Tag Archives: general mills

Review: Classic Trix Cereal (with 6 colors again!)

To paraphrase the illustrious Milhouse Van Houten: “Remember Trix? They’re back! …In ~~Pog form~~ 6 colors.

Okay, well Trix never actually left, but when General Mills removed the cereal’s artificial colors and flavors at the start of last year, it kind of desaturated the cereal in the public eye. And even I’ll admit that, while I appreciated the cereal’s newly authentic fruit flavor at first, its overly citrusy taste profile started to sour on me. Before long, I was out there on the front lines with my “Give Me Red Dye #40 Or Give Me An Even Swifter Death” picket sign.

And apparently General Mills heard the anguished cries of a bunny litter’s worth of distraught inner children, because now “Classic” Trix is back on shelves alongside its tri-colored companion. So whether you’re hankering for a carrot or a slice of carrot cake, Trix has something for you, your kids, and all your silly rabbits to gnaw on.

Let’s take a flavor roadtrip back to the ancient old days of early 2016, shall we? Don’t forget to bring your Sports Almanac! Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 9 rating, general mills, trix. 15 Comments

Oct. ’17

Review: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios Cereal from General Mills

I’ve long had a theory that every cereal a person could ever need can be formed through a triangulation of three “primary flavors.” The three corners of this Cerealluminati Pyramid (working title) are formed by chocolate, peanut butter, and strawberry. Think about it, ~~sheeple~~ people: while those three flavors are near-universally delightful by themselves, by pairing them you can make a choco-pb cereal, a PB&J cereal, or a chocolate fondued strawberry cereal.

And if you happen to find some hipster niche of cereal lovers that isn’t pleased by any of those, you can just combine all three and tear a rift in space-time through sheer flavor alchemy.

New Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios are proof that my philosophy of breakfast geometry isn’t so obtuse after all—in fact, it’s pretty acute. See, even though General Mills has a near-monopoly on chocolate peanut butter breakfast cereals with Reese’s Puffs, they still decided to release another cocoa-nutty product. That’s because, as a key bastion of my Cerealluminati Pyramid, the mouth-watering power of chocolate and peanut butter together really is that persuasively strong.

Unless, of course, my deeper conspiracy is true, in which case the prophecy of threes has yet to be fulfilled:

Conspiracy theory:
Those Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios are holed-out Reese's Puffs, so the holes can be used for a Reese's Pieces Cereal.

— Cerealously 🥛🥣 (@cerealouslynet) October 8, 2017

But allow me to trade in my tinfoil hat for an equally shiny spoonand dig in—if I’m gonna be a nutcase, I’d rather be a peanutcase. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 10 rating, cheerios, chocolate, general mills, peanut butter. 13 Comments

Oct. ’17

News: Holiday Cereals – Hot Cocoa Cocoa Puffs & Cinnamon Vanilla Lucky Charms

(Image via General Mills)liday

Merry October, everyone!

I love seeing all my favorite holiday decorations out on lawns already: the jack-o-lanterns people put on top of their trees, Rudolph the Red-Eyed Werewolf, and Santa’s iconic wife: Mrs. Freddy Krueger.

To celebrate the Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Krampus Day/general merriment season that is totally already here, General Mills is already shipping out two new holiday cereals to Target and other stores.

First is Hot Cocoa Cocoa Puffs. Consider this one filed away in my “How The Heck Did This Not Happen 10 Years Ago” drawer: marshmallows and Cocoa Puffs seems like a no-brainer, especially after the deliciousness of Count Chocula and Chocolate Lucky Charms. Cocoa Puffs Treats cereal bars have blended Sonny’s choco-corn orbs (chocorbs, for short) with fluffy sugar before to great success, so I’m glad to finally see it come full circle.

Err, full snowball marshmallow, I mean.

No word on whether the Puffs here will be flavored different to match the smoky richness of real hot cocoa, but considering how my childhood self used to stupidly think hot cocoa was made by microwaving chocolate milk, Hot Cocoa Cocoa Puffs have to at least be better than that. Though I may try microwaving them. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: cocoa puffs, general mills, ho, lucky charms. 6 Comments

Oct. ’17

Review: Franken Berry Cereal (2017)

For those about to ~~rock~~ read my third annual review of the exact same cereal, we salute you!

Listen, Frank. Can I call you Frankie? Francis? Franco-Prussian War?

You know I love you, man. It’s true, it’s true: I tell people I love the taste of Count Chocula the best—not counting my estranged (emphasis on the strange) love, Fruity Yummy Mummy, who’s currently jamming to “Walk Like an Egyptian” in some funky undead pyramid disco in the sky.

But from an aesthetic standpoint, I like you best. I promise. No I don’t mean you, you. Let’s be real here: Boo Berry is both suaver and cuter in his debonair porkpie hat. I’d let him take me to the Poltergeist Prom any day. No way my father would let me get picked up by a pink dude with steampunk apparatuses on his neck. We live in the clean energy age, Francesco.

But your cereal? Those neon pink ghosts and pastel marshmallows? The pastel marshmallows that make the whole thing feel like a Taiwanese night market?
Hoo, doggy! Or should I say, A-WOO, werewolfy!

