Category Archives: News

28

Mar. ’19

News: Cap’n Crunch’s Cotton Candy Crunch Cereal is Coming Soon!

Cap'n Crunch's Cotton Candy Crunch Cereal Box

(Photo via My County Market)

That’s what I love about Cap’n Crunch: he really knows how to C’ze the day.

Yes, reading the near-perfect alliteration of this blog post’s title allowed can give you an idea of just how fast my c-c-cardiovascular system is working to keep up with news this exciting. For after a couple doubled-down strawberry duds, Quaker’s quintessential cereal character is back with a wispy whirlwind of creativity, the likes of which we haven’t seen since Blueberry Pancake Crunch.

And speaking of never-before-seen innovation, Cap’n Crunch’s Cotton Candy Crunch is poised to (somehow) be the first cereal to knit everyone’s favorite sugary skeins into spherical cereal form. This is a surprise to me at least, since the cult appeal of cotton candy foodstuffs like Bubble Yum and, uh, grapes? make the state fair classic a more logical pick for a carnival-themed cereal than…”berry.” Plus—and this one is definitely just me—the ridiculous charm of cotton candy personifications like The Monster and Rollercoaster Tycoon’s Candyfloss Stalls are just begging for a crossover commercial with someone like Cap’n Crunch.

And heck, why not throw in Scooby-Doo while they’re at it?

Though my thanks go to The Junk Food Aisle for first tipping me off to Cotton Candy Crunch’s product listing, additional gratitude goes to the kind folks at My County Market, who generously supplied the above photo that reveals the stuff’s cool two-toned Crunch Berries that I’d happily string onto fishing line to create a sticky-sweet necklace—the perfect accessory for getting scammed out of $12 at the ring toss.

We can likely expect Cotton Candy Crunch to hit most shelves through late spring, into early summer. Until then, let’s just hope it doesn’t debut with a cringe-worthy .gif of Cap’n Crunch doing “The CandyFloss Dance” from his favorite game “FortBite.”

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24

Mar. ’19

News: Lucky Charms is Giving Away 15,000 Boxes of All Rainbow & Unicorn Marshmallows!

Lucky Charms All Marshmallows Giveaway Rainbows & Unicorns Box

What’s more emotionally resonant than 5,000 candles in the wind? 15,000 cardboard vessels bearing thousands more sugar-smithed unicorn heads riding a manifold wave of cresting rainbows.

And that’s before you add milk.

This ferociously (and fangoriously) devoured fantasy is more likely than you think: once again, Lucky Charms is giving away specially designed boxes of All Marshmallows—but this time, each 270g iridescent treasure chest is full of only rainbows and unicorns.

Continue reading →

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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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12

Mar. ’19

News: Breaking Bad Cap’n Cook’s Cereal Marshmallows are Hitting FYE!

FYE Breaking Bad Cereal - Blue Sky Marshmallows

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall at FYE HQ when they dreamt up this one…

Having watched all of Breaking Bad during its original TV run, drawn my own Heisenberg shirt, and laughed at Breaking Bad Comics ’til they mineral-ed my socks off, I’m fascinated to see that the show’s legacy is still going so strong nearly six years after its fateful series finale. FYE, who have already released cereals based on Rugrats, anime, and modern American “children’s” horror games, have now set their sights on Albuquerque. Not unlike Walter White himself, this time around they’ve cut out the middleman between mouth and marshmallow, ridding their (admittedly expensive) cereals of any oat-y imperfections to make boxes of 100% pure “Blue Sky Crunchy Marshmallows.”

Dubious drug references aside, these mildly profane (put the kids to bed) marb*tches are apparently both naturally and artificially flavored. I still haven’t decided whether I’ll go in on a box—I promised Walt I’d stay out of his territory, after all, if he stayed out of the cereal blogging game—but I am curious to see what these might taste like. Bubblegum? Cotton Candy? Rice ‘n Beans?

If you’ve tried these, let me know in the comments below. In the meantime, I’ll just pray that the conceptual sequel to these Oops! All Lucky Charms Moons is a shingle-specked box full of Crunchy Roof Pizzas.

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05

Mar. ’19

News: Kellogg’s India Launches Culturally Inspired Corn Flakes Flavors

Kellogg's Indian Corn Flakes

While American cereal news grinds to a temporary halt before the barnyard bonanza that will be National Cereal Day (March 7th), the bird-minded brains behind Froot Loops and Corn Flakes are evolving that latter rooster-fronted classic for an international audience.

