Category Archives: Reviews

Review: Frosted Watermelon Jolly Rancher Pop-Tarts

You may think that there’s nothing more delicious on a hot summer day than a fresh, juicy slice of watermelon. But true beach bums and Slip ‘n’ Slide savants know that a Watermelon Pop-Tart is is the more economic choice for warm weather refreshment. Just consider the benefits of eating a fruity watermelon crust quadrilateral over the real thing:

– Watermelon Pop-Tarts are seedless.
– Watermelon Pop-Tarts won’t ruin your white shorts with drippy mess.
– Real watermelons can’t be stored in your glove compartment.
– Real watermelons can’t be shoved into a toaster (without calamity, at least).
– Most of all, real watermelons taste like, well, water. Watermelon Pop-Tarts taste like zany water that went to clown college.

And while regular watermelons have gone for thousands of years without a flavor upgrade, Kellogg’s classic Watermelon Pop-Tarts have become jollier and atomically greener with the release of Watermelon Jolly Rancher Pop-Tarts. As the last Jolly Rancher Pop-Tart I’ll be reviewing, Watermelon has a chance to exceed the mixed reputations of its brethren: Green Apple is interestingly sweet & sour, while Cherry is like an egg roll stuffed with liquefied Swedish Fish.

With this precedent, I expect Watermelon Jolly Rancher Pop-Tarts to taste like ranch dressing. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, kelloggs, non cereal, pop-tarts. 2 Comments

May. ’17

Review: Frosted Cherry Jolly Rancher Pop-Tarts

Three Musketeers.

Milky Way.

Twix.

In five seconds, I thought of three candy flavors I would’ve expected to exist before a Jolly Rancher Pop-Tart ever touched my tongue—let alone three Jolly Rancher Pop-Tarts. Heck, if you asked me last year, even more obscure candies like 100 Grand or Whoppers Pop-Tarts would’ve had a 100,000% higher likelihood of existing than Cherry Jolly Rancher Pop-Tarts.

(The only thing less likely would’ve been Circus Peanut Pop-Tarts)

Yet here I am, eating my ∞th iridescent Pop-Tart this week. I’m not mad that Jolly Rancher Pop-Tarts—a line that also includes Green Apple and Watermelon—exist, I’m just surprised. I might as well make the most of the most of these Tarts’ limited edition existence—with something this cosmically wacky, the toaster pastry gods could revoke their existential right at any moment—by reviewing them all in a week. It’s like they say: when life gives you cherry pastries colored redder than bloody murder, make some sort of -ade that belongs in an elevator at the Overlook Hotel.

And besides, if I really want a “traditional” candy bar Pop-Tart, I could just throw a Snickers into a panini press and make my own. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 5 rating, cherry, kelloggs, non cereal, pop-tarts. 4 Comments

May. ’17

Review: Frosted Green Apple Jolly Rancher Pop-Tarts

As I gaze upon these Green Apple Jolly Rancher Pop-Tarts, I must ask: has science gone too far?

A) Yes. Candy and pastries mixing? Next you’ll tell me there are Oil & Water Pop-Tarts.
B) No. Not far enough, actually. I want to see Pop-Tarts flavored Jolly Ranchers.
C) I really don’t care please just stuff neon-dyed dough rectangles into my mouth so I can make my tongue look like a cosmic bowling alley.

I would circle option C, but my hands are too covered in slippery green apple filling to get a grip on a pencil, mouse, or my life.

That’s right: there has been much buzz about Kellogg’s brand new Jolly Ranchers line of Pop-Tarts, which also includes Cherry and Watermelon. Some camps find the idea more nostalgic than spilled Crystal Pepsi in a used record shop, while some would rather drink a Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino through an intra-nasal straw than eat something so potently technicolored.

Me? I’m just happy to be here. I’ll slip past the hype and let the Tarts’ flavors decide their fates. Let’s see if Green Apple is as suckable as its namesake candy, or if it just, well, sucks. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 7 rating, apple, kelloggs, non cereal, pop-tarts. Leave a comment

May. ’17

Review: New and Improved Alpha-Bits Cereal

The year is 20xx. Innovation is dead. No new cereals are ever released. Instead, every old brand keeps releasing “New and Improved” versions that buff their old selves with unnecessary flavor and cosmetic improvements.

Froot Loops now contains “100% more Froot Jooce” and comes in colors only visible to the hyper-photoreceptive mantis shrimp. Waffle Crisp is now just a box full of freeze-dried Belgian waffles—and the bag is made of intelligent, gelatinous maple syrup that can gain sentience when stored in certain climates. Cinnamon Toast Crunch just contains packets of wheat seeds, yeast, and cinnamon, with instructions for growing, harvesting, and baking your own miniature cinnamon toast.

