Tag Archives: post

Review: New and Improved Alpha-Bits Cereal

The year is 20xx. Innovation is dead. No new cereals are ever released. Instead, every old brand keeps releasing “New and Improved” versions that buff their old selves with unnecessary flavor and cosmetic improvements.

Froot Loops now contains “100% more Froot Jooce” and comes in colors only visible to the hyper-photoreceptive mantis shrimp. Waffle Crisp is now just a box full of freeze-dried Belgian waffles—and the bag is made of intelligent, gelatinous maple syrup that can gain sentience when stored in certain climates. Cinnamon Toast Crunch just contains packets of wheat seeds, yeast, and cinnamon, with instructions for growing, harvesting, and baking your own miniature cinnamon toast.

As for Alpha-Bits? They now contain the letters of every alphabet, from English and Cyrillic to Egyptian hieroglyphics, Klingon, and whatever language the Bionicles spoke. Some also say that spiking a drop of blood into your morning bowl of Alpha-Bits will make them reveal the universe’s existential secrets.

But most agree that’s just ridiculous.

This revamped cereal revolution all started in 2017, as Cocoa Puffs, Krave, Honeycomb, and yes, Alpha-Bits, made a big hullaballoo about self-improvement. As a designated cereal emissary of the year 2017, I’m here to tell you whether Alpha-Bits actually followed through on their “new year, new me” promise, or if they’re just “new meh.” Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 2 rating, post. 197 Comments

May. ’17

Review: Honeycomb Cereal (Now with Bigger Flavor!)

Not since Andre the Giant menacingly knocked on the Honeycomb Hideout’s window have I been so geeked to eat a bowl of Honeycomb cereal.

Sure, the stuff has had fun flavor iterations—Strawberry, Chocolate, Cinna-Graham—and it even briefly got “Twisted Marshmallows” 3 years back in a decades-late attempt to capitalize on the “X-Treme Snax” movement of the radical ’90s. But it has also progressively lost its flavor, as not one, but two ill-received formula changes in the early 2000s left Honeycomb a squishy and styrofoam-y compared to the golden-smacked Golden God it was before the turn of the century.

All that BIG HONEY TASTE Andre had roared about went to go live on a bee farm upstate, so to speak.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4Vd6rv58gA

But this newly revamped Honeycomb boasts a “bigger flavor,” in a charming homage to those days when the cereal hung its hat on its humongous honey-ness. This change comes in the midst of a wider cereal flavor revolution, as Cocoa Puffs and Krave have added “50% more cocoa” and “more chocolate,” respectively. But while those two put an easy-to-measure qualifier on their taste changes, Honeycomb’s flavor is now simply “bigger,” which could either mean they added more honey or hired fatter bees.

Either way, I’m going to try them while I wait for my Giant sideburns to grow in. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Uncategorized. Tags: 6 rating, honey, post. 349 Comments

Feb. ’17

Review: Banana Bread Shreddies Cereal (From Post Canada)

Canada’s immigration website is about to crash again.

No, that wasn’t a politically motivated prediction—this blog is non-partisan, except for when it comes to the S’Mores Jungle Party. I just think that America’s northern neighbors are about to see a whole lot more hungry tourists once word gets out about Post’s new Canada-exclusive Banana Bread Shreddies Cereal.

See, the U.S. has a tragic drought of banana-flavored cereals. Sure, we have plenty of Banana Republic stores and enough bad ukulele covers of Jack Johnson’s “Banana Pancakes” to fill an audiobook, but if we want banana in our cereal, it’s oatmeal, Great Grains Banana Nut Crunch, or nothing. All the great banana breakfasts of our time, from 1981’s Banana Frosted Flakes to last year’s Minions Banana Berry Cereal, have left us for the great jungle in the sky where all bananas go when they grow brown and mushy.

And speaking of brown bananas, we’ve never had a strictly banana bread-flavored cereal. The cozy flavor of Grandma’s kitchen seems perfect for a bite-sized breakfast, which is why these Banana Bread Shreddies are sure to pique the curiosity of humans, monkeys, and Raffis everywhere.

So let’s renew our passports and peel open a box of it. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 9 rating, banana, canada, post. 8 Comments

Jan. ’17

Review: Pecan & Maple Brown Sugar Honey Bunches of Oats

Has Honey Bunches of Oats been taking lessons from Nintendo?

Because Nintendo is the master of releasing “upgrades” that are actually wholly new, entirely better products. The Nintendo Entertainment System and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The Game Boy and the Game Boy Advance. The Wii and the Wii U. Luigi and Waluigi. The list goes on.

Post must be studying in Mario’s dojo, because even though Pecan & Maple Brown Sugar Honey Bunches of Oats are billed as an “improved” version of their old Pecan Honey Bunches of Oats, I can already tell this new cereal’s going to render its predecessor totally obsolete.

Which is a good thing, because you can’t even buy Pecan Honey Bunches of Oats any more. How do I know? Because one look at Honey Bunches of Oats’s Facebook page reveals a dedicated legion of Pecan Honey Bunch lovers who continually mourn the loss of their dearly beloved, roasted nut-flavored breakfast product.

