Category Archives: Reviews

Review: Carmella Creeper + Monster Mash Remix Cereals

Is Carmella Creeper good?

Yes!! Not only is it my undying delight to see a new Monster grace shelves—the first since 1987’s Fruity Yummy Mummy—but to see an actual female cereal mascot for once is refreshing, especially in the sausage fest that is the breakfast aisle.

(No, mentally unstable bovines and anthropomorphized marshmallows don’t really count as representation.)

Furthermore, Carmella is just cool. Billed as the long-lost cousin of Franken Berry (however the murky genealogy of lab-created lifeforms works), she’s a hip ‘n’ happenin’ DJ who would never be caught un-undead with the likes of someone lame enough to still use the phrase “hip ‘n’ happenin'”. Though that wouldn’t stop me from uncool-ly inviting her to get gas station sushi and play Kirby Air Ride (she’d decline, but politely).

…

Wait, you were asking whether Carmella Creeper the cereal is good?

Oh, heavens, no. Not at all. No no no no. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: general mills, halloween, monster cereals. 16 Comments

Jun. ’23

Review: Maple Brown Sugar Chex

Dearest Corn,

Look, I know I’m probably the last person you want to receive a letter from. In fact, you probably called me a “mother-shucker” and popped a movie-theater-buttered blood vessel just seeing my name on the envelope. But I owe you an apology. Several, actually.

I’m sorry for blaming the death of the already undead Monster Cereals on you. I’m sorry for calling you “a starchy scourge that’s turned the cereal industry into a (literal) husk of what it once was.” And I’m sorry I double-dipped that tortilla chip in the guac when no one was looking.

Because the truth is, while, yes, 99% of modern cereals that use your milled flour as a base turn out to be terrible—as the flavors basted on top struggle to contend with your maize-y twang—there’s also another kernel of truth that says there are good corn cereals. In fact, there are corn cereals as outstanding in their field as the scarecrows that guard them. These mostly include those cereals that wear their corniness on their weathered flannel sleeves: the Corn Flakes, Corn Pops, and dearly departed Corn Bran Crunches of this world.

And yes, Corn Chex, too.

You see, I’ve noticed something: amongst all the endlessly reproducing Chex varieties, whose choices of base grain always seem arbitrary, the corn ones always trump the rice ones. Honey Nut Chex? Peanut Butter Chex? The likes of Blueberry and Apple Cinnamon are glass cannons of flavor-blasted blandness in comparison to you, corn, and your comparative golden-toasted heartland heartiness.

Now, Maple Brown Sugar Chex belongs amongst that elite Chexian Corps., too.

So here’s to you, corn. You’re a hull of a guy, after all. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: chex, general mills, maple. 4 Comments

May. ’23

Review: ICEE Cereal

// Partial Transcript of Oral Research Report 526-23, Regarding Specimen [REDACTED], Recovered from the Desk of Arctic Cereal Researcher Dan. G. — Current Whereabouts Unknown //

I know not what I’ve stumbled upon—only that it is insidious. Unnatural. Decidedly not of this earth.

Discovered in a remote crater, the particulate creature calls itself “ICEE Cereal,” and it appears to be a crude extraterrestrial attempt to mimic one of mankind’s favorite frozen beverages, though it has chosen a far less familiar form. Rather than a liquid, it’s composed of solid spheres. While it seems like the organism tried to make these small round bits solely red and blue, there exist also countless hybrid offspring in manifold hues of purple.

The thing’s ostensibly cardboard shell claims that the spheres are flavored like “Cherry & Blue Raspberry.” Every fiber of my survival instinct tells me it would be unwise to consume such a suspicious “foodstuff.” And yet, as soon as my eyes fell upon the rapturously radical (and dare I say, totally tubular), shade & sweatered anthropomorphic Polar Bear on this ICEE Cereal, I was powerless to resist its allure. Perhaps this is some new form of visual memetic virus? If so, I can only pray this ICEE Cereal kills me before such a maliciously compelling mascot can be allowed to reach civilization.

So to my ancestors and descendants alike I say: please, forgive me for what I am about to crunch and/or munch. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: kellogg's. 15 Comments

Feb. ’23

Review: Sweet Dreams Cereals

Aw jeez, gotta write quick: I feel like I’m reviewing on a timer here, like an Evangelion unit disconnected from its power supply. If I trail off mid-sentence, you’ll know that Sweet Dreams Cereal worked and I fell asle

…

Just kidding, I’m still here and (debatably) lucid. Though my eyes are feeling heavy—but is that because Sweet Dreams, the first cereal designed to be eaten at night to promote restful sleep (with its natural melatonin production-supporting vitamins & minerals), actually works, or because it simply bores me to sleep? Well, turn on your device’s blue-light filter, slip into your finest Sleepytime Tea Bear nightgown/sleeping cap combo, and we’ll all find out together. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: blueberry, honey, post. 1 Comment

Dec. ’22

Review: Cheerios Oat Crunch – Berry

Senioritis is real.

