Cocoa Krispies

Name: Cocoa Krispies
Variation: Rice Krispies
Manufacturer: Kellogg's

Review: I'd like it noted for the record that, having already bought Cocoa Krispies once, I tried to resist buying another box just because they added "more chocolatey flavor". But in the end, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to try it. After all, I've never encountered an instance where "more chocolatey flavor" was anything but a good thing - and this is no exception.

The main problem with Rice Krispies is that it has no flavor. And chocolate is one of my favorite flavors, so adding cocoa to the Krispies is a pretty good idea. However, as neat as the popping effect is, these Krispies are mostly puffed air. They've got a satisfying crunch, but there's an undercurrent of "crisped rice" taste that I'm not terribly fond of. In comparison, Cocoa Pebbles has a deeper, richer cocoa flavor. Krispies also seem to suck up the milk more. There's not much point in turning the milk chocolate if there's no milk at the end to drink.

I've backed myself into a bit of a corner in rating this cereal. By Rice Krispies standards, this cereal deserves a two bowl rating, since it's better than any other flavor I've had (including Cinnamon Sugar Krispies, which I gave two bowls). But by normal standards, it should really get a one bowl rating, if for no other reason than I wouldn't buy it over Cocoa Pebbles (or any other of the many chocolate cereals on the market). So I'll just throw that out as a caveat, and leave it at that.

Rating: 🥣🥣
Leftover Milk: Milk? All there is is a crunchy, cocoa sludge.

Cocoa Pebbles

Name: Cocoa Pebbles
Variation: Fruity Pebbles
Manufacturer: Post

Review: Although this isn't a new or limited edition cereal, it could be considered a variation on Fruity Pebbles, and I want to take a little time to review all the "chocolate alternatives" to the most popular cereals on the shelves (stay tuned for more!). This is not my favorite chocolate cereal, but it has a good flavor. As I've said elsewhere, I'm not super fond of the way the cereal merges with the milk to form a crunchy sludge. But it's definitely chocolatey enough for me to enjoy eating it - in fact, this is one of the darkest cereals you'll pour into your bowl. Even better is the new version they came out with last year. It has marshmallows!

Rating: 🥣🥣
Leftover Milk: If you could separate it from the Pebbles, I bet it'd be the chocolatiest milk on the market.

Lightyear

Name: Lightyear
Variation: n/a
Manufacturer: Kellogg's

Review: This is a cereal that flew under my radar. I didn't know about it until I saw a picture of it online, months after it had disappeared from shelves. But then I stumbled across a shipment at Ollie's, where they offload unsold products close to their sell by dates at cheap prices. It smells quite vanilla-y right out of the box, and looks an awful lot like Hocus Pocus 2 cereal, but with the addition of colorful "Space Ranger" marshmallows ("Galactic Green Rockets & Cosmic Purple Moons") - which is to its credit, as the cereal itself is kinda plain. In spite of Hocus Pocus 2's "berry brew" flavor (which it didn't even taste like), I think Lightyear is the superior cereal. That said, it's still pretty middle-of-the-road, and not something I would go out of my way to have again.

Rating: 🥣
Leftover Milk: A little green, a little vanilla, a little marshmallow-y - but not much.

Minecraft Creeper Crunch

Name: Minecraft Creeper Crunch
Variation: n/a
Manufacturer: Kellogg's

Review: I initially overlooked this cereal (along with several others marketed to children, like PJ Masks and LOL Surprise!), since they'd been around for a while, but I became concerned that they could vanish from the shelves any day, so I decided to give them all a try. And I was looking forward to trying this one, because there aren't a lot of cinnamon cereals on the market (besides Cinnamon Toast Crunch and all of its variations), and this is the only one I've seen with marshmallows.

I like the blocky aesthetic, and the Creeper Bit Marshmallows ("no mobs harmed during crafting of cereal") come in a pleasing gradient of green shades. However, the cereal lacks a decent crunch, and there's a bit of a styrofoam quality to the blocks. It's better than DC's Cinnamon Bolts, but it doesn't hold a torch to Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Between this and General Mills' child-targeted media tie-in cereals (mentioned above), I think Kellogg's is back to being the under-achiever.

Rating: 🥣
Leftover Milk: Mildly cinnamon-y.

LOL Surprise!

PJ Masks

Name: PJ Masks
Variation: n/a
Manufacturer: General Mills

Review: This is a very colorful cereal - the purple puffs provide a dark background that sets off the vibrant pink, blue, and green marshmallows, in a palette that is very evocative of "moonlighting superheros". I had written this cereal off as an unremarkable novelty aimed at small children, but it's actually pretty good. Like a "midnight berry" (I'm guessing it's blueberry?) version of JoJo Siwa's Strawberry Bop! And the marshmallows have a robust "marshmallow-y" flavor, even though I bought this box on clearance mere weeks from its sell by date (in contrast to a few other boxes I've bought recently that have had rips in the bag, rendering the marshmallows utterly stale many months before the date printed on the box). I'm pleasantly surprised.

