You know, I’m really starting to think this Sponged Robert character might take off. I mean look at him: he’s the epitome of glee, teaches kids basic geometry, and I’ve never even seen him do a Fortnite dance yet!
Maybe he belongs beside Mario at the virtual Olympics.
All Fry Cook Games aside, Nickelodeon & Kellogg’s licensed push for SpongeBob’s upcoming Sponge on the Run movie is continuing its run of admittedly uninspired breakfast tie-ins with these Sea Berry Pop-Tarts, already listed on Walmart.com. Continue reading →
Just as every bootleg Chuck E. Cheese birthday party—what, you’ve never been to Buck G. Brie?—is bound to be punctuated by a cake so paradoxically full of empty sweetness and frosted typos, so too is a Pop-Tarts gala destined for the apex of adequacy.
Following three successful Pop-Tarts Bites launches that run a rich flavor gamut of Strawberry, Brown Sugar Cinnamon, and Chocolatey Fudge, Kellogg’s is commemorating the occasion not with a fan-favorite taste like S’Mores or Wild Berry, but with…Confetti Cake. As a former grocery store bakery worker, let me earnestly say this:
What a load of sheet.
Look, I’m not saying Confetti Cake Pop-Tarts Bites will be bad, but if recent caked-on breakfast products areanyindication, this is just an excuse to dump sugar, vanilla and maybe buttercream into a churning cauldron and call it a day.
Even more perplexing are the naming conventions within the Pop-Tarts Bites sub-brand. Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts became Chocolatey Fudge Bites, and now Confetti Cupcake Pop-Tarts are simply Confetti Cake Bites. Is this an accidental oversight, or am I meant to believe that these teeny pastries contain more concerted cake flavor than a Tart five times their size?
Either way, we’ll find out soon when Confetti Cake Pop-Tarts Bites drop and I end up eating them by the cupful.
It might not look like it, but the above cereal is historic.
See, in the entire history of Apple Jacks, there has never been a limited-edition flavor that isn’t, well, apple or cinnamon—and marshmallows don’t count either. Instead, just about every “new” Apple Jacks variant introduces a new shape—some more sublimely strange than others, but most ending up inexplicably dyed blue.
Which is why Kellogg’s new Caramel Apple Jacks promise to bring a breath of freshly preserved air to the brand. Reportedly releasing this June. In a surprising bout of geometric consistency, Apple Jacks didn’t even try to shape these green-replacing sienna hoops into like, half-melted Werthers cubes, or even a blue rutabaga (you know, just because).
For a cereal that’s never really tasted much like apples, it will be interesting to see whether Caramel Apple Jacks are another one-note wonder, or if their sticky sweetness will be worth bobbing into a tub of milk for.
I, for one, hope the back of the box at least includes a recipe for fermenting Apple Jacks cereal dust into a fine, caramelized cider.
No, really. Though of course all food is three-dimensional, especially the well-rounded corn puff, but when it comes to crunchy quadrilaterals, we get a lot of squarish, rectangular, and pillowy things, yet never any perfectionist-pleasing union of six squares. Hence why cereal scholars have been asking for decades: when will breakfast enter its cubist period?
Following their controversial performance piece “The Bastardization of Rice Krispies Treats Cereal,” A.M. auteurs Snap, Crackle and Pop are back with a freshly caramelized coat of paint on last year’s Snap Crackle Poppers. So while I loathe what’s become of RKTC with every snap and crackle of my boiling blood, this line of miniaturized and glazed Treats is actually pretty good—especially the Cookies ‘n’ Creme ones.
It’s surely only a matter of time before Kellogg’s piggybacks off this geometric success to release Raisin Bran bites in the shape of Metatron’s Cube. But in the mean time, let’s see how the Rice Krispies boys’ latest inherently stackable snack stacks up to its predecessors. Continue reading →
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards breakfast to be born?
Seriously: if you showed me the above product 30 years ago, my dad would be putting a fist in your soon-to-be-twinkling eye. But seriously Cerealously: I’ve become so accustomed to the notion of Pop-Tarts as a cereal that I hardly stopped to consider the infinite opportunity within its inverse.
Now, Froot Loops probably wouldn’t be my first choice for a co-branded Kellogg’s Crunch-Tart. I would’ve picked Raisin Bran or Cocoa Krispies, if only so they could be called Snap, Crackle Pop-Tarts. But nevertheless, this sort of fusion you’d think would be forbidden by church and state alike has come to my bruncheon nook
Churning and churning in my widening stomach The Toucan cannot hear the toaster; Crust falls apart, the filling cannot hold; Iced anarchy is Looped upon my bowl.Continue reading →
Look, I’m ready for a new SpongeBob Cereal as much as the next square, but this? For a sponge that’s already been put through the wringer by staffing changes and ongoing Flanderization, Robert and his late-’90s childhood-defining reputation deserve better.
