N Cereal AA Round of 64, Flight 4: Sugar Shock
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1 Captain Crunch/Crunchberry vs. 16 Krusty-Os. Well, we had to have one fictional cereal in here, right?Krusty-Os don’t exist outside the Simpsons-verse, so I can’t speak to their actual quality.I will say that, because I hate milk, I eat all cereals dry, and because of that, Captain Crunch has ripped up the roof of my mouth for the last time.Still, the Captain (or the “Cap’n,” as it is properly branded, but I find that folksy abbreviation annoying) will steer his ship to a win.…Don’t get up; I’ll let myself out.
8 Sugar/Honey Smacks vs. 9 Sugar/Golden Crisp. I have to assume that both of these cereals got renamed in the last decade in order to hoodwink parents into thinking they had some nutritional value.I wouldn’t know firsthand, as my mother would sooner have served us a bowl of bees in vodka sauce than let either a Smack (aptly named) or a Crisp into her kitchen…and in fact I’ve never tasted the Crisp, but if dim sleepover memory serves, Smacks tasted kinda plasticky, like a Corn Nut with Jordan-almond coating.Which should have tasted rad, but didn’t, really.Smacks probably wins, but I vote Crisp.
5 Cinnamon Toast Crunch vs. 12 Trix. Everybody remembers “Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids!”, so I guess you can’t argue with the ad campaign’s effectiveness, but geeeehhhh was that bunny annoying.He’s resourceful enough to dress up as Charles fuckin’ Lindbergh to try to steal the cereal, but he can’t just bring his furry ass to a supermarket?Whatever.I will give points for Trix actually having differentiated flavorings among the various colors, which Froot Loops did not.CTC, meanwhile, is not quite as good as I remember it, but it’s still damn good.It’ll have a fight on its hands, but I predict a win for the Crunch.
4 Apple Jacks vs. 13 Fruity Pebbles. I didn’t care much for either of these, back in the day, but Apple Jacks have held up better — and don’t have the association with The Flintstones, a cartoon I’ve never liked.I would prefer to see Apple Jacks move on, but I can’t say what will happen.
6 Corn Pops vs. 11 Cocoa Puffs. Cocoa Puffs are the sentimental favorite for me.They taste kind of chalky and don’t give you quite enough chocolate bang (…ew! sorry!) for your cereal buck, but I’ll always love them because my grandmother pretended to believe that Ma and Dad “let me” have them at home, and we would sit on her couch watching Days of our Lives and passing the box back and forth.While drinking Coke. And making jokes about Kayla that made us cry laughing even though they weren’t that funny, but: junkies.I could have done without that idiot bird in the TV spots, but because I associate them with fun times at Grandma’s house, I want them to win.Alas, like I said, the cereal per se is not so great; it could beat Corn Pops, but I don’t think it will.
3 Alpha-Bits vs. 14 Franken-/Booberry. The otherworldly -berry cereals tasted too much like cherry to me, and I hate fake cherry.Also, you can’t spell with them.Case closed.
7 Honeycomb vs. 10 Count Chocula. Two more sugar-cereal ads that, even as a child, I found tough to take.The Count and his zombie associate on the berry side seemed a bit too invested in foods that, according to supernatural canon, they couldn’t eat anyway.Meanwhile, the Honeycomb ads were obsessed with proving that each ‘comb was an inch long.I mean, if it’s the size of an Eggo waffle, well, then I’m impressed, but an inch, who cares, and the alleged “big taste” that the inch of length was supposed to confer never really materialized.Honeycomb didn’t have much taste, period.Tough call; I’m predicting it for Vlad the Diabetic.
2 Froot Loops vs.15 Cookie Crisp. Cookie Crisp is one of those childhood disappointments that teaches you something about the way the world really is.That cereal should rock, but then the little cookies taste stale and linty, and you keep eating it and hoping, but it never turns things around.I remember staring into my first bowl of the stuff and thinking, “I bet the same grown-up who decided to dick up a perfectly good oatmeal cookie by putting raisins in it is responsible for this donnybrook.”(I may not have used the word “donnybrook.”Then again, I may have.)Froot Loops don’t exactly challenge the palate by comparison, but you don’t get your hopes up as high or have them dashed as low, and it’s a serviceable cereal.Froot Loops, easily.
