Y’know, they say imitation is the sublimest form of flattery.
Yes, General Mills unleashed a mouthwatering downpour of new cereal news this week, and the twinkling, golden, Luciferianly tempting lightbringer leading the firestorm is CinnaGraham Toast Crunch: a game-changing union of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Golden Grahams that pairs the former’s sweet cinnamon sugar swirls with the latter’s hearty honey base grain.
To be honest, I’d’ve preferred if GM made this a variant of Golden Grahams instead of a Toast Crunch. I totally understand how CTC has more cult appeal, but poor Golden Grahams never gets limited edition variants, whereas there are enough members of the Toast Crunch family to start a mafia, inspire an Ancestry.com commercial, and clean out an Olive Garden.
Nevertheless, I’m both super excited to eat CinnaGraham Toast Crunch and super excited to try taking credit for its existence. See, CinnaGraham Toast Crunch is a clear copycat of Post’s Honey Maid Cinnamon Graham Cereal, a cereal I praised so highly on both this blog and our podcast that it became my clear Cereal of the Year for 2020. And since Cinnamon Graham Cereal was so hard to find for many people, and since I know some General Mills employees read my stuff, I can only conclude that all my Honey Maid hullabaloo inspired GM to steal a slice of that particular graham-crusted pie.
Or at least, that’s what I tell myself to help sleep at night. Please don’t ruin the fantasy.
But oh, that’s not nearly all, folks. Also in GM’s January 2022 new cereal lineup is Reese’s Puffs Cluster Crunch. Much like Golden Grahams, Reese’s Puffs rarely sees any formula diversification.
And this Cluster Crunch isn’t exactly an exception. Ostensibly, the stuff’s chocolate and peanut butter flavor will be the same, just with a crispier, crunchier texture. I can’t say I’m too thrilled about this one: Lucky Charms also tried a clustered approach earlier this year, and that abysmally airy dreck is on track to be 2021’s Worst Cereal. However, the main problem there was an oat-based cereal like LC downgrading to corn clusters. Reese’s Puffs has always been a corn puff cereal, so I can’t imagine this Cluster Crunch changing anything but the mouthfeel.
Which is a good segue into a very hot take of mine: there’s nothing that Reese’s Puffs—clustered or otherwise—does that Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios doesn’t do so much better with its dense oat base.
Well, except for “release ridiculously expensive RC yachts that get scalped faster than a speedboat down a log flume.”
A bit less flashy, but no less appetizing are these upcoming Strawberry Banana Cheerios. Keeping the spirit of Urkel O’s alive, SB Cheerios combines the pure and straightforward goodnesses of Strawberry Cheerios and Banana Nut Cheerios to produce a cereal that’ll be a clear winner without even really trying. In fact, I can already see myself making cute little yogurt popsicles studded with these rings.
[Note: I say “see myself” in the “dreamy hypothetical ideal Pinterest world” way. Not in the “actually getting off my lazy buns” way.]
….aaand the rest pic.twitter.com/kl0BJ4YqNy
— Cerealously 🥛🥣 (@cerealouslynet) November 15, 2021
In addition to these thrilling three, GM is also dropping a dull fruity PJ Masks Cereal, two Nut Butter-flavored Plentifull cereals, and a line of Keto-friendly granolas. Of these, the only promising pair is the Plentifulls. Releasing in both Peanut Butter and Cinnamon Almond Butter varieties, Plentifull may have boring branding, but its coated flakes with nut & seed clusters look rich and weighty enough to make my soul sound like the Chuck E. Cheese Ticket Muncher out of sheer hungry anticipation.
Keep an eye out for all these new cereals, coming January 2022, as well as earlier reviews of whatever samples I can get my graham-grubbing mitts on.