereals.

Well, except for Baby Shark Cereal, whose upcoming review will likely be the same as this one, just simplified with epithets even a YouTube-loving child could understand. Continue reading →

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24

Aug. ’19

Review: 7-Eleven Cereal Sweets – “Fruity Hoops Cereal in Pink Confection”

7-Eleven 7-Select Cereal Sweets Bar - Fruity Hoops Cereal Pink Confection Review

Ugh, is there anything in the world less appealing than Pink Confection?

…oh, wait, we’re not talking about McDonald’s nugget slurry? Allow me to revise:

Uhh, is there anything in the world that sounds less appealing than Pink Confection?

Sure, I’m aware of confections and the color pink, but I’m unsure I’ve ever seen those two words in tandem—not even on bags of Frosted Animal Cookies. Even a Google search of “Pink Confection” only turns up results for 7-Eleven’s Detective Pikachu candy bars, which lead us to believe the stuff is made from 100% All-American Angus Snubbull.

Oh, and there’s this tremendous articulation of the English language, as found in a 1962 issue of The New York Times:

Pink Confection Is Appealing Token of Love; Real Roses Adorn Light Cake for a Valentine Can Be Frozen

Well doesn’t that just tell us everything we need to know about the Froot Loopiest of 7-Eleven’s 7-Select Cereal Sweets bars?

These real-cereal-infused bars also come in not-Cinnamon Toast Crunch (in milk chocolate) and fake Fruity Pebbles (in an equally dubious White Confection), but I chose the one bearing “Fruity Hoops,” partly because the cinnamon one seemed too ‘safe,’ and partly because I love rosy hues, even when they’re in something that sounds like it’s been perfectly processed through an android unicorn colon.

Alright, I’ve roasted pink confection enough. Let’s give this bar a break!

Continue reading →

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21

May. ’19

News: Hardee’s Is Testing a Froot Loops Mini Donut Milkshake!

Hardee's Froot Loops Mini Donut Milkshake

Alright, this is the last straw…

…that I’ll ever need. Mostly because Hardee’s Froot Loops Mini Donut Milkshake sounds like the shimmering iridescent zenith of all three of my greatest indulgent joys, and partly because I don’t know if my consequence-blind moderate lactose intolerance could resist impulsively imploding my intestines just to try one.

You may remember when Hardee’s and sister-cousin-doppelgänger chain Carl’s Jr. launched Froot Loops Mini Donuts last year. They looked like Moon Sand molded with ICEE syrup, and you could easily put away like six of ’em before noticing a strange, artificially colored aurora borealis emitting from your abdomen.

What fewer people remember is that Hardee’s “new” Froot Loops Mini Donut Milkshake was available alongside the Mini Donuts last year, but apparently in a much more limited context. Even the one photo I shared of it has since been deleted from Instagram, ostensibly removing it (and potentially its drinker) from history so Hardee’s could rewrite a more hype-worthy timeline wherein this shake is brand new.

Granted, that old shake was only spotted at Carl’s Jr., to my knowledge, and this 2019 Froot Loops Mini Donut Milkshake has only been announced by Hardee’s so far. They claim it “features creamy, hand-scooped ice cream mixed with real milk, blended and garnished with Froot Loops Mini Donuts and whipped topping.” In this case, the shake isn’t even the real star: it’s the free Mini Donut that’s nestled snuggly around the straw, practically begging you to remove the lid and let it slide into pasteurized oblivion.

The shake’s suggested retail price is $3.29, and select Hardee’s locations are also offering an order of Mini Donuts for only $1 with any purchase, which sounds like a slam dunk of a deal—or perhaps five of them.

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02

Apr. ’19

Review: Tropical Froot Loops from Mexico!

Kellogg's Mexico Tropical Froot Loops Review Box

(Note: the box got a just a little dinged during its journey North. Must’ve been hungry carrier pigeons.)

Look, are we all just going to ignore the fact that, before Tropical Froot Loops, Toucan Sam clearly had no idea what fruit is?

And I’m not talking the layperson’s misclassification of pumpkins and tomatoes as vegetables—follow your nose deep into your noggin and try to remember the last time you heard Froot Loops’ lifelong spokesbird actually reference a real fruit by name. Lemonberries, starberries, wildberries: all ambiguous amalgamations of nature’s genuine bounty invented to hide the fact that “Froot” is much less of a natural flavor than it is a state of mind kids can tastefully chase outside the bounds of reality and into whichever adjacent universe where the grass is limeberry green and the fruit salads are crunchy.

[Though to Sam’s credit, his original iteration did wear a fruit-flocked Carmen Miranda hat. My two-pronged rebuttal to this is a) toucans can’t pass the mirror test, so he’s likely never recognized his own headgear, and b) the first Toucan Sam was undoubtedly throttled by the current Toucan Sam’s slenderly feathered man fingers.]

Thankfully, Froot Loops in Mexico largely preserve the two-dimensional Toucan Sam design of yore, though the worryingly articulate prehensility with which he’s gripping the Tropical Froot Loop on this box still leaves me concerned he’ll snap—or at least snap half the universe away. Continue reading →

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20

Mar. ’19

Spooned & Spotted (Mexico): Tropical Froot Loops

https://www.instagram.com/p/BvM_eyEFMEf/

For a guy who’s spent his entire 56-year career preaching the Gospel of Froot, Toucan Sam has rarely explored the complex taste spectrum the broad pantheon of seed-dispersal vessels (aka fruit) has to offer.

And he still hasn’t canonized the late Carmen Miranda yet either, so I refuse to acknowledge his scripture’s legitimacy over the Dead Trix Scrolls.

