The Brunching Shuttlecocks Ratings



Razzle Dazzle Rice Krispies
Oh, for God's sake! This lame-ass marketing concept has all the razzle-dazzle of a wet sock on the side of the highway. It's sugary Rice Krispies with artificial colors. That's it. Kelloggs' multimedia spectacular is basically Fruity Pebbles sans fruit. Big elf-smacking deal. And to make matters worse, the sweetness has this off taste to it, like bad maple syrup. Ugh. D-

Frosted Cheerios
Okay, this is no more innovative than R&D Rice Krispies, but at least the box isn't depleting our nation's valuable glitter resources. Still, the recipe is something you may very well have created yourself at some point. Pour yourself a bowl of Cheerios. Add sugar. Eat it. You have completed the Frosted Cheerios experience. So much for trade secrets. D

Trix
I want to tell you, I am upset about Trix. When I was but a lad, Trix was the Platonic ideal of cerealdom. A holy trinity of fruit flavors embodied as perfect spheres gave breakfast a spiritual quality you don't often find while scarfing. Since then, Trix has been the sad victim of the color and shape inflation that's infested the industry. There are like half-a-dozen flavors, and each individual Trik is vaguely fruit-shaped. The latest horror is "Wildberry flavor." If I were a berry farmer, I would be trying to do something about the co-opting of "berry" to mean "undefinably artificial." C-

French Toast Crunch
Man. French Toast Crunch is an eerie part of this complete breakfast. The cereal bits are shaped like tiny slices of toast. It's like they knocked over the Barbie Bakery or something. It smells like French toast. In milk, it tastes like French toast. The problem is that, as the name implies, it's crunchy. Crunchy French toast is actually kind of unnerving and vile. C-

Apple Jacks
I love these, and I couldn't possibly explain why. I think a lot of it still has to do with the fact that even in this fast-paced, fruit-flavored world, an Apple Jack is still an Apple Jack. Nobody's tried to unload "Wild Berry Marshmallow Apple Jacks" on us. Also, you've got to love a kid's cereal named after hard liquor. I keep hoping they'll follow it up with "Kahlua Krispies." A

Cocoa Krispies
A decent cereal with a serious case of high spokes-cartoon turnover. I remember an Elephant named "Tusk," a moonlighting Snap, Crackle, and Pop, and lately an excessively trendy monkey named Coco. In doing research, I discovered that Cocoa Krispies has actually been hawked, over the years, by three elephants, two monkeys (the first of which was named José, believe it or not), a caveman, the Rice Krispies Elves, and Snagglepuss the pink cartoon lion. Huh. B

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