January, 2020 - Cerealously

In 2020 we’re staying honest with those we love, so I’m gonna come right out and say it:

Honey Bunches of Oats, how in your infinite wisdom have you made the most tearable cereal bags in the breakfast aisle?

There are already enough things in this world that I have trouble pulling apart without blunder nor bother: perforated notebook paper, most pieces of mail, command strips off a wall. My delicious cereal shouldn’t fissure and fizzle out cereal spillage at a moment’s notice.

This is difficult to cope with, especially since Honey Bunches of Oats is a) built on a near spiritual trinity of corn flakes, frosted corn flakes and granola bunches, but this triple blessing is also b) very consistent at producing flavorful varietals.

(We don’t talk about the less savory ‘Zilla ’98s of the franchise.)

Yet HBoO’s latest release—whose bag was torn asunder by inescapable fate—seems, to me, to be its ostensibly least original idea in recent memory (with one notably irrelevant example). Simply culling one third of the cereal, coating it with sticky sauce, and shoving it back in the mix? As someone who values a good novelty cereal, from the start I’m skeptical. Will this be the equivalent of a bubbly Disney remake that’s so saccharine it crashes lifelessly?

At least give us some crudely handsome CGI bunches at that point! Continue reading →

It only took a year, but one of 2019’s biggest missed opportunities is being repaired.

In my review of last Easter’s Peeps Cereal (which I still unseasonably blogged about in January), I noted—as any potential Peeper would—that a brand known for its cute animal shapes probably deserves better than lazy round & white marbits. Thankfully, those sugary eggs are hatching in 2020, as we can see in the above box art uncovered by Candy Hunting. I’d like to think it’s my complaints that got Kellogg’s to introduce these “Bunny & Chick Marshmallows,” but considering how I was equally scathing in my critique of this cereal’s taste, I doubt Kellogg’s would ever credit me.

After all, the frankly boring base cereal itself looks unchanged. I’ll admit that the bunnies are some of the better fashioned cereal marshmallows in recent memory—the chicks seem like they could be runny yolks—but unless those rascally rabbits breed while the cereal’s in your pantry, I might have to pass on buying a box again this spring.

But congratulations, Kellogg’s: you finally made an authentic Peeps Cereal. Now you just need to find an audience for the sugary stuff’s one-note opus.

Cerealously

Monthly Archives: January 2020

Review: Frosted Honey Bunches of Oats

News: Peeps Cereal is Getting Bunny & Chick Marshmallows!