As for Alpha-Bits? They now contain the letters of every alphabet, from English and Cyrillic to Egyptian hieroglyphics, Klingon, and whatever language the Bionicles spoke. Some also say that spiking a drop of blood into your morning bowl of Alpha-Bits will make them reveal the universe’s existential secrets.

But most agree that’s just ridiculous.

This revamped cereal revolution all started in 2017, as Cocoa Puffs, Krave, Honeycomb, and yes, Alpha-Bits, made a big hullaballoo about self-improvement. As a designated cereal emissary of the year 2017, I’m here to tell you whether Alpha-Bits actually followed through on their “new year, new me” promise, or if they’re just “new meh.” Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 2 rating, post. 197 Comments

May. ’17

Review: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Oatmeal (Canada)

Can you see why kids love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch Instant Oatmeal—or as some call it in Canada: “Croque Cannele Gruau Instantané?”

Of course: it’s got cinnamon sugar amorphous globs in every bite! It’s the taste you can see…still sticking to your ceiling three weeks later if you fling it hard enough.

Wait, wait—that’s the oatmeal’s old slogan. The new one is much better: crave those crazy hot oat lumps!

Fine, I give up. There’s no real appetizing catchphrase for Canada’s second new cereal-oatmeal hybrid. And even if there was, a burnt sienna bowl of microwaved roses by any other name would taste just as sweet. Or in the case of Cinnamon Toast Crunch Oatmeal, just as bland and disappointing. I know I usually leave my opinion out of each review’s introduction, but I couldn’t resist spoiling my spoiled breakfast from the get-go. This oatmeal has a host of toasty problems, so let’s work backwards and try sourcing its flaws like a paleontologist doing CSI on a pile of raptor skeletons. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 4 rating, canada, cinnamon, general mills, oatmeal, toast crunch. 2 Comments

May. ’17

Review: Lucky Charms Oatmeal (Canada)

This may not be canon, but I believe General Mills’ new Canada-only Lucky Charms Oatmeal is from an alternate timeline in the cereal universe.

In this truly darkest timeline, those cartoon kids who cheerfully steal Lucky the Leprechaun’s sugary breakfast aren’t motivated by hunger or anything rational. No, these serial cereal sociopaths take Lucky’s marshmallowy horseshoes and shooting stars just so they can melt them before his eyes in a bowl of bubbling, magmatic oats.

In this somber universe, Lucky Charms are “masochistically delicious!”

Somehow, those bullies’ mealy instruments of destruction crossed through an inter-dimensional portal and landed on Canadian grocery shelves. It’s the only logical explanation for the grotesque scenes of marshmallowy immolation you’re about to witness. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 6 rating, general mills, lucky charms, marshmallows, oatmeal. 3 Comments

Apr. ’17

Review: Quaker Banana & Maple Oatmeal

Ever had a Canadian Elvis?

It’s a traditional and totally not-made-up sandwich native to North North America that remixes Mr. Presley’s favorite peanut butter and banana sandwich by swapping George Washington Carver’s creamy (or chunky, choosy moms don’t discriminate) legume spread with the sticky sweet life blood of Canada’s flag-starring national tree.

Quaker must be a fan of the Canadian Elvis, because it’s the only logic I can see behind their new(ish) Banana & Maple Oatmeal flavor. Outside of banana pancakes (which are usually paired with compote instead of syrup anyway) and a certain tragic incident in my childhood involving a rogue monkey with a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth, I’ve never heard of banana and maple going together.

Chocolate and bananas? Delicious.
Ice cream and bananas? You couldn’t split us apart.
Peanut butter and bananas? I hunka hunka burnin’ love it.

But maple syrup and bananas is largely unexplored territory—a final frontier worthy of a new Star Trek series. Maple is one of my favorite all-time flavors—I want my funeral procession to end at an IHOP—so Quaker’s got a lot to prove by pairing it with a fruit that barely makes my top 10.

(Though “Maple & Strawberry” probably wouldn’t sound any more palatable) Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 6 rating, maple, oatmeal, quaker. 8 Comments

Apr. ’17

Review: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Lip Balm

What can I say: sometimes I just love cereal so much, I want to kiss it.

I know, I know: a bad one-liner to introduce a bad review. But since this Cinnamon Toast Crunch Lip Balm is the first ever non-edible product I’ve reviewed here, I didn’t know how else to start.

If the antiquated art didn’t give it away, this lip balm totally isn’t new, but I found it in a local grocery bargain bin—along with 10(!) other cereal “flavors”—and I couldn’t resist. I was tempted to drop a crisp green Alexander Hamilton, buy all of them, and coat my mouth ’til it became a living pair of those candy wax lips, but I found some self-restraint and chose the one that sounded like it’d be the most pleasant to have slathered near my taste buds all afternoon.

I’m not saying Cocoa Puff-smacked lips isn’t an appetizing idea, I’m just saying I’ve had enough public Mr. Goodbar mishaps to give me pause. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 3 rating, cinnamon, general mills, non cereal, toast crunch. 3 Comments