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Sometimes I get more new products than my only-human schedule can handle. As much as I wish slingin’ snappy cereal soliloquies could be my full-time job, there aren’t always enough hours of the day to spew 600+ words about why a brick of shredded wheat reminds me of summer camp.

In those events, I’m happy to still say a few words on social media and amplify it here. Such is the case with Weird Beard Candle Company’s Saturday Morning Cartoons I & II air fresheners.

Peep the post embedded above for my thoughts, but suffice to say I liked these a lot more than the last cereal air freshener I got. While that spicy square is still spurting powderized fire inside my glove compartment, WBCC’s Froot Loops-themed nose flavor is keeping my nostrils youthful through every roundabout, while the sniffable Cap’n variety is keeping my kitchen whimsical.

I look forward to seeing how its odor interacts with a simmering pot roast’s. Thanks again to Weird Beard Candle Company!

The Bottom Line (I): 8 sedan-driving toucans out of 10

The Bottom Line (II): 8.5 Crunchatized timeshares out of 10

Fresh off of their Honey Smacks salmonella crisis, Kellogg’s is trying a more cultured approach to bringing bacteria into their cereals: frozen yogurt, colloquially known as froyo, and more sinisterly known as frogurt.

And it’s all happening at Menchie’s, one of a whole phylum’s worth of build-your-own, pay-by-weight froyo free-for-all joints that, while they may be waning in popularity, certainly aren’t wavering on creativity.

In the second cereal x frozen yogurt crossover we’ve seen this summer, Tony the Tiger—who conspicuously appears here in his old, not-uncannily-CGI’d design—is helping Menchie’s infuse his Cinnamon Frosted Flakes right into the very core of their pumped-up product.

Made with real cinnamon and presumably accompanied by an easily-underestimated tub of actual cereal pieces for sprinklin’, this promising flavor (officially and redundantly titled “Cinnamon Frosted Cereal made with Kellogg’s® Cinnamon Frosted Flakes) will likely still have to do a lot of work to pull people away from the chain’s multitude of other elaborate concepts.

COOKIES ‘N CREAM CHEESECAKE MADE WITH OREO® COOKIE PIECES froyo, anyone? (Their all caps, not mine)

Look for this taste in your local Menchie’s starting yesterday. And if you decide to mix gummy worms into it, please invite me to your funeral.

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I’ve always thought that the only way that an Orange Julius or a strawberry shake better could be better is if they crackled when you ate them. It would be so festive.

But now thanks to Snap, Crackle, & Pop, I can nearly realize my dream of carbonated milkshakes, as a pair of dessertified Rice Krispies Treats—Orange Cream and Strawberry Milkshake—have already been spotted on Target’s cereal sonar system, thanks to Snack Stalker and Candy Hunting.

Rice Krispies’ last attempt at sweet Treats ended up tasting like normal R.C.T.’s (not to be confused with Rollercoaster Tycoons) in festive but tasteless outfits. Nevertheless, I will retain a sense of reckless optimism, mostly because even if a Rice Krispies Treat isn’t the best, it’s still a buttery marshmallow mound that you can eat faster than—

Aaaaand the whole box is gone before you even bought it.

The world of bootleg sandwich cookies is well documented, even here on this blog, as I mocked Creme Betweens for being the kind of Oreo wannabe whose name you couldn’t even say aloud in middle school without getting a crowd of giggles and a detention.

But just as expansive is the world of cookies ‘n’ cream-flavored snacks that never secured the Oreo license, so they must instead annoy me not one but twofold as I return to the pantry to check whether the box spells it Cookies and/&/’n’/’n Cream/Creme/Crème.

Just as annoying is how rarely these Oreish snacks get the flavor right. With the exception of Pop-Tarts, most miss the mark on replicating Nabisco’s (literally) well-oiled sandwich cookie machine.

I first had high hopes for General Mills and Dippin’ Dots’ cerealized attempt at the flavor, but after the strangely balanced misstep of Banana Split Dippin’ Dots Cereal, I’m ready to enter this review with a dose of apprehension deeper than my Oreo milk glass.

It’s dunk or die, folks. Continue reading →

Everyone’s got that one friend. The one who, regardless of whether it’s a Chuck E. Cheese, a fancy Italian restaurant, or a WNBA game, will always order chicken tenders with fries, choosing a safe palate bet at the expense of every other higher risk, higher reward option.

Now Oreo O’s is being that friend.

No, not because they’re making a chicken nugget-flavored cereal, but because they chose the most milquetoast and (literally) vanilla Oreo flavor to cereal-ify out of a nearly bottomless bestiary of zany sandwich cookie flavors.

We could’ve had Mississippi Mud Pie Oreo O’s! The first cereal unspellable without a 3rd-grade geography education!

But I suppose this doesn’t mean Golden Oreo O’s will be bad—as an Oreo O’s diehard since childhood, I’m still excited my fav has been revived and now revitalized within a year. I may just have to sub in some real Oreo O’s if the taste has me saying “Uh Oh!”

Anyway, let’s untwist and lick this bag full of evolved wistfulness.

Continue reading →