♪ We’re talkin’ cereal!
The Cap’n, Snap and Crackle.
Talkin’ cereal!
The Count and Franken Berry.
Toucan Sam, Trix Rabbit, and Buzz Bee! ♫
Sorry, readers. Cap’n Crunch’s new HomeRun Crunch just has me singing a tune because I love cereal and baseball so much. Oh, don’t get me wrong: I don’t like playing baseball. I have worse coordination skills than a mandatory elementary school choir concert.
But I do like going to baseball games, because it gives me an excuse to eat a hot dog with one hand, a cone of cinnamon almonds with the other, and a second hotdog that I have precariously balanced on the crook of my elbow.
Now thanks to the Cap’n, I can indulge in baseball-themed gluttony without being exposed to natural light, social interactions, and criminally overpriced Dippin’ Dots served from a cheap plastic baseball cap.
The gorgeous box art shows the Cap’n swapping his famous hat for a baseball helmet, though his eyebrows are conspicuously still attached. He appears to be smashing a full bowl of unspilled cereal out of the park, an impressive feat that defies physics and raises audience eyebrows way above their own hats.
The cereal inside is exactly like normal Cap’n Crunchberries, but with neon red and blue baseball bat & ball-shaped berries. Try saying that sentence five times fast with a mouthful of Big League Chew.
Here’s your full line-up of shapes. And here’s the first time I’ll be able to write the phrase “blue balls” without feeling childish.
The taste is no different than the Cap’n Crunchberries you’re used to. The golden chest pieces smack of buttery coconut oil, while the berries have a mystical tropical fruit flavor that scientists have spent years trying to describe.
After deciding that “candied cherry,” “hallucinogenic blueberry,” and “nuclear lime” aren’t accurate enough, these scientists have concluded that the only appropriate adjective for the taste of a Crunchberry is:
“Crunchberry-y.”
Milk is essential for amping up the sweetness and making sure the rough pieces don’t dig into your palate like a bowl full of cleats. The red and blue pieces also produce a cool lavender endmilk, like some royal punch that Justinian would serve at Byzantine luaus.
And that’s just what this cereal is: cool. Many have complained about the back of Cap’n Crunch boxes, which hasn’t changed since the 2008 Beijing Olympics, so it’s good to see some fresh art on this one. Amongst other things (including a cameo by the Quisp alien!), there’s a challenge to count “how many different balls you can find.”
I meant to keep track, but once I started counting eyeballs and the balls of people’s feet, I gave up. Maybe eight years from now, I’ll finally finish it.
Besides, this cereal is destined for greater childish shenanigans. See, the bat and ball pieces make for great action figure accessories.
Here we have Finn about to lob a screwball at Gigan, while Mac Tonight plays catcher. After an embarrassing strikeout, Gigan retires to the jacuzzi to wash his sorrows away. Even kaiju have bad games.
It’s hard not to recommend HomeRun Crunch. Quaker didn’t reinvent the diamond with this one flavor-wise, but the cereal’s release is well-timed. HomeRun Crunch tastes like summer. It tastes like having no responsibilities.
Saturday morning breakfast cereal is probably America’s second greatest pastime, so being able to enjoy the greatest and second greatest in a single bowl of cylindrical cyan sugar bits is enough to make HomeRun Crunch my summer 2016 MVP.
The Bowl: Cap’n Crunch’s HomeRun Crunch
The Breakdown: Besides the lack of new flavor and inherent unhealthiness, this colorful reimagining of a classic leaves me feeling like I rounded third base, even though I’m just gulping down my third bowl.
The Bottom Line: 9 redundantly recursive adjectives out of 10
(Quick Nutrition Facts: 100 calories, <1 gram of fiber, 11 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein per 3/4 cup serving)
*Special thanks to my friends in Pennsylvania who sent me this box. You know who you are!
Man, I just cant find this stuff in FL and I’m afraid I’ll be missing the limited time its on the shelves. Is this a regional thing?
Ahhhh….why ohhh why can’t Quaker Canada not Import these cereals here …we have regular Capn’…but thats it …yes it is very sad …gotta go and grab a kleEnex…
I am a big fan of your reviews. I’ve decided that with season 2 of Cereal Snob that I will be writing a review first and then filming it. And not to compete. Just so that I can have a betteridea of what’s going to happen in an episode before I film it. Doing them all on the fly, while magical in its own way isn’t as tight as I want them to be.
