Tag Archives: cerealously

Tribute Review: Neopets Islandberry Crunch Cereal (2006)

Today is Cerealously’s second birthday, marking 731 days to the day since I decided to share my odd Oreo O’s obsession and weird Waffle Crisp compulsion with all of you dear readers who for some reason put up with me.

But instead of filling this post with sentimental blubber (though there might be time for that after 1200 words of blubbering about Kacheeks), I instead wanted to celebrate by sharing a piece of cereal history that’s very important to me: Neopets Islandberry Crunch cereal! Remembered by few and remembered as good by far fewer, this 2006 General Mills cereal paired the virtual pet franchise with purple and maroon puffs flavored like mixed berries.

Since licensed cereals are a dime a baker’s dozen, I’ll have to do a little time traveling deep into the foreboding fathoms of my own memory to explain Islandberry Crunch’s significance. Fasten your seatbelt, friends: even Wonka’s boat ride couldn’t get this bizarre.

(If you just want to see the cereal, keep scrolling ’til you see mummified corn spheres.) Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: cerealously, general mills, tribute. 15 Comments

Mar. ’17

Happy National Cereal Day 2017: Dan’s Top 5 Obscure Cereal Mascots

Finally: now that all those Hallo-Thanks-‘mas-New-Valen-hog things are over, we can celebrate the real most wonderful time of the year.

That’s right, it’s March 7th: National Cereal Day! Today’s our day, breakfast lovers. A day when we can run a shoe buffer over our favorite shiny spoon, eat Cocoa Puffs for every meal plus dessert (which we were going to do anyway), and make fun of health-conscious cereal haters—because you don’t see kale smoothies getting their own national holiday, do you?

As usual, the Lucky Charming, Cinnamon Toasting folks at General Mills gifted me an awesome, retro-themed National Cereal Day care package. With a sturdy cereal bowl and t-shirt celebrating this holiday’s “OGs,” a suite of cereal boxes, an actual Rubik’s Cube, and more holographic plastic squiggles than their are permutations of a Rubik’s Cube, this care package is as wholesome as it is bowl-some.

Last year I celebrated National Cereal Day by counting down my favorite cereals of all time. As March 7th approached and my calendar’s ink started running under the worried grip of my sweaty mitts, I wasn’t sure how to follow this for Cerealously’s second year on the world wide web. But after looking at General Mills’s included “fun fact” sheet, it dawned on me: Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: cap'n crunch, cerealously, general mills, kelloggs, national cereal day, quaker, rice krispies. Leave a comment

Dec. ’16

Cerealously’s Top 5 New Cereals of 2016!

Hold it right there, 2016: you may be a largely hated year, but I’m not letting you leave just yet.

No year is complete without a year in review list. And while many people prefer to detail the most buzz-worthy news stories, the “earwormiest” chart-toppers, or the funniest videos featuring frisky and/or fiendish felines, I’m just going to tell you what I believe were the 5 best new cereals this year. So if you have time between your New Year’s cheers to read about pink Cheerios, this list is for you.

While taste is definitely a defining factor in my rankings, keep in mind that innovation, packaging, and nostalgic whimsy will all be taken into account, too. 2015’s winner, JIF PB&J Cereal, swept the vote based on elementary school lunchtime memories alone—even though it did taste pretty darn good, too.

So without further ado, let’s count down as the ball—or should I say bowl—drops. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: cap'n crunch, cerealously, cheerios, holiday, nature valley. 2 Comments

Dec. ’16

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays from Cerealously!

If you squint, it almost actually looks sort of a little like Santa Claus.

I just wanted to take this chance to formally wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, from both me and ol’ Crunch Kringle up there. I’m eternally thankful for all you readers who make this site worth writing for—especially those of you dedicated enough to check Cerealously on Christmas!

It’s a welcome week of relative relaxation for all of us, but rest assured I’ll be furiously taste testing and tip-tapping within days: from bite-sized Girl Scout cookies to spicy gravel, there are a lot of great cereals on the horizon.

So whether you spend this day making Cap’n Crunch chicken strips,* mowing down gingerbread men, or just chilling by the fire—the coziest oxymoron—make it a merry one. If you need something to read over breakfast, second breakfast, or the much-beloved “midnight breakfast,” here’s a collection of this winter’s hottest reviews so far: some are from me, others are from friends of the site.

Cinnamon Star Crunch

Cap’n Crunch’s Christmas Crunch (2016)

Trader Joe’s Gingerbread Everything (via Junk Banter)

Little Debbie Eggnog and Candy Cane Cake Rolls (via Snack Cellar)

2016’s Hottest Holiday Junk Food (via Dinosaur Dracula)

Krispy Kreme’s “One Day Only” Pumpkin Spiced Glazed Doughnut (via Sometimes Foodie)

*If you do make these, be sure to ship one straight to my P.O. box and/or mouth.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: cerealously, holiday. 1 Comment

Jul. ’16

Happy 1st Birthday, Cerealously!

Today marks the one year anniversary of July 5th, 2015: the day I woke up in a post-potato salad & fireworks daze and decided it’d be a good idea to launch a website about breakfast cereal. Call me sentimental, but looking back on it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

Or maybe that’s just yesterday’s potato salad again.