Announced as a collaboration with celebrity chef Ranveer Brar, Kellogg’s three new India-exclusive Corn Flakes varieties will be Thandai Badam, Kesar Pista Badam and Rose Badam. While this may not mean much to my fellow stateside cereal lovers, understanding these unique flavors can go a long way toward informing cereal makers all over the world.

While I was familiar with none of the above taste profiles, they are apparently “enriched with the goodness of real almonds, Kesar, rose, saffron and pistachio.” According to Chef Brar, “This new range of cornflakes is attributed to the local flavours of India in particular that create a sense of nostalgia every time we come across them. It could be the mom who added Roohafza to your milk or the local halwai you went with your grandparents to enjoy a glass of warm kesar badam milk.”

The point here is not (just) that America needs a good pistachio cereal with freeze-dried ice cream bits, but that perhaps American cereal aisles need to rethink their seemingly binary approach to either extremely safe flavors or extremely wacky flavors. Because while chicken & waffles may be nostalgic for some, personally I’d rather see ideas that merely gaze into an uncanny savory–sweet valley instead of diving in snout-first.

What might that look like? They could adopt the Oreo school of thought and try Mississippi Mud Pie Cereal, plumb my Midwest heritage with Superman Ice Cream Cereal, or [Hi, big cereal company! Hire me as your dedicated flavorologist to unlock the full list!].

I’m sure that kind of gated content won’t win me any auspicious emails, but if you do have the means to try any of these cereals, feel free to let me know how they are on our Submissions page! Thanks to reader Nik for the tip on these rose-gold maize shards.

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20

Feb. ’19

News: Blueberry Cheerios are Officially Coming Soon!

New Blueberry Cheerios Cereal 2019

If you read my earlier post—which I’ve now updated—on Toy Story 4 Cereal and were rendered sleepless with anticipation for the visual discovery of the mentioned Blueberry Cheerios, you can quite literally rest assured: thanks to a recent business press release from General Mills, we now have our first whole-grainy look at the latest performance patch to America’s favorite cereal rings.

These indigo oats are the latest in a storied run of blueberry General Mills cereals, whose likes include Blueberry Chex and the late Blueberry Toast Crunch (née Tiny Toast). While I wholly trust GM to continue their successful blue streak—a trail of glory that apparently left Boo Berry behind in the corny dust decades ago—I’m most excited to see how Blueberry Cheerios evolve Very Berry Cheerios. I know that cereal has its fans, but I personally thought blueberry’s talent was squandered behind strawberry and raspberry, whose shouting match of tastes left both them and me appropriately red in the face.

But I’ll quite brambling on about berry cereals and let you get back to feasting your eyes on the render above. It’s a beautiful box that, in addition to mimicking Blueberry Toast Crunch’s cardboard hues identically, also suggests that any bowl of Blueberry Cheerios will develop a massive, shadowy blueberry familiar capable of dragging your enemies into a nebulous cerulean void.

After all, revenge is a dish best served with cold milk.

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17

Feb. ’19

News: Toy Story 4 Carnival Berry Cereal is Coming Soon!

Toy Story 4 Cereal Carnival Berry

Forget the snakes—there’s a JPEG compression in my boot!

Yes, the above piece of cereal box lo-fi art is the only trustworthy documentation we have of Kellogg’s upcoming cereal–cinema collab: Toy Story 4’s Carnival Berry Cereal! The fourth film in the beloved (and occasionally tear-jerking) Pixar series is also getting the franchise’s third cereal, continuing the apparently Kelloggianly blood-bound partnership that brought us 2002’s excitingly grahamed Buzz Blasts and the considerably less creative Toy Story 3 Cereal.

It remains unclear whether this new Carnival Berry flavor will be a proper testament to the new film’s setting, or just another inscrutably arbitrary flavor choice—much like the one that brought us the similar-sounding Berry Purrr-fection taste in Caticorn Cereal. Kellogg’s has had, at least from my perspective, a rather slipshod start to 2019. Outside of some awesome Pop-Tarts paraphernalia and the news of succulent Corn Pops yet to come, the minds behind Froot Loops and Apple Jacks have had rings run around them by the explosive innovations of Post.

I mean, would it killed them to have done a Carnival Cotton Candy flavor instead?

New Blueberry Cheerios

But speculating flavors is about as productive as counting pixels, so while we wait for this cereal to hit stores, I’d rather do my best to try and find another cereal listed near Toy Story 4 Cereal: these Blueberry Cheerios. Big thanks to The Junk Food Aisle for his tips on both! If you have cereal news—or a stolen Blueberry Cheerio preserved in amber—please don’t hesitate to share!

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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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