Review: Toy Story 4 Carnival Berry Cereal

I’ll be honest, even though it’s been out for over a week, Toy Story 4 has not yet graced my ideas. It’s not (entirely) about it being an unnecessary sequel, and more about how I have to pee so often during movies that it leaves massive plot holes in my memory if the staff refuse to pause it for me.

And yes, I did once try to slip out to the restroom during The Last Jedi, accidentally opened the door to outside, and bathed the theater in an embarrassing flood of blinding hyperspace.

But here in the comfort of my own home, I can find cinematic relief through open relieving—all while eating cheap cereal instead of $11 kids’ snack boxes (the gummies are just so good!). So as I crack open a box of Toy Story 4 Carnival Berry Cereal, I’m forced to interpret the plot based entirely on this sensory breakfast experience.

So far all I’ve garnered is that during the film, the toys are blessed (or cursed?) with the ability to sprint across empty air—even in a five-alarm red void. Let’s hope the taste features more character development…

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Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 2 rating, kellogg's, movie cereals. 1 Comment

Jun. ’19

Review: Malt-O-Meal & Cold Stone Creamery’s Cookie Doughn’t You Want Some?

Look, I’m all for cool (especially the literally cool) cereal collaborations, but I’m sensing an ulterior motive with this one.

Malt-O-Meal & Cold Stone Creamery’s Cookie Doughn’t You Want Some? is the latest in their ice cream cereal series, after Birthday Cake Remix and Our Strawberry Blonde. And it has to be a secret social experiment by Post (M-O-M’s parent company) to see just how long they can make a cereal’s full, legal name before they drive snacky journalists wacky.

Well to that I say, nice try, but I’ll just turn it into an ugly acronym that actually takes more exertion to craft than typing it out.

So I know I really buried the lead here, but M-O-M&CSCCDYWS? is making a bold statement by claiming it contains cereal pieces actually flavored like cookie dough (while pairing them with marshmallows, but I doubt anyone in today’s marbit-fatigued zeitgeist really cares about that). There’s been little creativity in the chocolate chip cookie cereal scene as of late, ever since Keebler Cereal and its tragically puff-smothered cookie bits keeled over. That’s why there’s a lot riding on Cookie Doughn’t You Want Some? to be more than just another Cookie Crisp chaser.

Now that I’ve told my spellcheck’s autocapitalization settings to not even bother, I can answer the in-sentence question Cookie Doughn’t You Want Some? exists to ask:

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Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, caramel, chocolate, ice cream, malt-o-meal. Leave a comment

Jun. ’19

Review: Peanut Butter Chex Cereal

Ever play Mario Kart? From Toadette to Bowser and every Birdo in between, the characters have three broad weight classes: light, medium, and heavy. Modern Chex cereals follow a very similar model, with each choosing to use a rice, corn, or wheat base, respectively.

Now I’m not saying that Donkey Kong would ever trade bananas for Wheat Chex, nor that there should to be a Chex Quest Kart in which Fred Chexter and various Flemoids do sick drifts through the Caverns of Bazoik—but it is very important that the respective density of each Chex variety complements the flavor glazed upon it.

For example, Blueberry Chex‘s rice base makes for great high-velocity munching, but the vaporous nature of the grain doesn’t ideally suit the equal subtleties of blueberry flavoring. That’s why when Peanut Butter Chex was announced with a Corn Chex base, I was excited to get my cob-nobbing mitts on a box. General Mills was kind enough to send me one, so it’s time to butter up and eat these babies rotary style.

(Those heathens who prefer to eat corn on the cob “typewriter” style are free to try and change my mind in the comments.) Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 9 rating, chex, general mills, peanut butter. 3 Comments

Jun. ’19

Spooned & Spotted: Cap’n Crunch’s Hero Crunch

What better way to celebrate the Fourth of July than with the Fourth patriotic Cap’n Crunch box to come out in the past two years?

Personally, I never expected last year’s mythically rumored and inscrutably unavailable Freedom Crunch to spread its wings once more, but now it’s reprinting its same red, white, and blue Crunch Berries like they’re state quarters.

This year, we saw the concept return in a milder, more bottle rocketed form, and just this month, we saw it debut with perhaps its most creative art yet—one that ditches the Cap’n’s stink eye in favor of one that borders on a Crunch-led assault against Independence Day alien invaders.

Finally, we have the above, Dollar General-exclusive Hero Crunch. This is perhaps the most bizarre case of an unnecessary product variant I’ve seen in four score and seven years, between the militant (and likely ineffective) camouflage and the unadorned Cap’n whose arm appears to be reverberating through space and time.

I mean c’mon, couldn’t they have at least given him a ghillie suit?