In my fourth year at the fancy-pants math & science high school I went to—which I mention not as a brag, for it was essentially just a safe haven for nerds who’d get be-swirlied and de-lunch-moneyed otherwise—my annual research group fell so far from our former graces. Where once we studied the effects of atmospheric conditions on things like coffee acidity and laser attenuation, we ended our esteemed tenure like a squeaking mouse fart in the night, deciding instead to determine the effect of a potato’s surface area on its rate of osmosis….a question so obvious that a root vegetable hooked to a battery could probably figure it out.

Naturally, our teacher admonished us but ultimately let us get away with it, because once you’re mentally checked out with the tantalizing liberation of college on the horizon, it would take a menacing cyborg library cop to check us back in. And luckily, our little geek asylum wasn’t that well funded.

Why do I bring this up? Because “Berry” is now the fourth member to join the Cheerios Oat Crunch family of cereals, an esteemed breakfast dynasty that I’ve no-doubt given more consistently positive feedback than any other cereal line reviewed on this site. Between the tongue-hugging warmth of Cinnamon Oat Crunch, the golden perfection of Oats ‘N Honey (well, other than that imperfectly stylized ‘N), and the nutty nuance of Almond Oat Crunch, Cheerios G.O.A.T. Crunch has truly done no wrong…

…and now we have Berry.

I think you can see where I’m going with this. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: cheerios, oat crunch, raspberry. 2 Comments

Nov. ’22

Review: Elf on the Shelf North Pole Snow Creme Cereal

Ah, now that Thanksgiving—with all its bountiful feasts, plentiful horns, and wishful bones—is over, it’s time to dive into the holiday season with everyone’s favorite yuletide tradition.

Which one, you ask? Decorating the tree? Crudely icing gingerbread cookies to look like your most cannibalizable loved ones? Or perhaps foisting reindeer antlers on your soon-to-be ho-ho-homicidal cat?

Oh, no, we’re talking about the most treasured, timeless Christmas rite of all: hiding a wretched little uncanny creature around your home who will proverbially invade your privacy with its eerie omnipresence!

Seriously though, does anyone actually like The Elf on the Shelf? I certainly haven’t met anyone who does. I’m convinced the whole thing’s a psyop by The Elf itself, who’s collected enough damning nocturnal footage through its prying (beady, sinister, soulless) eyes to blackmail the global marketing elite into helping its species reproduce.

And reproduce it has. Somehow, 2022’s new North Pole Snow Creme is the fourth EotS cereal to hit shelves (and stay there, unsold). Between the earlier Sugar Cookie one, the Peppermint one, and the Hot Cocoa one, the quality of this Elf’s oeuvre runs the gamut from awful to alright at best, so I’m not going into this new one with high hopes. Let’s just hope that if I give him another bad review, The Elf won’t pour glue in my 2%.

Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: holiday, kellogg's. 1 Comment

Nov. ’22

Review: Avatar x Kellogg’s Pandora Frosted Flakes

Wow, I can’t believe we’re finally getting a cereal flavored like my favorite regional Midwest ice cre—wait, what? You’re telling me the “Blue Moons” in these ~~Frosted~~ Pandora Flakes have nothing to do with the sorcerously ambiguous berry-marshmallow nectar of my youth?

Yeugh. Well fine, I’ll still give this Avatar: The Way of Water / Kellogg’s collab the time of day (2:05p.m. EST, to be specific), but only because I love this new trend of letting Tony the Tiger flex his cinematic bravado instead of putting any actual movie characters on the box. You can just tell he’s begging to be roped into somebody’s movie multiverse.

Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: blueberry, kellogg's, movie cereals. 3 Comments

Oct. ’22

Review: Franken Berry and Boo Berry Yoplait Yogurts

Oh, Trix Yogurt, how I’ve missed you.

Not in a “physical scarcity” sense, mind you. Trix Yogurt took a 5 year hiatus from shelves around 2016, so yes, for a while, that nostalgic itch was impossible to scratch (unless you were a lunchlady, because you could still order the stuff from General Mills’ foodservice catalogue). But even since Trix Yogurt made its triumphant return in the spring of 2021, I still haven’t bought any. I guess I just unconsciously consigned it to the museum of memory: a glimmering pastel relic of a treasured past whose shine I dare not spoil by revisiting it with an adult’s jaded taste buds. Much like Oreo Cakesters, which I also haven’t eaten since their re-continuation, I simply doubted I could go on living if my favorite childhood yogurt wasn’t as good as I remembered.

But with the launch of these new Franken Berry and Boo Berry Yogurts from Yoplait, I finally have an impossible-to-ignore reason to try these two-toned treats again. See, when Trix Yogurt returned last year, they came back in “Strawberry” and “Berry” flavors, making it pretty clear that “Screamin’ Strawberry” and “Boo Blueberry” are just the Trix Rabbit’s cultured progeny wearing Monster Cereal masks.

That may be a little lazy, but I’ll never blame General Mills for expanding the Monsters’ reach beyond the cereal aisle, whether that’s in the form of cookies, Fruit Roll-Ups, or otherwise. Long live the Count & Co.! Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: boo berry, franken berry, general mills, monster cereals, non cereal. 1 Comment