“I’ll have a s’more, please.”

“S’more? Some more what?”

Ever since Sir Lancelot first used his spear to skewer a medieval marshmallow over a fire (note to self: edit Wikipedia later to make this seem true), this same horrific joke has come to ruin countless summer bonfires like a punny plague, all because of that one guy who always thinks this joke is so funny. You know the one: smug grin, weird cutoff jean shorts, and everyone kinda wonders who even invited him.

Oh wait. That guy is me.

Either way, now when I’m not invited to bonfires, I can still enjoy my favorite summer treat thanks to the good people at MOM Brands cereal (also known as Malt-O-Meal). It’s called Madagascar S’mores Jungle Party, and it’s part of MOM’s (now my mother will think this review is yelling at her) new line of Dreamworks promotional cereals, which also includes Shrek Ogre O’s, Penguins Chocolate Mix, and Dragon Adventure Crunch.

But since those three are all just boring, cheap facsimiles of Froot Loops, Cocoa Pebbles, and Oops! All Berries, respectively, I chose S’mores Jungle Party to review as the odd man out.

Even though the cereal is also just a repackaging of MOM’s normal S’mores cereal, I can’t resist the chance to expose people to it. After all, now that S’mores Grahams and Smorz cereals have been dead longer than TyrannoS’moreus Rex (dibs on that for a band name), what other chance do consumers have to eat s’mores in morselized form with milk?

Krave S’mores? Maybe. But if I wanted to make s’mores that look like Pizza Rolls, I’d grab a jar of marshmallow fluff, a bag of Totino’s, and a syringe and do it myself.

The cereal itself is comprised of three parts: ridged honey graham squares, aerated chocolate corn puffs, and cute lil marshmallow niblets. Like some sort of cereal Triforce, each brings its own power to the breakfast table in order to form an impressive whole.

The graham squares are like the troubled child of Golden Grahams and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. They have a modest crunch which quickly goes limp in milk. Their taste is like a slightly more cardboard-y Golden Graham, but its sparkly powder dusting disguises this with a brown sugar-like sweetness.

On the surface, the choco-puffs are the most boring of the bunch. They taste like someone took a Cocoa Puff and sucked out half of its volume to make it “more aerodynamic.” Their light cocoa taste is pleasant, but incredibly fleeting as they dissolve away into corny-tasting nothingness within seconds.

The wee ‘mallow chunks have a gritty, almost chalk-like mouthfeel, and their taste is mostly just sugar, with a hint of vanilla. And unlike the “blink and you’ll miss ’em” choco-puffs, these marshmallows like to wedge themselves into the deepest crevices of your teeth, pitch a tent, and make a home for themselves (I’m imagining this as a sitcom premise).

So if all these sound so meh, why did I like S’mores Jungle Party so much? Because when these three talismans of power come together, the result is charming, to say the least. Like an actual s’more, the woodsy graham squares’ richness acts as a platform, with the dueling flavors of dark cocoa and light vanilla melding together inside.

The end result isn’t that much like a real s’more, simply because it doesn’t have the tender smokiness of a bonfire’s warmth to goo it all up together (sorry if that sounds like something out of a s’more romance novel; I hope you put the kids to bed before reading it).

But what it does have is milk as the great binding agent, turning the goodness of the three crunchy parts into one marvelous (s’morevelous?), mushy mass. And trust me, “marvelous mushy mass” is actually a compliment.

The final flavor reminds me of Ritz Bitz S’mores, and since that is in my personal top 10 childhood snacks (remember when they put Simpsons faces on them? Good times!), it’s enough for me to write books about my love for this cereal.

Or maybe I’ll just finish that s’mores romance novel. S’more Amor, perhaps?

The Bowl: Madagascar S’mores Jungle Party

The Breakdown: Each piece is boring (s’moring? Okay, I’ll stop) on its own, but together they create a reasonable, albeit artificial-tasting replacement for a s’more that you can justify eating for breakfast.

The Bottom Line: 8 unnecessary s’more puns out of 10