Rating: 🥣🥣
Leftover Milk: Berry purple and marshmallow-y.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch & Trix Minis

Name: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Minis
Variation: Cinnamon Toast Crunch
Manufacturer: General Mills

Review: Once again, you have the classic Cinnamon Toast Crunch flavor. The texture of the puffs is not unpleasant, but again, I find I prefer the mouthfeel and the crunch of the regular Cinnamon Toast Crunch pieces. And do these mini puffs absorb more milk, or is it just me? It occurs to me that these Minis would work great as a topping - over ice cream or cupcakes or something like that.

Rating: 🥣🥣
Leftover Milk: Good and cinnamon-y.

Name: Trix Minis
Variation: Trix
Manufacturer: General Mills

Trix is the most colorful of the Minis cereals - it really is quite photogenic. It's the only cereal I've encountered that could, visually, give Fruity Pebbles a run for its money. Digging into them feels almost like jumping into a ball pit. This might be the only Minis cereal I like better than its regular-sized version (even if, being fruity, it's my least favorite-tasting one of the three).

Rating: 🥣🥣
Leftover Milk: Pink and fruity.

The back of each box of Minis contains a punch-out mini kitchen that you can put together. I enjoyed having these mini cereals, even if Trix is the only one that I feel stands up to the original. I like that they picked a good variety of flavors - one chocolate and peanut butter, one cinnamon, and one fruity (and they're surprisingly good all mixed together). That's more diverse representation than either Kellogg's or General Mills' Halloween lineups!

Reese's Puffs Minis (& Big Puffs)

Name: Reese's Puffs Minis/Big Puffs
Variation: Reese's Puffs
Manufacturer: General Mills

Review: This weekend I'm reviewing this year's new "Minis" cereals - mini versions of three of your favorites from the General Mills lineup. We'll start with Reese's Puffs Minis, since Reese's Puffs is one of my favorites. To start off, the mini puffs are adorable. The flavor is just what you would expect from the regular cereal, so no surprises there. Smaller puffs means you can shovel more of them into your mouth. However, I don't think the crunch is as satisfying, and you may have to slow yourself down to avoid swallowing them whole...

January 2020

A few years ago, General Mills released an over-sized version of Reese's Puffs, called Big Puffs. It was a fun novelty, but I felt the overly large puffs were a bit awkward to eat. Now, having tried both Big Puffs and Minis, I can say with confidence that the regular-sized puffs are the Goldilocks standard. That said, I enjoy mixing things up every now and then. Stay tuned for my review of Cinnamon Toast Crunch & Trix Minis tomorrow!

Rating: 🥣🥣
Leftover Milk: A little bit of PB&C.

Fantasy Cereals

Last year, I was thinking about Shaq's promotion for Frosted Flakes, which - according to the box details - arose out of Shaq's love of Frosted Flakes, and resulted in a new variety of the cereal, adding crispy cinnamon basketballs. Obviously, I'm not a celebrity, so this is all hypothetical. But I got to thinking - if I were given the opportunity to create my own cereal, what would I come up with?

And I thought about it for a while. If we're going strictly for flavor, obviously I'd pick chocolate with marshmallows, but there are already a lot of options for that on the market. And honestly, in that respect, my dream cereal would probably be a whole lot like Wendy's Frosty cereal (and, well, that already exists). So I thought about what kind of cereals I eat the most, and how I could give them a bit of a novel touch, and it didn't take me long to come up with a new version of Lucky Charms.

Lucky Charms has a magical, fantasy aesthetic. I'm rather fond of faeries, and I think that's something that would be a perfect match for the brand. So let me introduce you to "Pixie Charms" (I chose "pixie" over "fairy" to preserve some consistency in the sound of the name). The box motif would be pink (as opposed to red), and it would introduce Lucky's sister Pixie, embodied in a new pixie-shaped marshmallow. Other marshmallows retained for this version would include the unicorn and the rainbow. Also, "pixie dust" in the cereal would turn the milk pink. I wanted to create a mock-up of this cereal using Fruity Lucky Charms (which has pink cereal pieces), but I haven't been able to find any lately.

Here's a rudimentary proof of concept.

I thought of another idea, which would be a slight variation of JoJo Siwa's Strawberry Bop! I would keep the pink puff pieces but add in blue ones (blueberry-flavored, perhaps?) in equal quantities. Then I would limit the marshmallows to just plain, white ones. Altogether, they would represent the colors of the transgender flag. I'd call it Transgender Puffs ("they're fruity!"), and I would imitate the way Wheaties showcases athletes on the box, by shining a spotlight on different inspirational transgender personalities. (I had just watched Euphoria when I came up with this idea, so my plan was to shine the first spotlight on model, actress, and trans rights activist Hunter Schafer). Oh, and also, the milk would turn an androgynous purple.

