Wicked (Elphaba Caramel Apple)

Name: Wicked (Elphaba Caramel Apple)
Variation: n/a
Manufacturer: General Mills

Review: It's time to try Elphaba's caramel apple cereal! Can I just say, I think caramel apple is a great flavor for fall. I'm surprised there isn't a dependable standard that appears on the shelves every year. You can't even have Caramel Apple Toast Crunch without getting Apple Pie Toast Crunch and Dulce de Leche Toast Crunch (assuming you can find them both), and mixing them together. Apple Jacks tried a Caramel variety once upon a time, but I barely had a chance to taste it. I thought Monster Cereals' new addition Carmella Creeper was here to stay, but I haven't seen hide nor hair of her this year.

On to the cereal at hand. These puffs are a sickly green color, but it contributes to the "Wicked Witch" aesthetic - similar to Snow White's poisoned apple, but that's a different story. The texture and corn flavor is comparable to that of Glinda Good Berry, but with caramel in place of strawberry. It does remind me of eating Carmella Creeper without the marshmallows. But how come these "caramel apple" cereals always taste predominantly of caramel, but not really apple? Apple is a good flavor! TMNT Mutant Mayhem was just cinnamon apple - no caramel - and it was pretty good. Very sweet and fruity, like applesauce. Come to think of it, this cereal reminds me more of caramel corn.

Rating: 🥣🥣
Leftover Milk: Imagine somebody dropped a single Werther's Original into your milk.

I mentioned that pink and green were my favorite colors, didn't I? Well, I also like putting them together, so I couldn't resist mixing Glinda and Elphaba in the same bowl. And you know what? It's actually quite good. The Good Berry adds some needed fruitiness that was lacking from the Caramel Apple. Perhaps they should have mixed them together from the get-go. I guess these witches really are two halves of a whole heart!

Wicked (Glinda Good Berry)

Name: Wicked (Glinda Good Berry)
Variation: n/a
Manufacturer: General Mills

Review: Kellogg's may have nabbed the deal to promote the new hit series Wednesday at your breakfast table, but General Mills has countered with their own promotion of the new movie Wicked, based on a stage adaptation of characters from L. Frank Baum's enormously popular Wizard of Oz story. And what better way to honor a two-part movie about two contrasting characters, than to give them each their own cereal? One features Glinda the Good Witch, and the other Elphaba, known to many as the Wicked Witch of the West. I really like their contrasting aesthetic - pink and green are my two favorite colors!

Light side meets dark side?

We'll start with the good witch Glinda. The cereal is called "Good Berry", and it's very pink (albeit a little salmon-shaded) - I'm guessing it's strawberry. It reminds me a little bit of JoJo Siwa Strawberry Bop! (minus the marshmallows). These "crispy corn puffs" are actually quite substantial - they offer a solid bite; they're not overly light and puffed with air. They do taste noticeably of corn, but it doesn't clash with the fruity flavor. It's pretty good - I don't even miss not having marshmallows very much. Disappointingly, the leftover milk is quite plain - how cool would it have been to have these two cereals turn the milk their respective colors? Ah well. It's the only complaint I really have.

Rating: 🥣🥣
Leftover Milk: Only a very mild strawberry flavor.

Halloween Oreo Puffs

Name: Halloween Oreo Puffs
Variation: Oreo Puffs
Manufacturer: Post

Review: When I spotted this cereal in the store - a box of Oreo Puffs with a vivid orange banner across the top - I actually thought it was Oreo Reese's Puffs, an experiment I had just tried on my own! Although I don't know how that would work, because Reese's Puffs is manufactured by General Mills, and Oreo Puffs is handled by Post - but the fact that both products are owned by different companies didn't stop them from combining them for a special promotion recently.

Anyway, it hasn't even been a year since Post debuted the new puffs format of their Oreo O's cereal, and it's already got a Halloween edition! It's a welcome companion to Halloween Fruity Pebbles in Post's autumn holiday lineup. I like it perfectly well, but since cookies and cream isn't my favorite flavor, I can't promise that I'll be buying it every year. And I do appreciate Halloween cereals that are a little more creative than just turning the milk "spooky" orange. Even Halloween Crunch has ghost berries...

Rating: 🥣🥣
Leftover Milk: More colorful than flavorful.

