22

Jul. ’21

News: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Popcorn & Cocoa Puffs Popcorn

New Cinnamon Toast Crunch Popcorn

Corn this, corn that: we get it, Big Cereal, you love corn. We might as well call you stalkers (get it?), what with the putting corn in our beloved, formerly oat-based cereals and now cereals in our popped corn. General Mills? More like…Colonel Mills (get it??)!

Sorry, I’m just a jealous, oat-loving son of a gun who can’t quit bellyaching. In reality, there are plenty of fine corn-based cereals—Corn Flakes, for example, or Corn Pops, or Corn Crunch. Really any corn cereal that’s transparent about how corny it’ll be. Oh, and popcorn is good, too. There are even other cereal-flavored popcorns that have been good—darn good, I might even say. So this new Cinnamon Toast Crunch Popcorn, which is already out at Sam’s Club, is probably going to be pretty darn/dang/dunk(?) good, too.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CRoYDOLFQti/

As shared by Cereal Life, Cocoa Puffs Popcorn is also coming to Sam’s Club this fall, if it isn’t at your local SC already. I’m particularly tickled by the idea of Cocoa Puffs Popcorn, since Cocoa Puffs (unlike CTC) is already a corn-based cereal. That makes Cocoa Puffs Popcorn a strange recontextualization of the classic cuckoo-fronted cereal, from puffed corn to popped corn. Honestly, if there’s a salty element to this popcorn, it’ll probably taste better than its namesake cereal, which I’ve recently criticized for its “More Chocolatey” reformulation, which is in reality, less chocolatey.

Have your tried either of these popcorns yet? Let me know, because without a membership, I might be forced to attempt the most weirdly specific panhandling routine the Sam’s Club parking lot has ever seen.

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18

Jul. ’21

Review: Fruity Cereal Kit-Kat Bars

Fruity Cereal Kit-Kat Review - Wrapper

Aw, Fruity Cereal Kit-Kats? Gimme a break…

…fast! Because my sheer carnal desire to fangoriously devour more of these rosy rectangular prisms will require a total break from adult responsibility—nay, from reality altogether. Before even getting into it, yes: Fruity Cereal Kit-Kats are really good. I finally found them at Walmart, sold by the phat stack:

Sadly, these aren’t literal yard-stick length Kit-Kats, but are instead 12 snack-sized Fruity Cereal Kit-Kats lined up. Drat, right? Now when buying these there’s more impetus to share your bite-sized booty instead of just wielding one like a Kit-Kutlass.

But aye—I say, as this sudden spirit of swashbuckling similes washes over me—I shall delay this review no longer: it’s time to tell you why Fruity Cereal Kit-Kats have me hooked. Continue reading →

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16

Jul. ’21

The Empty Bowl Episode Fifty-Four: Purple Stuffed

Are your eyes getting weary? Perhaps your back is getting tight? Perhaps you’re even sitting here in traffic, on the Queensborough Bridge tonight?

Well, whatever burdens—sitcom-inspired or otherwise—may be weighing you down, assuage them with a new episode of The Empty Bowl: a soothing cereal podcast by myself and Justin McElroy that’s fit for a king of queens, a queen of kings, or even a jester for clowns.

As with every episode, we cover new cereal news, reviews, and a lil something extra. In this case, we’re talking Kellogg’s x Addams Family, CLIF Cereals, all things purple, and more!

If you’re tired of TBS reruns, you can find 53 other Empty Bowl episodes at our Anchor hub. You can also follow along on Twitter, or send in a listener question. We can’t discuss or respond to every email, but each one is like a high-five from Kevin James, delivered directly to our brains.

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12

Jul. ’21

Review: CLIF Cereals (x4!)

New Clif Bar Cereal Review

What’s your number?

No, I’m not asking for your phone digits, height & weight, or preferred prophetic angel number. Rather, what’s the most you’d be willing to pay for a new cereal? Depending on where you live, your typical breakfast boxful probably costs around $3-$4, or a little more for a family-sized brick of the stuff. Tipping the scales on the other end are indie/healthy cereals like Three Wishes and luxury products like Morning Summit, which seems to use its premium price point solely to earn PR—not unlike that silly I Am Rich app from the early iOS days.

Falling somewhere between average and exorbitant are premium cereals like LaraBar Cereal, KIND Bar Cereal, and now, yes, even CLIF Bar Cereals. I’m sure it’s only coincidence that trying all these bar-inspired cereals will cost you a veritable gold bar, but regardless, since they each cost about $7 a box, this is a morning investment worth researching first.