Sure, we’ve gotten smoothie-fied Froot Loops, Wild Berry Froot Loops, and my favorite fruit, Birthday Cake, but the Froot Loops family of flavors still largely sticks to a single, extremely ambiguous and in no way authentic fake fruit cocktail instead of charting new latitudes of crunchy cartography—the closest thing we’ve gotten is vacation-shaped marshmallows.

That is, until now: according to Mexican Candy Lady and renowned cereal documentarian Gabe Fonseca, Mexico now has exclusive Tropical Froot Loops. This variety sees the Loops dressed in the more modest hues of a Jamba Juice sampler, with promises of banana and pineapple flavoring.

Ha, what do you know: they turned my favorite fruit, pineapple upside-down cake, into a weird spiky thing!

Unfortunately, the Mexican Candy Lady’s shop still lists Tropical Froot Loops as out of stock, so I won’t be able to review them—at least until I dream about a Cancún getaway tonight…though you’ll have to meet me at the cerebral bungalow if you want to hear about it.

Froot Loops Pops Cereal

Luckily she does still have new Froot Loops Pops in stock, which appear to be another name (that references Canada’s spherical Corn Pops, perhaps) for the joyous Froot Loops Bloopers that have been out intermittently here in the states.

If you’ve tried Tropical Froot Loops (or want to launch me a box via intercontinental trebuchet), let me know what you think below. And if you have a hemisphere-spanning cereal spotting of your own, you can follow your nose to our Submissions page.

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18

Mar. ’19

News: Kellogg’s Australia Debuts Mermaid Froot Loops

Kellogg's Mermaid Froot Loops Cereal

Is Toucan Sam starting a breakfast bestiary? And if so, why?

Of all the cereal brands out there, I wouldn’t have expected Froot Loops to start a weird off-shoot series of pseudo-spiritual successors that draw from the world of myths and mutants. Despite its history with otherworldly creatures, Froot Loops seems a little too innocently avian to flirt with Unicorns and now Mermaids—that’s the kind of crunchy cryptozoology I’d expect from the likes of Kellogg’s own grinning Ra who represents their -isin Bran.

Exclusive to Costco, these Australia-exclusive Mermaid Froot Loops seems like a parallel universe version of Caticorn Cereal, a quasi-Froot Loops pet project that has a temporary Sam’s Club exclusivity here in the states. But while Caticorn Cereal was littered with ghosts of faint fruitiness, Mermaid Froot Loops appear to just be Mardi Grad-colored Loops—though their lack of artificial colors and flavors raise the question of just how genuine the expected Froot Loops fakeness will taste.

Regardless, Australian Froot Loops deserve my respect, not just for putting a female mascot on a cereal box—an apparently unheard of phenomenon in the U.S. outside of, uh, Dora the Explorer Cereal?—but also for preserving the two-dimensional purity of Toucan Sam, whose American counterpart has become an anthropomorphized terror who would just love to show you how double-jointed his slender, feathered fingers are.

If you’ve tried Mermaid Froot Loops, let me know how they are in the comments. And if you’ve managed to catch another new cereal cryptid on camera, you can share them on our Submissions page—our thanks to Hedvig for the Mermaidian tip.

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15

Feb. ’19

News: Two New(ish) Kellogg’s Cereals are Coming in May!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt36PnOgoG4/

At some point, we’re going to reach terminal cereal redundancy.

It might not be until President Anthony T. Tiger is democratically elected as GRRR-and Crunch Chancellor in 2814 (rightfully usurping the callously crafted throne of the militaristic Cap’n before him), but I predict that someday, every cereal will exist, and originality will be an obsolete concept.

Carrot Cake Krispies? Pshh, they made that way back in 2083.
Unadorned Sponge Cake Toast Crunch? Surprisingly, that took General Mills (by then renamed Overly Specific Mills) ’til the mid-2400s.
And Honey Brunches of Oats Groundhogs & Waffles? Feels like they release that one every day!

Likely or not, the point of this prediction is that, until the last recesses of breakfast umami have been explored, there shouldn’t be too much reason to keep releasing the same cereals.

Case in point: Birthday Cake Froot Loops. A cereal that debuted in Canada for the country’s 150th anniversary in 2017, these formerly rosy rings now come in three colors that, while not birthday-themed in themselves, certainly seem like the type of thing a narcissistic Toucan Sam would serve at his own begrudgingly attended bash, to make everything color-code to his facial plumage. Continue reading →

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02

Sep. ’18

Guest Review: Hardee’s & Carls Jr. Froot Loops Mini Donuts

Hardee's & Carls Jr. Froot Loops Mini Donuts Review Cereal

There’s a billboard just down the road from my local Carl’s Jr. that posits “Love is great, but food never broke my heart.”

Lies! You see, Hardee’s (who moonlights as Carl’s Jr. due to a grill experiment gone deliciously awry) was my tribe’s preferred burger joint back in the ’90s, when everything was better, from radio to the base grain of certain eagerly-anticipated monster-themed cereals. Family trips to Hardee’s were highlighted by curly fries. Sure, other chains had them (you’re a champ for sticking with it, Arby’s!), but the perfect blend of peppery orange curls came from the only chain bold enough to combine Apollo 13 with POGs. Sadly, much like that gravity-bending collab, curly fries were lost to fast food lore when Carl’s Jr. married into the clan.

So (artificially) color me surprised that you’re-not-my-real-dad’s counter-service conservatism was repealed for a moment to make way for Froot Loops…donuts?! That’s right, just as Kellogg’s cereals are striking back against the General Mills Halloween empire, those neon-hued rebels are also coming for your throne, Little Debbie. And if the Wars taught us anything, it’s that you shouldn’t underestimate the power of small, bright green packages. Continue reading →

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