I wish you luck; writing regular reviews can become quite the undertaking! And thanks for being a fan!
You gotta love Quaker. Aside from Cap’n Crunchberries just being great all-around (I’ve often found the coconut oil contributes to an extra-crispy texture; likewise with the brown sugar) the company basically doesn’t come up with new stuff. It’s like, “yea, we are classic, we don’t need to change anything but the box art.”
I’m reminded of that with Quisp, which tastes exactly like Cap’n Crunch in a lot of ways yet only shows up in random stores once in a blue moon. Speaking of which, saw it at a local store just the other day.
Oh yeah, spotting Quisp is always like a celebrity sighting, even if I prefer the Cap’n, flavor-wise. Although to bring a counterpoint to your comment about Quaker’s unoriginality, they have brought us Sprinkled Donut Crunch, Caramel Popcorn crunch, and the rumored Orange Creamsicle Crunch.
Fair point via Cap’n’s new flavors. Sprinkled Donut Crunch is one of my favorites. I just mean that their other brands have settled in. When I was a kid they used to experiment with different Life varieties, and they even dumped Oh’s to Post (also a great cereal.) I’m not sure if it’s due to PepsiCo just not caring about the dry market (declining, mind you) or a brand confidence, but it’s worth mentioning.
That’s true. I’d love to see a Maple or Chocolate Life out there. Or maybe some new Corn Bran Crunch flavors; that cereal is an underrated gem!
Both were legit and regular buys during my high school days, when my mom thought they were the best balanced option between kids cereal crap and stuff that wouldn’t make my dad straight up fat during late night snack binges (TMI; sorry. But really, I still miss both.)
http://www.mrbreakfast.com/product_display.asp?productid=22
http://www.mrbreakfast.com/cereal_detail.asp?id=643
Maple & Brown Sugar Life began in 2008. It is great, one of my favorite cereals.
Was enjoying a good ol’ bowl of cap’n last week and just thought… “man… it’s nothings fancy and special ut way too good and such a shame you can’t get it here”… 🙂
I love capn’ crunch, but as you know i don’t like fruit loops, but we also had this little “conversation” about crunchberries beeing one of the most iconic us cereals and reading this review about them (i mean it’s crunchberries just with weird exclamation mark pieces ;)) let’s me wonder again if i would like the combination of honey and artifical fruit flavor even though i don’t like froot loops. ^^
And it brings me to the question, “are the berries in crunchberry similar in taste than froot loops?”
🙂
I don’t think Crunchberries are that comparable to Froot Loops. Froot Loops have a much more distinguishable “attempt” at fruit flavor, whereas Crunchberries are far oilier and fatty tasting.
You realize, that “oilier and fattier tasting” is not something that makes cereal automatically more appealing, or? xD
But it sounds like i really should try crunchberries, since it clearly is a different fruity taste compared to froot loops and even the slightest possibility of a good combination of my beloved cap’n crunchs with something amazing is worth another try at “fruity cereal” ^^
while we’re at it: how do trix and especially fruity pebbles play into this? meaning: were can you put them? Are they more froot loops (i think trix is but with a ball shape, though the new non artifically versions should be way different) or more crunchberry (i could imagine pebbles are, but then i think they have a taste of it’s own)?
I’m especially curious about fruity pebbles, since (and you already know that) coco pops (aka cocoa krispies) and rice krispies are one of my favorite cereals (probably because of the rice base ^^) and having this base shaped into flakes is something i always wanted to try. (just have to decide weather it will be chocolately or fruity xD)
I didn’t mean oilier in a bad way. Kinda like how greasy fast food is a sinful pleasure.
As for Trix, it’s way more genuinely fruity, especially now. Like you can actually identify the fruit it’s trying to imitate instead of the generic fake fruit of the others. As for Fruity Pebbles, I’m afraid I can’t go too in-depth, as it’s one of my least favorite cereals so I haven’t eaten too much of it lately. It really tastes more like fruity sugar than any actual attempt at fruit flavor.
a alright got it. “oilier” as in reeses puffs oily ^^
But that sounds like an interesting world of fruit cereal you got there… maybe i should give them another try ^^
Thanks btw for all your answers. You always help me A LOT to understand the cereal world that is kinda unreachable for me ^^
I really appreciate your efforts to answer those “stupid questions” of mine 🙂