Criminal Cereals of the Past 9 & Comely Curry!

It's an odd little quirk of the cereal giants that from time to time they'll attach to an idea or a certain type of cereal based on a certain something and they'll hang onto it like a blood bloated leech sucking it's chosen and likely unwilling host for all it's worth and wow.. Nice description although that's usually what the case is. It's called 'milking' something and a lot of companies are quite guilty of milking products and themes and I suppose they really can't be blamed, you find something that works and sells and you stick to it, don't fix what ain't broke, right? Except from time to time they'll latch onto ideas and themes that are just plain disturbing. More often than not these themes and products will consist of sugar-laden nightmares whose soul purpose in existing is to enter the bodies of the children who are inevitably being marketed towards and fill their veins with a gelatinous mess of congealed artificially sweetened fat.. This isn't necessarily a bad thing if parents are responsible about watching what their kids eat but more often than not, children are left to their own devices and handed these products without a second thought. Whatever.. That's kind of cool actually and isn't that the point of childhood? You're not supposed to worry about your weight or what you're eating when you're a kid, who gives a damn? You're a kid, you don't have to impress anyone. That comes later with the awkwardness of puberty and for the moment, the world is good and a sweet place full of shite like this;

#1
Waffle Cereals:

The first product is the first cereal to memory that featured waffles, Ralston Waffelo's. Now I'm confused, isn't this kind of redundant? You take a breakfast item, right? A.. Waffle.. And.. You make it into a breakfast item again? Nhh.. Ow.. Twitch.. That hurts my brain.. 1979 this cereal was released and naturally was packed full of enough syrups, sugars, artificial sweeteners and chemicals to terminally scar a generations colons. Why do you think old people have such a hard time shitting? After a life time of eating things packed full of enough sugar and coagulants to kill a bull moose it's surprising that they don't shit pure maple syrup or at least high fructose corn syrup... Come to think of it given the fact that so much of that is used in products today, maybe they do and.. Like.. Soylent Green is people? ...Holy shit.. Anyway.. The cereal was weird, it didn't quite taste like maple syrup but was vaguely.. Buttery.. I don't know how they achieved that and frankly I don't want to know, the thought is kind of disturbing. There were two types of this cereal featuring durh, Maple Syrup and Blueberry. The Maple was the best but the Blueberry wasn't far behind, surprisingly in spite of being pretty damn popular it disappeared. Guess it was discontinued for some odd reason and you'd think that'd be the end of the story of Waffle Cereals but you'd be wrong! Oh.. You'd be wrong..

In 1996 this beast was introduced, Post Waffle Crisp Cereal. Oat, corn and wheat, Waffle Crisp were originally about the size of Honey Comb cereal bites which is to say that originally these pieces of cereal were fucking BIG - These were delicious, the original variation far more so than the current iteration (these are still being sold but the company seems to have scaled back their recipe for these favouring smaller cereal pieces and considerably less flavour. They're probably healthier but they're not better tasting.) and had a strange syrup like coating with a delicious cinnamonononononey dust that in milk (yes I ate this once or twice with milk and dipped them) came off in the milk and created swirls of brown sparkly which was just.. Delectable.. I mean unbelievably so.. Not surprisingly this is also one of the worst cereals you could possibly eat, I mean to the point that goddamn. You might die if you eat this shit. Maybe not right away (or possibly right away) but somewhere down the line when you have that big one in your late 20s to 30s the doctors going to look at you and tell you straight-faced that when they went in for the bypass surgery they found maple syrup clogging your heart. But would this be the last addition of waffles into the cereal battle-arena? OH NO MY FRIEND! No, no, no. The redundancy must continue, making breakfast into breakfast into something to turn your blood into the same shit that fills Stretch Armstrong's and so we press on! The next product;

Eggo Cereal was recently released, is still sold and spins a new take on the waffle cereal. Rather than having the consistency and texture of the other cereals, Eggo is more like corn-puffs in the texture of the cereal itself. It's pretty goddamn delicious. Something about the way the cereal pieces are made is unique and provides a certain extra palatable quality that the other waffle cereals just don't have, the cereal pieces stronger and firmer on the outside while being easily crunchable and breakable on the inside. I can only imagine that eating these with actual milk would be a true experience as I suspect from how they reacted in my mouth that a portion of the cereal (at least for a time) would remain crunchy while another portion became softer with absorbed milk. Some how Kellogg's has done well and managed to make a waffle cereal that is somewhat acceptable, point in fact... It's actually quite acceptable and rather healthy for you.. Wow.. What the fuck? I'm just.. Blown away by this.. I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around it. How do you make a syrupy tasting waffle cereal without having it rape your insides with so much Stretch Armstrong goo? ...Well done, Kellogg's.. You're the only party in this line-up not guilty of the criminal charges of being incredibly tasty but inevitable harbingers of death and 'the big one' down the line.