See, Kellogg’s “new” SpongeBob SquarePants Cereal, launching to promote this May’s Sponge on the Run, is a lazily deceptive union of existing Kellogg’s releases. The dreadfully bland vanilla pieces will be familiar to anyone who’s tried Kellogg’s last dump of cinematic cereals. Granted, these squares are a bit denser and have a more multigrained appeal than other cheap corn puffs, but it’s a bit unforgivable that Sponge on the Run Cereal recycles the same marbits seen way back in 2003’s SpongeBob Cereal—without the unique Jellyfish shaped pieces!
At least General Mills’ chintzy Bikini Bottom cash grab fruit-flavored its Sponge & Pat-shaped swill:
So now, instead of dignifying this DoodleBob of a cereal with any more words—oh, there are also Rice Krispies Treats that taste the same but with SB on the packaging—I will instead list Sponge-worthy flavors Kellogg’s could’ve explored:
Kelp, Glove, Sandwich Made with Jellyfish Jelly, Fried Oyster Skin, Seanut Brittle, Bobby Sauce, or of course, Triple Gooberberry Sunrise. Heck, I’d even take a Nasty Patty Cereal at this point.
What’s that old Froot Loops slogan again? “Follow your ears…to transcend earthly spheres!” Or something like that.
The point is that, through some unexpected matchmaking between Kellogg’s and candymaker Frankford, our world has birthed a warren of White Chocolate Froot Loops Easter Bunnies, each capable of supplementing their big-beaked father’s apparent lack of audio-capturing organs. With his sense of smell and these rabbits’ lengthy lobes, Toucan Sam’s many enemies will no longer be able to sneak up on him.
Samuel’s senses have become too powerful for this plane, and the only way for us to prevent rainbow-looped Ragnarok is to eat as many of these rascally reconnaissance rabbits as possible.
Though February has hardly even begun to let loose her polar powdered wrath, these edible heralds of Punxsutawney Phil’s prophesied early spring have already been spotted by Cerealously pal Sammy Hain at Big Lots. Naturally, the best move when you get your hands on a Froot Loops Easter Bunny will be to slice it up with a cheese cutter and serve it atop Froot Loops Pop-Tarts like a cardiac-arresting charcuterie board.
(Conversely, the worst move would be to try toasting these hares like said Pop-Tarts, but that’s between you and your kitchen appliances.)
For those without this very specific genetic disposition to oddly specific early Internet web cartoon references, Cheat Commandos…O’s are a cheap cash-in on an already merchandized-by-design franchise. And to this day, I can’t figure out which cereal they used to model it—perhaps it’s actually dried macaroni and cheese, or perhaps the petrified remains of a shredded Bronco Trolley.
Much like Cheat Commandos, Shopkins is a line of toys, apparel, and by this point (probably) orthodox faiths. In short: it consists largely of blind bag toys shaped like sentient grocery items. In long: yo dog we heard you like shopping so we put consumer goods in your consumer good so you can spend food money on fake food that implicitly costs fake money, too.
Granted, I’m not judging the ouroboric commercialism that Shopkins embodies—heck, I think the adjacently themed ’80s Food Fighters are some of the best-looking action figures in history. Though it is a shame they never made a grizzled bowl of cereal armed with a tactical bootspork.
Shopkins is just something I’m far too old for, admittedly, but I’m nevertheless hesitant any time a beloved brand of non-cereal ends up emblazoned on the front of a dubiously flavored hot pink rectangular prism. Licensed cereals are usually hit or miss or impermissibly lame. Even those remembered fondly, like Pokémon Cereal, are almost always retrospectively delicious because they’re acceptably executed bootleg Lucky Charms—with prettier marbits than the heretical excuses for freeze-dried sugar they put in such licensed cereals nowadays.
At least Shopkins’ new Cutie O’s Cereal has a relatively original flavor. Outside of one juicy box of Raisin Bran, apple and strawberry make for a rare pairing—though we are starting off on the wrong plastic footlong, as my lifelong penchant for strawberry kiwi has me Pavlovianly drooling venomous vitriol at the sight of a green-fruited competitor to my mental “Best Capri-Sun” throne. But alright, Kawaii Granny Smith: I’ll sheathe my ceremonial paring knife while you state your case. Continue reading →
