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 →
Change is what forced out totally believable, badass bad guys like Grand Moff Tarkin in favor of obnoxiously nasally Disney spinoff characters.
Change made McDonald’s French fries less irresistible, banished Oreo O’s to Korea (the good one), and turned fifth grade gym classes of army dodgeball into sixth grade gym classes of badminton. Bad-freaking-mittens.
I have a contentious relationship with change, especially when I’m holding up the line at the grocery store because I’m three pennies short of the $1.88 I need to buy a box of Froot Loops.
“Oh. Just take it.”
I grin at the pimply-faced high schooler behind the register at Weis. I have a strong desire to pull my resident old-man card and reminiscence on my own days working through that hell on earth we call “summer jobs,” but then again, I’ve already gotten my blast from the past for one day. Besides, no one wants to relive Kmart at $7.25 an hour. Trust me.
Modern man may have relegated the greatest cartoons of all time to fuzzy YouTube videos, but it’s good to know that Toucan Sam and Froot Loops still get a place on the endcaps of grocery store aisles. This is one cereal that I can count on, obnoxiously large beaked mascot and all.
I’m glad Raisin Bran Granola is here to keep me moving. No, not that kind of moving, though it does boast 24% of my daily recommended fiber per serving.
No, I mean moving moving. While I may look like a hip and spry youngster, as soon as I pour my morning bowl of Raisin Bran cereal and cup of coffee, I become about as old and slow as Benjamin Button was at my age.
Like a grandpa with his newspaper, I ponder every raisin like there’s a Nietszche quote written in its wrinkles.
But now that Kellogg’s has debuted two flavors of Raisin Bran Granola (this one and Cranberry Almond) in convenient on-the-go pouches, I feel obligated to leave my cereal bowl behind, go climb mountains, and gaze into abysses that will gaze also into me.
Marshmallows have invaded almost all of our classic cereals, from Froot Loops to Fruity Pebbles and now Frosted Flakes. What’s next, Limited Edition Lucky Charms with an additional marshmallow stuffed inside the center of every existing marshmallow?
I suppose I shouldn’t complain until I try these new Frosted Flakes with Marshmallows. They were spotted at Meijer by Owen C. (thanks, Owen!), along with Kellogg’s recently debuted Raisin Bran Granolas.
But enough about the cereal. Can we talk about that Tony the Tiger? Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t really dig the outdated CGI look. This poor, polygonal Tony looks like he got lost on the way to a Jimmy Neutron audition.
More accurately, I’d say he belongs in a late generation Nintendo 64 platformer. That might not be a compliment to his looks, but hey: if we somehow get a cereal video game out of this deal, I’ll forgive Tony for his cringe-worthy tweets.
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I wish Kellogg’s two new “Soda-licious” Pop-Tarts (Crush Orange and A&W Root Beer) were released in 2020.
Why?
Because that’s when the new Godzilla vs. Kong film is set to debut, and these two flavors would be the perfect movie tie-in. I can see it now: Kong’s Gorilla Sarsaparilla Pop-Tarts vs. Godzilla’s Atomic Crush Orange Pop-Tarts.
That “Atomic” label is especially appropriate, because as I quickly found out when eating these toaster pastries, Kellogg’s didn’t just go orange. They went explosively radioactive orange.Continue reading →
I’m glad I’m finally mature and intelligent enough to eat Kellogg’s new “Soda-Licious” A&W Root Beer Pop-Tarts.
Back when I was a kid, I never drank root beer without parental supervision. See, opening the fridge and seeing the word “beer” would immediately fill me with fear that I’d get clobbered for having accidentally sipped some forbidden alcoholic elixir.
Of course, I can laugh at my childhood illiteracy now, just like how I laugh at my dumb childhood self for eating the brown paper layers on Reese’s Cups. I didn’t know they were there, I swear!
Now it’s time to redeem myself by eating far too many artificially root beer-flavored, frosted and sprinkled sugar rectangles. Because everyone knows the best kind of redemption ends in a shameful food coma. Continue reading →
(UPDATE: My review of Raisin Bran Raisin & Honey Granola can be found here!)
Oh say can you Krispie?
In a new product announcement this week, Kellogg’s provided a sneak peek at three upcoming breakfast foodstuffs of particular interest to this blog.
First is the above pair of Raisin Bran granola flavors. Sure, Raisin Bran Crunch may already have succulent honey granola clusters, but now we get a whole bag of them. Although the granolas will apparently include puffed rice and crispy bran flakes, too, I like to imagine a far off factory where existing Raisin Bran Crunch has its raisin and granola filtered out, leaving behind mounds of unwanted bran flakes that are ultimately used as housing for displaced woodland creatures.
The other, Cranberry Almond, appears to play off the dubious success of Kellogg’s Raisin Bran with Cranberries cereal. While this is all well and good for bran ‘n’ cran fans, I personally wish we’d get the return of my long lost Cinnamon Almond Raisin Bran instead.
Image via Kellogg
The next announce product was Red & Blue Rice Krispies. Nothing revolutionary flavor-wise, but the bizarre box art of Snap, Crackle, and Pop in full Independence Day gear is compelling enough to make me want it.
From Snap, who looks like your NASCAR-obsessed uncle, to Crackle, who is showing much more arm than usual, all the way to Pop and his gravity-defying hat, this box art belongs in a post-modern art gallery with some pretentious name like “Americana Marshmallow-topia.”
Image via Kellogg
Finally, we have the return of two new “Soda-Mazing” Pop-Tarts we already knew about. A&W Root Beer and Orange Crush promise plenty of classic soda flavor in sugary goo stuffed rectangular pastries. Since these flavors are so exciting, I’m willing to forgive Kellogg’s for not using the real term for the drinks. “Pop Pop-Tarts” has a much better ring to it, and for all doubting the legitimacy my midwestern slang, I ask you this question: they’re not called Snap, Crackle, and Soda, are they?
No word on exact release dates for any of these products, but feel free to discuss which ones you’re excited about in the comments below.
I have seen into the future, fellow breakfast lovers. And let me tell you, the world of tomorrow is weird.
Get this: in 50 years, all solid foods will be liquids, and all liquid foods will be solids! At dinner, we’ll nibble on chewy orange juice frittata slices for an appetizer, enjoy the hearty and tender roast Coca-Cola main course, and treat ourselves to Grandma’s old fashioned skim milk pie for dessert. Oh, and we’ll wash it all down with glasses of the finest carbonated mutton.
When I asked the flavor wizards of the future how this revolution came about, their answer was unanimous: “It all started with Kellogg’s Frosted Pink Lemonade Pop-Tarts!”
That’s right: before me sits a classic beverage in toaster pastry form. Along with their soon-to-come A&W Root Beer and Orange Crush Pop-Tarts, Frosted Pink Lemonade is leading Kellogg’s “Summer of Synesthesia” series (my name, not theirs).
Let’s see if these pastries can make me feel the summer sun as I sit here drenched and cold from a leftover April shower that apparently doesn’t own a darn calendar.