Judging by the trend, these aren't the last waffle cereals we'll ever see.

#2
Candy/Snack Theme Cereals:

An older iteration of this would be the 1983 Cracker Jack Cereal which amazingly tasted more or less like Cracker Jacks. Of course the peanuts, bits and bobs weren't there in actual true-form but the flavour was. Packed full of enough chemicals, artificial flavourings and random shite that was meant to taste good but urge you closer to that aforementioned diabetic coma there was hardly anything nutritious or vitamin and mineral enriched about this cereal but honestly, who gives a shit? Were they going to advertise the truth? Hell no. The truth was this like many other 'breakfast cereals' of it's time wasn't a breakfast cereal but instead a glorified candy. Honestly that's alright to me, this definitely wasn't a bad cereal in the sense that it tasted bad, it was certainly bad for you and it actually tasted so good I'd rather have had the Cereal instead of actual Cracker Jacks in the event that I were going to have them, this cereal was outright addictive like crack cocaine. Of course this is not the only nor the most outrageous of all iterations and incarnations of the Candy/Snack themed cereal, oh no.

There are also Rice Krispies Treats Cereal, released in 1993 this shit defined addictive and I've always believed the reason was well high-lighted in one of their commercials;

"You'll think you're eating Rice Krispies Treats", probably because YOU FUCKING ARE. Seriously, these things were just Rice Krispies Treats that were broken down into cereal-sized bites and re-branded as cereal, seriously. Fuck off, Kellogg's, stop trying to lie and make it seem like you're not just distributing a product you've already made as a cereal. It's fine that you are, it's no great crime.. Well.. I mean aside from the fact that they're naturally criminally bad for you but damn, don't play us like we stupid, homes. We know the commercial is bullshitting us, you totally realize that they're Rice Krispies Treats and we do too. That's why we loved them. But is that it? Never mind that I could mention Reeses' Puffs Cereal, Nerds Cereal, S'mores or any other I've gone over in the past, there are even more. The Snack/Candy theme is incredibly popular for cereal companies to utilize bringing fourth delicious rarities such as this;

That's right! They made a Pop-Tart cereal at one point that released in 1994, just one year over a year that would have chilled my fucking spine had I said it. It came in two variates, Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon and Frosted Strawberry, frankly and honestly, I preferred the Strawberry but I had the Cinnamon a few times. This shit was amazing, I don't know why they ever stopped making it but of course that's the case with a lot of cereals, isn't it? Strange and undisclosed reasoning haunt the cereal grave-yards where cereals are regularly laid to rest before their time, kicking and screaming as the coffin is nailed shut and questioning "WHY!? I'm beloved! WHHHHHYYY!?" - Maybe it's just me being overly dramatic but still.. Goddamn, did I mention how good these were? Again, never eaten with milk but the fact of the matter was these were essentially crunchy and tiny Pop-Tarts. Do you realize how awesome that was? These were motherfucking godly. It's like someone took Hidden Treasures and covered it in sugary frosted gold, brilliance. Utter fucking brilliance. You know what, though? Still not it! No, there are many more but we're going to close with one in particular;

Released fairly recently (2000s) this was Cap'n Crunch's Air Heads Berries, this shit was.. Well.. Interesting.. Balloon shapes were what comprised the cereal, thematic with the whole 'Air Heads' thing and the cereal? Well, the cereal wasn't that impressive or interesting to be perfectly honest. They were crunch berries, they were allegedly flavoured like Air Heads but they really didn't taste much like the candy.. They tasted like.. Well.. Crunch Berries.. Which is kind of fucking lame that the only thing in the box that actually tasted like Air Heads was the damn Air Head itself. Criminal charge? False advertisement. Don't advertise your cereal to taste like Air Heads when it doesn't taste like Air Heads. You get my hopes up for something unique and then dash them with the same mediocre shit I've had tear my throat like gravel billions of times before, it'd of been worth it if the shards of cereal gravel were actually Air Head flavoured but they weren't and I was disappointed with this one.

Dinner:

And now I need a chorus of angelic voices all chanting the arrival of tonight's dinner because tonight's dinner was AWESOME and came out EPIC.

Flawless, flawless, flawless, FLAWLESS!!!!! FLAWLESS VICTORY! Oh my SWEET HOLY CRAP am I ever proud of this, it came out so insanely perfectly and beautifully that I could not believe it, another accidental case of perfection this is Amai kokonattsu no kare (Sweet Coconut Curry) and features a chocolate Anpan (Sweet Roll) with a chocolate chip Anko (Sweet Red Bean Paste) filling and satsumaimomasshu with a small vanilla/chocolate marshmallow featured in it's center. James devoured this motherfucking dish like a beast so I know it tasted as good as it looked and.. Well.. Just look upon it.. GAZE UPON IT'S ANGELIC GRAAACE!

Second photograph brought to you by AChantingAngelicChoir!©