Ready those recliners and steady your novelty wooden back scratchers, because we want to share another hearty bunch of videos from Gabe Fonseca’s Cereal Time YouTube series. Speaking of bunches, Gabe has covered everything from Honey Bunches to Cap’n Crunch.
His show gives a nostalgic and fun exposé on a different cereal each week. For cereal junkies like me, it’s more addicting than, well, a bowl of Reese’s Puffs.
While we’re on the topic of peanut butter and chocolate (and when aren’t we on the topic of the greatest flavor combination ever invented? A big thanks to George Washington Carver and Montezuma for making it possible), let’s start with Gabe’s first video on E.T. Cereal.
Anyone who has seen the movie E.T. knows that the titular alien’s favorite candy is Reese’s Pieces. As a result, his cereal was given the same flavors. As Gabe mentions, E.T.’s favorite candy was originally supposed to be M&M’s, but the rights couldn’t be secured. While I’m sad that the movie missed out on a lot of good “Mars” puns, I’m glad we got a more interesting cereal flavor out of the deal than boring ol’ chocolate.
Besides, M&M’s don’t hold up well in milk. Trust me: I know.
Next up is Smurfs Cereal, or should we say cereals. Gabe covers all three iterations of Smurfs branded cereals from decades past, starting with the popping technicolor Smurf Berry Crunch, then the marshmallow-stuffed Smurf Magic Berries, and finishing with the Fruity Pebbles palette swap plain old Smurfs cereal.
All are amazing as relics of cereal history (cerealology?), but Smurf Magic Berries is most notable for its…uh…”iridescent bathroom effect.” That’s right, Smurf Magic Berries joins Franken Berry and Burger King’s Halloween Whopper in the “Turns Your Poop Weird Colors” club.
Some may call that an undesired side effect, but I prefer to call it “the real prize at the bottom of every box.”
Even though we’re sharing 4 videos in this post, the number of cereals to discuss is compounded. That’s because this video features a breakdown of 5 of 2016’s most noteworthy new cereals.
Outside of Captain America cereal (which we haven’t reviewed), Gabe’s thoughts on these cereals match ours almost perfectly:
Finding Dory = Pleasant enough to eat, but lazy and ironically easy to find.
JIF PB&J = A fantastic cereal representation of the best flavor combo ever (sorry, peanut butter and chocolate: you’ve got competition).
Strawberry Cheerios = One of the most authentic representations of strawberry flavor in a cereal, and a crying shame that it’s only limited edition (I may or may not be actually crying).
Cap’n Crunch’s HomeRun Crunch = Wonderfully nostalgic and whimsical, with the best darn “back of the box” character cameo ever rendered on cardboard.
Finally, Gabe gifts us a very special edition of Cereal Time by giving the back story of his legendary cereal box wall. You know, the one that actually got featured on General Mills’ website? If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to assemble a color-coded wall of all the coolest cereal boxes manufactured, then this is the video for you.
If you haven’t wondered that, then this is still the video for you because it includes countless glimpses of boxes you’ve probably haven’t seen in years (if ever). Gabe’s wall is practically a Super Smash Bros. style compilation of cereal’s greatest all-stars.
Pshh, and they say the Mona Lisa belongs in a museum?
If you think Cereal Time is a video series worth framing, every episode can be found here, and you can check out Gabe’s Twitter, as well.