365 days, 133 reviews, thousands of kind readers, and countless happy calories later, Cerealously is still alive and kickin’ it: no sugar crash here. I’ve had the chance to taste some cereal-ously tasty stuff (it’s my birthday, I’m allowed to make lazy, self-referential puns), as well as a few that really tested my taste buds. I wanted to give a better visualization of this past year’s reviews, so I went back, tallied the scores, and made this:

As you can see, I love cereal: so much so that I have a hard time giving below average scores. But it isn’t just cereal contained in that Honey Nut Cheerios-colored graph, either. Those bars also represent the many Pop-Tarts, cereal bars, oatmeal, granola, and yes—even Taco Bell Cap’n Crunch Delights—that I stuffed in my face, all in the name of showing the public what makes breakfast so “grrreat!”

For those wondering, the lone “1 rating” in there is from when I ate a 3-year old box Frute Brute. Sometimes I still taste its stale ghost haunting my cereal bowl.

Since there are so many cool things in this first year to look back at, I thought I’d do a good ol’ fashioned countdown of my “Favorite Five Blog Entries from Year 1.” So without further ado, let’s relive 365 days in the course of 5 unnecessarily rambling blog posts. Click any of the titles to read the full thing: Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: cerealously. 9 Comments

Jun. ’16

Cerealously Visits the 2016 Battle Creek Cereal City Festival!

It was like wandering through a desert, with only oases of milk and sugar to keep me alive.

Hold on, let me catch you up on the narrative. Each year in their home city of Battle Creek, Michigan, Kellogg’s and Post temporally set their cereal aisle rivalry aside to put on an annual Cereal City Festival, complete with entertainment, vendors, and most importantly, unlimited free cereal and Pop-Tarts!

As a Michigan native and cereal zealot, I make the pilgrimage every year. While most just come for a free breakfast, I bop and bounce around the streets like an excited anthropomorphized pinball, annoying all passerby with my unexpected enthusiasm for cereal.

But back to the desert of thinly disguised desserts. While last year’s Cereal City Festival was overcast, drizzly, and cold, Cereal City Festival 2016 promised nothing but blue skies and temperatures so sweltering that I nearly melted into my leather seats and became a horrifying half-man, half-seat monster.

They would have called me “Helter Swelter” on the news. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: cereal city, cerealously, kelloggs, malt-o-meal, post, ralston, special. 4 Comments

Dec. ’15

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Cerealously!

Oh boy, my hands are covered in so much sticky coconut oil after assembling that photo, but it was worth it. For all of you!

And while I’m sure most of you are rightfully too deep into your personal oceans of eggnog, presents, and merriment to bother reading a silly blog about cereal, if you happen to be reading this, please allow me to extend my warmest wishes to you and your families this holiday season.

With this comes a very sincere “thank you,” too. I started this blog earlier this year, and as 2015 comes to a close, I’m eternally grateful for the growth this site has experienced and all the people who have (somehow!) enjoyed my pointless rantings, ravings, awful puns, and obscure references.

It’s all of you readers that make doing this worthwhile, and it’s because of you and your sharing of this site that Cerealously will keep crunching and munching happily through the end of 2015, into 2016, and beyond!

So with that, I’ll leave you to your cookies, turkey, and fruit cake that won’t be touched until mid-February when it somehow starts acquiring sentience.

If you feel like having a lazy afternoon/evening/night/entirety of 2016 and want something to read, here are some links to all the holiday or winter cereals we reviewed this year. And if you want to discuss the holidays, your favorite cereal, what you got for Christmas, or even just what your favorite discontinued ’80s snack food is, the comment section is always open. Enjoy!

Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch

Holiday Sprinkles Cookie Crisp

Trader Joe’s Cranberry Gingerbread Granola

Froot Loops with Winter Blast Marshmallows

Trader Joe’s Organic Triple Ginger Instant Oatmeal

Cap’n Crunch’s Christmas Crunch

Rice Krispies with Holiday Colors

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: cerealously, holiday. Leave a comment

Jul. ’15

News: Cerealously Wants Your Help!

As part of our corn and oat-based commitment to providing the latest and best in cereal news and reviews, Cerealously is seeking reader input!

Since we can’t be everywhere all of the time (or can we? Seriously, if you know a good omnipresence guy, hit me up with his phone number), we’re gonna rely on you (yes, that means you) to fill in our blindspots. And that means more than just spotting us when backing into a parking spot.

If you’re out shopping and see a cereal that is cool, new, or a combination of both (new-l?), don’t hesitate to snap a photo and send it to us. If we haven’t covered it yet, it may appear on the site (along with photo credit, of course) in one of our cereal news posts.

Additionally, if you have a favorite cereal, whether it’s new, classic, or even one you invented in your kitchen by mixing Crunchberries, Scooby-Doo fruit snacks, and orange soda (new from Nickelodeon: it’s Kenan & Kel cereal!) that you want reviewed for the site, send us that suggestion, too! We’d be more than happy to share in your favorite breakfast memories.

If you’re up to the challenge, just click on the big ol’ picture of Golden Grahams in this post (click, don’t lick; that’s one mistake that’s hard to explain to the repair guy at Best Buy). Or you can use the “Submit” link at the top of the site to send us something any time.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think it’s breakfast time (a.k.a. all the time).

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: cerealously. Leave a comment