Well, let’s just hope this cult following approves of Pecan & Maple Brown Sugar Honey Bunches of Oats. Otherwise there might be a nutty Internet meltdown, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since 2016’s infamous Hostess Suzy Q fiasco. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 9 rating, honey bunches of oats, maple, post. 3 Comments

Jan. ’17

Review: Cinnamon Pebbles Cereal from Post

For someone who has allegedly sworn to keep his neolithic neighbor from sampling his cereal, Fred sure is holding that bowl of overflowing Cinnamon Pebbles dangerously close to a spoon-wielding Barney.

Could Post’s newest Pebbles cereal be tasty enough to settle eons-old breakfast rivalries? Is Barney secretly wearing pterodactyl slippers to get a silent jump on Fred’s mammoth bowl? Or has the cascading cinnamon stick over these lovable neanderthals’ heads inspired them to set their differences aside, as they realize that their prehistoric climate is about to be disrupted not by a meteor, but by an astronomically large spice tube?

Such questions may never be answered, unless Post releases a mail-away Cinnamon Pebbles Compendium. But there’s one question I can help answer right now: are Cinnamon Pebbles yabba-dabba-delicious? Or should they be left to prehistory, with their long-discontinued cousin: Cinna-Crunch Pebbles? Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 6 rating, cinnamon, pebbles, post. 19 Comments

Dec. ’16

A “Cereal Time” Holiday Viewing Party!

(Update, 12/26: Now that Cereal Time has sadly concluded, I plan to write a tribute to the series soon. Stay tuned!)

Warm the hearth, light up the tree, and fill a bowl of Cap’n Crunch with eggnog (it’s the holidays, you’ve earned it!).

Why? Because we’re unwrapping the four latest video presents in cereal wise man Gabe Fonseca’s YouTube series: Cereal Time! Every Cereal Time episode is stuffed with more fun and nostalgia than a re-gifted fruit cake is stuffed with…who knows what, because I’m not eating it. And this latest series of episodes is sure to make you merrier than a nativity scene salesman who received a surplus shipment of Jesus’s mother figurines.

Thank you, I’ll be here all week.

But enough Biblical puns: let’s have some cereal fun! Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: cereal time, kelloggs, post. Leave a comment

Dec. ’16

News: Cinnamon Pebbles Cereal is Coming January 2017!

(Image via Post Foods)

(Update: We reviewed Cinnamon Pebbles!)

It’s about time Post put Fred & Barney back squarely in the cardboard spotlight.

Yeah, yeah, I know: new Cinnamon Pebbles cereal, coming from Post in January 2017, sounds exciting and delicious and all, but the real news here is that the new cereal monarchy of Pebbles & Bamm-Bamm is finally over. While The Flintstones’ Fred & Barney still grace the front of Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Pebbles, those two rascally rugrats Pebbles & Bamm-Bamm always get to appear on new Pebbles cereals: from Sugar Cookie Pebbles to Poppin’ Pebbles and Marshmallow Fruity Pebbles.

Why? Do troglodytic infants statistically sell more cereal? Or does Pebbles think she has a contractual entitlement to every cereal featuring her name?

Either way, good ol’ Fred & Barn are here to stay: Post has already stated that Cinnamon Pebbles will permanently join Fruity and Cocoa on shelves. About 12 years ago, the brand released Cinna-Crunch Pebbles, but those quickly went the way of the dinosaur. The scientific jury is still out on whether poor sales or a grocery aisle meteorite pushed Cinna-Crunch Pebbles off shelves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R4EPI6jE7c

There are so many other unanswered questions, too. Even though the box says “Cinnamon Sweet Taste,” does the giant cinnamon stick on the front mean it will have some unique heat? Will Post reuse the same flavor formula from their discontinued cult favorite Mini Cinnamon Churros cereal? And with Cinnamon Pebbles suddenly competing with Kellogg’s brand new Cinnamon Frosted Flakes, will Cap’n Crunch and Jean LaFoote’s Cinnamon Crunch cereal return from the ’70s for an all-out cinnamon war?

Only time will tell. But I know one thing for sure: by the end of January, my New Year’s Resolutions and taste buds are both going to be burned raw by cinnamon goodness.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: cinnamon, pebbles, post. 6 Comments

Nov. ’16

Classic Review: Post Raisin Bran Cereal

I’ve been on a long quest to review every raisin bran cereal imaginable, a quest so exhaustive that I bran out of “raisin bran” puns months ago.

Wait, guess I had one more in me.

Having travelled far, eaten a lot, and picked many raisins out of tricky tooth crevasses, it’s time for me to return again to raisin bran’s humble origins. Not all the way back—I’ve already reviewed the first raisin bran ever created—but still back to 1942, when Post Raisin Bran debuted in the same year as Kellogg’s Raisin Bran, a simultaneous release that I can only imagine ended in West Side Story-esque rivalries between street gangs loyal to each respective bran brand.

But is Post the Raisin Bran with the most, or does Kellogg’s smiling sun melt away the competition? Time to unsheathe my spoon, ready my dental floss, and find out. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 6 rating, post, raisin bran. 23 Comments