François, your artificially strawberry-flavored cereal is the prettiest I’ve ever seen. I’d hang it on my refrigerator if it contained enough magnesium per serving (I don’t understand how magnets work). But for now, I have to eat it. So let’s forget about the Count, forget that I just swooned so hard over Boo Berry that I crashed through your coffee table, and let’s have Franken Berry for breakfast. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 5 rating, general mills, halloween, monster cereals, strawberry. 14 Comments

Sep. ’17

News: “Classic Trix” is Making a Comeback!

(Image via General Mills)

Grab your HitClips, Heelys, and old retainer, because Classic Trix are making a comeback, and since Trix are for kids, you’ll have to act like a kid to eat them. Otherwise some neighborhood ragamuffins will swing through your kitchen on a cartoon vine, call you a silly rabbit, and make off with your raspberry red, lemony yellow, orangey orange, wildberry blue, grapity purple, and watermelon bounty.

On second thought, you might want to leave the dental gear behind. Wouldn’t want you to be stuck sipping Trix yogurt through a straw. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: general mills, news, trix. 11 Comments

Sep. ’17

News: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios are Coming Soon!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios Cereal Box

(Image via General Mills)

By golly, someone is finally challenging Reese’s Puffs’ munch-worthy monopoly in the “chocolate and peanut butter cereal” market.

But wait…the call is coming…from inside the house?

Yes, instead of Kellogg’s, Post, or Quaker taking Reese’s Puffs head on with Chocolate Peanut Butter Krave, Pebbles, or…Corn Crunch, General Mills is just releasing another choco-PB cereal: the appropriately named Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios.

Dang, I would’ve preferred “Reese’s Doughnut Crunch.”

The only reason I can see for doing this is so that Reese’s Puffs have a thematically appropriate tag-team partner when Vince McMahon inevitably starts a Cereal Royal Rumble. My money is on Cap’n Crunch and Count Chocula, as they’ll doubtlessly just tear their opponent’s mouths to shreds.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cheerios, which is flavored with real cocoa and peanut butter, isn’t the first time we’ve seen those respective flavors in Cheerios. We’ve had Chocolate Cheerios, Dark Chocolate Multigrain Cheerios, Peanut Butter Multigrain Cheerios, and plain ol’ Peanut Butter Cheerios (only abroad, with an appropriately nutty mascot). But this is the first time they’ve been paired together.

No word on when Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios will hit shelves, but I hope they debut alongside the return of Banana Nut Cheerios late this October, so I can mix them together and make a Bluth’s Frozen Elvis Banana Cereal.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: cheerios, chocolate, general mills, news, peanut butter. 2 Comments

Sep. ’17

Review: Malt-O-Meal Chocolatey Chip Cookie Bites Cereal

“That dude seriously needs to cool it with the cookie cereal.”

—actual quote (I wish I were joking) overheard from two girls at Walmart who watched me buy a 2-pound bag of Malt-O-Meal Chocolatey Chip Cookie Bites, ponder my life, then go back to grab a box of Cookie Crisp, too

Yes, I didn’t plan to spend $10 on crunchy, artificially chocolate chip cookie-flavored ellipsoids, but here we are. At least they didn’t see me haul this plastic leviathan onto my balcony and grumble “stupid shiny cookie bag” as I struggled to get a good photo.

But enough public embarrassment. Let’s talk Malt-O-Meal. I don’t always pay attention to the brand—let alone buy it—since their (admittedly very affordable) cereal always seems to taste a little too cheap, with the heavy bag imparting some chemical chintziness into every piece. But when I heard* that Malt-O-Meal, who has already Malt-O-Meal-ified just about every other major cereal, from Cap’n Crunch to French Toast Crunch, was wading into a hitherto untouched cereal frontier, I had to try it for myself.

Even if my apartment’s limited storage space forces me to (literally) spoon with the cereal bag to make room. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, chocolate, general mills, malt-o-meal. 6 Comments

Sep. ’17

Review: Count Chocula Monster Cereal (2017)

I feel like I’m starring in a movie trailer for an unnecessary 2017 reboot of a classic ’80s film. You know, the kind of trailer that inevitably starts with all the wizened and crow-footed stars of the first movie reuniting in their old haunt to topically argue about how things just aren’t as good as they used to be and crack jokes about iPads?

Yeah, that’s how I feel about buying my 2017 box of Count Chocula, because those trailers always open with someone muttering the same line: “Well, here we are again.” Or maybe, “Hello, old friend.” Or even, “Y’all haven’t aged a day.”

Even though a year has passed since I’ve tasted the Count’s sweet cocoa spoils (not counting the expired box I found in my pantry and begrudgingly—though not regretfully—ate on the 4th of July), I feel like this caped chocolate cruncher has never left my side. Like a warm memory or a Tamagotchi that just won’t die, the nostalgic spookiness of Count Chocula—who’s been on shelves for 46 years now, despite being an ageless vampire—is resonant enough to keep me thinking about old elementary school Halloween parties and goofy candy corn cupcakes all year long.

So while I’m sure I won’t find much new to say about Count Chocula’s taste that I haven’t said in previous reviews, I owe this trusty Hershey’s syrup-blooded bloodsucker his annual tribute. Let’s sharpen our canines and start munchin’! Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 9 rating, chocolate, count chocula, general mills, halloween, marshmallow, monster cereals. 6 Comments