Jettas Mix

Name: Justin Jefferson's Jettas Mix
Variation: Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cheerios
Manufacturer: General Mills

Review: Like with the Kelce Mix from last year, I have no idea who Justin Jefferson is - but it's a pretty box, with holographic lettering. Unlike that other mix, this cereal combines limited edition varieties (new Cinnamon Toast Crunch Strawberry, and Frosted Lemon Cheerios) instead of a bunch of staples. But it's an intriguing combination of flavors - like a strawberry lemonade, but with a hint of buttery cinnamon. It tastes very refreshing. I think the lemon is more prominent than the strawberry, and the cinnamon adds an interesting flourish. The box says Justin Jefferson has a "sweet tooth" - but while this cereal is sweet, it runs fruity rather than chocolatey. As such, it's not what I would choose for my signature cereal, but I do like it. Makes a great dry snack, too.

Rating: 🥣🥣
Leftover Milk: Like a horchata mixed with strawberry lemonade!

[Experiment] Oreo Reese's Puffs

Description: I was bored with that abysmally plain confetti cake cereal, so I decided to perform a mad science experiment. As hedonistic as it might sound to combine Reese's Puffs with Oreo Puffs (I know, we're living in a society XD), I was inspired by the recent combination of just those two brands for a rare collaboration between Reese's and Oreos.

What's your pleasure, sir?

So, how do they taste together? The flavors don't really coalesce. Some bites favor chocolate and peanut butter, others cookies and creme. That said, they're both good flavors, so you can't really go wrong joining them together. Keeping my own preference in mind for peanut butter over "creme", I think the Reese's Puffs improve the Oreo Puffs, but I'd rather have my Reese's Puffs unadulterated. Which tracks with my opinion on the recent candy chimeras - an Oreo tastes better with peanut butter filling than a Reese's cup does with cookies and creme. Still, it was a lot of fun to try.

Rating: 🥣🥣

Wednesday (Howlin' Confetti Cake)

Name: Wednesday Howlin' Confetti Cake
Variation: n/a
Manufacturer: Kellogg's

Review: I was excited to see that they've brought back Wednesday cereal again this year (no doubt in promotion of the second season of the TV show starring Jenna Ortega) - it was a little bit kooky, but I liked it. I was even more excited to see that this year they've given Enid her own flavor - Howlin' Confetti Cake! Her bright and colorful personality makes an excellent contrast to Wednesday's dark and morbid mood.

But then I realized that these are Kellogg's cereals, and the confetti-coated loops look an awful lot like Froot Loops Wonka (I still hate that name), which was just the latest in a long line of bad cereals predicated on Kellogg's trying to force their bland "berry stars" down our throats. In this case, it sounds like it's a birthday cake flavor (instead of "berry-licious"), but it does also advertise turning the milk purple.

Upon opening the box, my immediate impression is that the colors are really bland. They're just a faded orange and yellow, with (oddly) a few token red loops. It's not even as colorful as Froot Loops. Enid would NOT be impressed. The flavor is also bland. Like, really bland. Is this just Wednesday masquerading as Enid? There's barely even a birthday cake flavor! It just tastes like corn. There's no "celebration" in this cereal - it's like they forgot to put the icing on the cake.

And the purple milk? It's not even that impressive. It's just a pale, grayish color. I get that Wednesday is the star of the show, but this cereal pales in comparison to hers. What an utter disappointment. I feel bad for Enid. Kellogg's has done her dirty. If I were choosing a cereal to represent her, I'd pick Fruity Pebbles over the one with her name and face on the box. And that's just disgraceful...

Rating: 🥣
Leftover Milk: Pale and underwhelming.

Cheerios Protein (Cookies & Creme)

Name: Cookies & Creme Cheerios Protein
Variation: Cheerios
Manufacturer: General Mills

Review: Although I don't love cookies & "creme", I've been looking forward to trying this flavor from Cheerios' new protein-packed lineup, because it's the most candy-adjacent, and I don't think I've ever seen a cookies & creme flavor of Cheerios before. But if you can imagine a health-conscious version of Oreo O's, this would be it. Each bite initially greets you with the flavor of cookies & creme, then gives over to an unmistakable impression of oats. This time, the "spot the differences" puzzle on the back of the box features a lively city park scene.

In fairness, these cereals have grown on me - as varieties of Cheerios usually do, once your palate adjusts to their relative plainness compared to other cereals on the market. I took some of this cereal dry to eat while camping and it was perfectly appetizing (unlike Honey Bunches of Oats with Real Strawberries, which I thought would be a good dry snack, but very much wasn't). I think they do pretty well for what they are. I don't know that I would call them a "health food" - they're neither low sugar nor fat free. But, if you're looking for a protein supplement in your diet, I feel like you could probably do a lot worse than this.

Rating: 🥣
Leftover Milk: Tastes like cookies & creme!