— by Sarah D. Bunting
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Tags: Charles Lindbergh food N Cereal AA The Flintstones The Simpsons
Every single cereal I voted for is losing:(
My mom was also stridently anti-sugar cereal and as a result, it is my absolute FAVORITE treat in adulthood. The whole time I was pregnant, it was my bedtime treat, and I’d rotate through them to get them all. it was lovely.
My god, I can see that bottle of wheat germ sitting on our pantry shelf now. I think I repressed the memory!
Great write up and comments! Sars if you substitute Count Chocula for the Cocoa Puffs and Scrabble for Days of Our Lives that was my grandma. She was the epitome of awesome and I miss her still. Now I have a new personal weird that I am crying from an online cereal poll.
:)
La BellaDonna: Oh man, did the tooth stick inside the doughy bagel so that you had to chew it all up to get the tooth out of it? That sounds horrifying. And makes me never want to eat another bagel.
Similarly, the trauma of eating bloody sugar smacks makes it impossible for me to drink espresso. Italian-restaurant espresso (not so much coffee shop espresso) smells JUST like Sugar Smacks to me.
@kate: “and that was probably at summer camp”
Wow, this just brought back the memory of the variety packs of cereal that we always had at Girl Scout camp and church camp in my youth. I think the Kelloggs packs had Frosted Flakes, Sugar Smacks, Corn Pops, Corn Flakes, Raisin Brain, and Special K. It always sucked by the end of the week when there was only Special K left (which is really the only reason I know what Special K tastes like.) I think the General Mills variety packs were far better for their selection of sugar cereals.
I’m sorry: I couldn’t process anything after “… bowl of bees in vodka sauce” because of the BWEEEEEheeeeheeeelfnorkgrkgle!
I’ma vote tomorrow.
CrabbyAppleSeed, except for Corn Pops, every cereal I’ve voted for in this bracket is losing too. Especially sad and surprised at how much of a ass-kicking Fruity Pebbles is getting. They are so tasty!
I like many (most?) of you grew up in a sugar cereal free house. It was only at friend’s houses and then finally college that I got to experience any of these.
“Cath, will it comfort you any to learn that I lost a tooth in a bowl of ice cream once? No? How about a soft, not-even-toasted bagel?”
Not to change the subject, but I had a crown come off in an Arby’s Sandwich. And it went like this:
1. Feel FOREIGN OBJECT while chewing.
2. Remove foreign object.
3. OH MY GOD IT’S A TOOTH! SOMEONE’S TOOTH IS IN MY SANDWICH!
4. Feel hole in mouth with tongue.
5. Oh. Oh, that’s MY tooth. Well, that’s good, I guess.
I have such a craving now for 6 different cereals that I haven’t eaten in years. Yeah, all of them are pretty much of the Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs variety.
Every time I thought “Oh, this cereal for SURE is winning this vote” I’d be wrong. Good thing I’m not in marketing.
I call SHENANIGANS on some of these … come on, Apple Jacks wiping the FLOOR with Fruity Pebbles? Who eats Apple Jacks? GOD!
On friday, I bought my first box of Cookie Crisp in fifteen years. It’s so good! Vote for it!
My SO had never had Cap’n Crunch (…I know!), so we bought a box about three years ago, after he’d seen yet another reference to it, probably in a Neal Stephenson novel. It tasted pretty much the same as I remembered (i.e., really, really sweet), but they’ve rounded out the edges. It’s not nearly as sharp on the corners as it was when I was a kid, back in the Jurassic Era. Back then, it tore the inside of your mouth to bits; the current stuff has a bit of that, but nothing like it used to be. The little pieces look a lot more rounded, too. I chalk it up to the kind of excessive concern about safety and protection that has given us science-experiment kits that don’t even blow up. Hrmmmph.
If you’re into Captain Crunch, then look for Barbara’s Peanut Butter Puffins. It’s basically Captain Crunch only the bits are more than an inch long.
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Anyone remember those weird-ass animated Alpha-Bits commercials from the Eighties? I remember this one where you were being chased by a giant pig and you had to eat the word “PIG”, and the commercial ended with a random shot of the pig oinking.