Our thanks to Gabe Fonseca for the photo. You can find Hero Crunch now at Dollar General—if it doesn’t blend into the shelves.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: cap'n crunch, holiday, quaker, spooned & spotted. 4 Comments

Jun. ’19

The Empty Bowl Episode Fourteen: Duped by Tapioca?

How does a meditative cereal podcast tackle what is perhaps the most fundamentally stressful cereal news story of the past year—if not past decade? Through the sentimental lenses of turquoise-tinted glasses.

Yes, on my and Justin‘s latest dive into the Cereal Milk Fountain of Youth, we break down the devastating breaking-down of a Kellogg’s classic, attempt to express cotton candy flavor in adjectives, and compare the parallel comforting energies of cereal/Grandma’s house.

Want to turn your workday into a Saturday morning? You can find more cereal sojourns at our Anchor hub, follow along on Twitter, or send in a listener question. We can’t discuss or respond to every email, but some do get stuck in my head like a good song.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: empty bowl. 1 Comment

Jun. ’19

Spooned & Spotted: South Korean RED Oreo O’s!

If you read yesterday’s review of Mega Stuf Oreo O’s and were equally miffed by its tepid take on the Oreo cookie’s fantastically vast sea of cereal possibilities, then I’ve got some good news for you—from across the widest ocean.

Perhaps sensing a disturbance in the cosmic balance of Oreo O goodness, the South Korean makers of the world’s finest sandwich cookie cereal have emerged from their hermetic caves of creativity with a new flavor worthy of the Seal of Oreo Imagination.

Channeling Taylor Swift, these new Oreo O’s dub themselves only as RED, leaving the breakfaster to interpret whether they are flavored with strawberries or the ichor of the Oreo O’s mascot’s vanquished enemies—whom he has presumably leveled with a milk tidal wave caused by a seismic body slam.

Not only are the omnipresent marshmallows tinted a charming rose-quartz, but the thick Oreo O rings—which you’ll notice are far different than America’s Oreo O’s—also bear clusters of red blood cells instead of white.

But wait, that’s not all! Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: international, oreo o's, post, strawberry. 3 Comments

Jun. ’19

Review: Mega Stuf Oreo O’s

Has the Stuf-ification of society reached a creamily critical mass? Has the waxing trend of ascetic minimalism led cookie fans to ditch their earthly possessions and irrational need for continually and ridiculously escalating Stuffiness?

As we discussed on the latest Empty Bowl episode, all the gimmick Oreos in the world still can’t hold up against the O.G. version—except for Oreo Cakesters, of course, but that’s a topic for another time…or an entire dedicated fan site. So while I’m beyond happy that new Mega Stuf Oreo O’s bring the cereal back to its Extreme Creme glory days, I have to keep in mind these changing cultural conceptions surrounding Stuf. It appears crispy chocolate is eclipsing buttery goo in popularity once more, putting Mega Stuf Oreo O’s to the ultimate test of modernized–retro willpower.

(Just know that whether this cereal flounders or not, human records will forever have this 3000-pixel wide HD Oreo Cakester photo.)

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Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 6 rating, oreo o's, post. Leave a comment

Jun. ’19

News: Spidey Berry Pop-Tarts Are Swinging Into Stores!

♪ Spidey Berry, Spidey Berry, likely made by some dude named Gary.
Filled with goo, and maybe fruit; this blogger’s in, hot pursuit.
Look out, here comes the Spidey Berry! ♪

Just like Marvel’s sequel-happy universe, the Spider-Man Pop-Tart canon just keeps expanding. First we saw the 2002, Tobey Maguire-era Spidey-Berry Pop-Tarts, which featured a Wildberry filling perfect for a post-Pizza Time dessert. Then for 2012’s Amazing Spider-Man movie, we got YUM-AZING Vanilla. Now as Spider-Man: Far From Home is hitting theaters, Kellogg’s is rebooting Spidey-Berry into a hyphen-less version that trades the Wildberry for a comparatively less interesting Raspberry filling.

(Is Raspberry anyone’s favorite Pop-Tart? If so, you may have been bitten by a radioactively malevolent Raspberry Pi AI.)

What is more interesting is the printed icing, which can apparently be scanned through you phone to unlock an “online adventure,” hopefully one worthy of Mysterio’s own illusions. My excitement over this features stems entirely from the box’s prompt to “SCAN YOUR TART,” a three-word phrase that, on its own, has definitely never been written before, but which also references a single Pop-Tart as a Tart, something I’d never expect from a big, trademark-consistency-protecting company like Kellogg’s.

So while there’s nothing flavorfully new about Spidey Berry Pop-Tarts, already available online and in stores, the fact that breakfast is now a digital commodity means that we’re one step closer to summoning holographic monsters by sliding a Pop-Tart into a Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Disk.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: kellogg's, movie cereals, pop-tarts. 1 Comment