Thankfully, CLIF was kind enough to send me each of their four new cereal flavors, so I can tell you whether the steep price point is worth the sojourn. In other words, does the view justify the climb? Allow me to stake in my spoon and find out. Continue reading →

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07

Jul. ’21

Bite-Sized Review: New Cap’n Crunch Treats

New cereal pickings are getting slim here at Cerealously HQ. Guess I better go grocery aisle huntin’. Be back soon!

 

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01

Jul. ’21

Review: Cocoa Puffs Oatmeal

New Cocoa Puffs Oatmeal Review Box

Extra, extra, cold cereal-flavored hot cereal! Get your cold cereal-flavored hot cereal here! Hot off the cold milk-inspired presses!

Sorry, I just think it’s really funny that oatmeal, despite being a hot cereal by definition, rarely gets treated like one. Sure, I’m partially to blame, since I rarely review oatmeal despite considering it part of my blog’s oeuvre. Why is that? Well, partly because new oatmeals don’t often generate enough buzz or PR for me to notice them, partly because oatmeal is miserably hard to photograph in an attractive light, and partly, honestly, because I tend to be really bad at making it without the whole bowl getting runnier than an Oregon Trail marathon.

That said, General Mills’ new line of oatmeals inspired by some of their most iconic cereals is far too exciting to ignore. Lucky Charms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Trix, and Cocoa Puffs are all getting the hot mush treatment, but so far I’ve only been able to try the last of these. So for now, sit back as I go spoon deep in Sonny’s finest bowl of sweetly swollen oats. Continue reading →

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30

Jun. ’21

News: Monster Mash Fruit Snacks!

Monster Mash Fruit Snacks - Count Chocula, Franken Berry, Boo Berry, Frute Brute, Yummy Mummy Monster Cereals

 ♪ It was a graveyard smush! ♫

No, that’s not a typo: it’s a dumb pun, referring to a) the squishiness of these upcoming Monster Cereal fruit-flavored snacks, as well as b) the smushed state of any gravestone that dares bear the sheer squishy mass of ninety fruit snack pouches.

Seriously, these fruit snacks, discovered and kindly shared by Mikey H. on Sam’s Club’s site, are listed in four-pound boxes—no doubt big enough to serve as a fun-sized mausoleum. No word yet on whether Monster Mash Fruit Snacks—the sidecar to this Halloween’s massive menagerie of a Monster Cereal main event—are Sam’s Club exclusive and thus locked to such an insane per-box quantity, but hey, at just $9.98 (eleven cents a pouch!), maybe these are worth stockpiling. If nothing else, I’m sure they’re shelf stable long enough to outlast a Monster-pocalypse, and if not, they’ll probably ferment into Spooky Jungle Juice pouches you can stab with a straw, Capri-Sun style.

While Count Chocula, Franken Berry, Boo Berry, Frute Brute, and Yummy Mummy all have iconic flavors associated with their namesake cereals, these fruit snacks seem to mix things up a bit to fit their ambiguous “Spooky Berry” name. Franken Berry, usually strawberry, now appears to be strawberry, cherry, or fruit punch. Frute Brute, typically cherry, is probably lemony here. Boo Berry, in blue, will probably be as vaguely fruity as usual, while Yummy Mummy too will retain his recent orange pedigree. Count Chocula, in an understandable adaptation, looks like grape here instead of chocolate, and we even get a gelatinous green cameo from the Monster Cereal Castle. No idea what green is supposed to taste like, but since green Scooby-Doo fruit snacks were always my favorite, I can see this castle fruit snack giving the gummy Venus de Milo a run for her artisanal money.

No word yet on just when Monster Mash Fruit Snacks will be available, but I’m at least happy we have one more new thing to look forward to this fall, as the summer heat continues to turn my brain into a grey matter Fruit Wrinkle.

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27

Jun. ’21

News: Golden Grahams S’Mores Soft-Baked Bars

Golden Grahams Soft-Baked Bars

 

Cereals become bars, bars become cereal. Thus goes the modern breakfast lifecycle: entropy into order, cuboids into crumbles.

Yes, hot off the mountain-scaling heels of CLIF Cereal, Golden Grahams is bringing karmic balance to the bar–cereal continuum with a new S’Mores Soft-Baked Bar.

It’s the same type of treat treatment that Lucky Charms and Cinnamon Toast Crunch already got. Those were good—like pillowy cereal brownies—but personally, I’m betting Golden Grahams will do it even better, mostly because graham (and by extension, S’Mores) is an undefeated taste note in the breakfast aisle.

Golden Grahams Soft-Baked Bars are hitting stores as you read this, so let your eyes glaze over, your watering mouth spilleth over, and head over to your nearest Walmart for your best chance at finding these.

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