by Lore Sjöberg

Cap'n Crunch with Crunchberries
What is a "Cap'n" anyway? The rank below a "Maj'r"? Anyhow, I am fully in favor of this cereal. Lovely does-not-occur-in-nature pink color to the "crunchberries," extra points for pretending that they're actual fruit, neat spokescharacter. The only real flaw is that it seems to be specifically designed to scrape three layers of skin off your gums with each bowl. A-

Cookie Crisp
Lame. It was a good concept, it could have gone somewhere, but the fact is that the cereal bits bear no closer resemblance to chocolate chip cookies than Fruity Pebbles do to actual rocks. Also, this Cookie Crook character is shamelessly derivative of the whole Trix Rabbit Cereal Theft genre, only instead of the kids looking after their own damn cereal they have an animated figure of authority to protect it for them. I am, however, an advocate of pouring milk on Chips Ahoy and eating that for breakfast. C-

Cocoa Puffs
The canonical chocolate sugar cereal. First off, it turns the milk chocolatey with eerie efficiency. When you've finished the cereal, that milk is damn chocolatey. Secondly, it actually does stay crunchy in milk. I don't know for how long, I haven't run tests, but its crunchy- staying power is remarkable. Thirdly, "Sonny" is a fine cartoon spokesanimal in the no-pants tradition. And finally, and this is the vital point, it's the only cereal that openly admits to inducing hyperactivity. "Go cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs" is obvious shorthand for "Parents, your children are going to be putting Keds marks on the walls after a couple bowls of this stuff." A

Honeycombs
In my childhood, the three main selling points of Honeycombs were: a) The individual cereal pieces are about an inch in diameter, b) They have a lot of surface area, and c) Large people will attempt to take it from you if you eat it. So, given these dubious advantages, it is unsurprising that I am somewhat disappointed with the cereal. I've also never been terribly fond of honey-flavored breakfast cereal ("The delicious corn and oat cereal that's been mugged with honey!") so that was another point against. Still, it's the only cereal I know that actually improves in flavor when damp. C

Spider-Man Cereal
This one's relatively new, part of the continual march of tie-in cereals that appear on the market, make a few bucks, then fade away. Folks, they're not even trying with this one. The marshmallow bits are really sad. They don't look like anything. You read the side of the box, it explains what they are, and they STILL don't look like anything. The premium inside is a lame "trading card," and the cereal itself ("Spider Webs") is just hexagonal frosted Rice Chex. Bleah. D+

Cinnamon Mini-Buns
This is just not an exciting cereal. Let's face it, when you were a kid, Cinnamon Buns were just not as thrilling a breakfast sugar food as, say, doughnuts. So from the beginning you're got this kind of "capture the tedium" feeling. Then there's the interesting discovery that when reduced to miniature size, cinnamon buns resemble some sort of tidepool mollusk. The box I got came with a little superhero comic book, so they're obviously trying to hit the kid market, but I think it's pretty well doomed from the beginning. D