Transgender Puffs

For this mock-up, I mixed the pink puffs from JoJo Siwa's Strawberry Bop! with blue Crunch Berries (if I were making it now, I would consider using the blueberry puffs from Pandora Flakes), and combined them with marshmallows extracted from Hot Cocoa Puffs. It was actually quite good. To generate the effect of turning the milk purple, I cheated by first putting in a layer of Magic Fruity Pebbles on the bottom.

I discussed this thought experiment with my partner, and asked her what cereal she would come up with. As a fan of the fruitier cereals, she settled on a variation of Trix with the puffs colorized to represent the planets of our solar system. We went back and forth on whether the puffs should be different sizes, and whether each box should contain only a single sun. She calls it GalacTrix. I humbly offered my own suggestion of adding crescent moon-shaped marshmallows, and making it a tie-in with Sailor Moon - with Usagi (a.k.a. "Bunny") standing in for the Trix Rabbit!

GalacTrix

This mock-up was less of a success than the last one - there was just too much going on. I used the swirled puffs from Trix Trolls World Tour, and added in some Crunch Berries and Pokemon puffs for more color variety. For the crescent moon marshmallows, I borrowed some blue moons from Lucky Charms. I used crispy cinnamon basketballs for the suns, although if I'd had some Reese's Puffs Big Puffs on hand, I think that would have been a fun choice. But at this point, it was already a weird mishmash of flavors.

This exercise has really got my imagination running. If you were tasked with making up your own cereal - whether an original concoction or a novel variation on a classic - what would you come up with? I already have a number of other ideas, but I'll leave you in suspense for now, so I can present them to you on this blog at a later time, as cereal experiments.

Knock-Offs

In lieu of a cereal review today, I thought it would be fun to celebrate April Fools' Day by highlighting some of the hilarious generic brand knock-offs I've spotted while hunting for cereal over the years.

Round 1

I was browsing the cereal aisle in a Family Dollar store (because I can't go into stores anymore without looking at their cereal), when I spotted these generic knock-off cereals that were so shameless, it was actually funny. I swear, if this isn't copyright infringement, this brand must have a lawyer researching just how far they can push it. Thanks for the laugh, Chestnut Hill!

Frosted Mini Wheats becomes Frosted Bite-Size Wheat

Honey Nut Cereal also features a bee with a honey dripper

Fruity Hoops trades the toucan for a monkey; retains the styling of the o's

Berry Crunch flips the title, and the Cap'n becomes a... big bird?

Cinni-Mini Crunch also features swirls of flavor and toast with emotion

Fruity Bites borrows Fruity Pebbles' colorful text, but subs in a giraffe

Golden Honey Puffs swaps in a turtle for the Dig 'em Frog

Round 2

This time, I was browsing the cereals in Price Cutter when the generic knock-offs leaped off the shelves at me. (Not literally). Here's what I saw, courtesy of the Best Choice* brand:

*Yeah, I'm not sure about that.

The name "Apple Delicious" is perhaps a bit presumptuous, but there are still apples with creepy faces!

Frosted Fruit O's ditches the "loopy" text styling, but there's a definite resemblance between the rhino's rainbow-striped horn and Toucan Sam's similarly-colored beak.

I literally laughed out loud - right there in the store - when I saw "Peanut Butter Cocoa Spheres". At least you know what you're getting!

Note how well Cinnamon Sugar Bites apes the alternating colors in the name of the cereal it's imitating.

I actually like the branding of "Magic Marshmallows" - it's uncharacteristically clever. But you can bet it's no coincidence that the dragon is green.

"Koo-kies!" is another pretty hilarious knock-off. Let's not get carried away here - it's not like this is Cocoa Puffs or anything.

I imagine they picked an elephant mascot for Cocoa Crunch so that its trunk could echo the sucking action of Sonny's straw. Imagine if they'd picked an anteater instead...

I can't help thinking that Berry Bits Crisp Crunch is just Berry Crunch with two extra words sandwiched in the middle. Although I enjoy the alliteration, and that shark's a pretty cool mascot.

Like Fruity Bites, Fruity Crisp Rice not only keeps the text coloring, but also picks a giraffe as its mascot. So now we're knocking off the knock-offs?

Both of these cereals' reference to "crisp rice" alludes more to Rice Krispies than the Pebbles cereals; and Cocoa Crisp Rice's monkey mascot makes more sense when you consider Cocoa Krispies' former association with Coco the Monkey.

Believe it or not, I actually joked as I walked into the store that they would have a knock-off version of Cheerios called "Happy O's". I was not disappointed. But I guess obvious is what they're going for.

While not especially creative, Honey Nut Happy O's at least avoids Honey Nut Cereal's problem of being completely generic.

Once again, "bite-size" is standing in for "mini". Interestingly, this box reflects the color of the blueberry version of the name brand cereal.