October 22, 2005:
Well, finally. Since the start of September, I've been scouring the grocery store aisles looking for new Halloween cereal. Haven't found anything. It's always nice to see Count Chocula and pals get some face time, but they're not so much Halloween cereals as they are cereals more popular during the Halloween season. Uh. What I'm really looking for are existing cereals reformulated with a spooky motif. We've seen plenty of examples of these through the course of the Halloween seasons in the fifty-five years of X-Entertainment. Since I started the Countdown two years ago, I've almost come to count on these cereals -- the old faithful boxes of stuff worth writing about. Always there for me when I need 'em. This year, I couldn't find anything. Sure, Lucky Charms is currently in stores with a Halloween disguise, but it's the same Halloween disguise it wore last year. I'd given up hope, but just this week, Kellogg's made good on keeping my spirits up with a new contribution to that wonderful thing called Halloween...
It's "CinnaScary Special Edition" Apple Jacks, meant to further promote the brand's recent addition of swirly "CinnaMon" marshmallows. What's a "CinnaMon," you ask? Duh, it's a Rastafarian, sentient cinnamon stick. Yes, Apple Jacks finally has a mascot. CinnaMon ain't no Lucky the Leprechaun or Trix Rabbit, but let's give him some time to settle in. He might surprise us, he might not...all I know is, they better turn that guy into a novelty pen cereal premium before the promotion runs its course. Joining CinnaMon is a second mascot, "Bad Apple." Rotten to the core and wearing a Dracula cape, Bad Apple puts the "fruit" in "fruickin kill you."
As the CinnaMon marshmallows will likely continue their chalky reign of terror long after Halloween, I can't really say that the cereal itself has been modified. In terms of Halloween action, we're really just getting a CinnaSpooky box and some CinnaSpooky stickers. It's enough to make the last full week of breakfasts before Halloween less of an effort. Previous to finding CinnaScary Apple Jacks, I had to ladle my pancake mix in the form of tombstones. I'm really bad at that.
What it's proven to me most is that Apple Jacks is so underrated. I've always liked them, but it took a full moon palette for me to actually take the plunge and buy a box -- or more specifically, cry and make Mommy do it for me. Seriously, this is good stuff! If you haven't had it in a long while, each of the cereal bits is now adorned with a generous dose of tiny apple specks. All of the new cinnamon junk really compliments the usual flavor, and Halloween or not, this is in no way, shape or form a bowl of food that you'd eat, sit for a minute and then complain about how you wish you'd eaten something else.
Cereal boxbacks have long featured games, brainteasers and other sorts of puzzles and time-wasters. Proving my age, I cannot for the life of me figure this one out. It's got something to do with Bad Apple creating a horde of assumedly evil "CinnaClones," which are something like zombie versions of CinnaMon. I have no idea. After about an hour, I noticed a small text blurb insisting that I locate "13 cinnamon sticks," but there's like 157 cinnamon sticks. Another text blurb suggests finding "three hidden boxes of Apple Jacks," but I can only found two. I'm losing my touch and the depression is only making me eat more Apple Jacks. It's a vicious cycle, but it should be, as no holiday is more vicious than Halloween.
Finally, the requisite cereal prize is a small sheet of glow-in-the-dark CinnaScary Apple Jacks stickers. Really good ones, too -- the kind that have me halfway out the door to buy a marble notebook.
As far as holiday-themed cereals go, CinnaScary Apple Jacks is no Christmas Crunch, but it's something, and it made me smile, and whenever breakfast pulls that off, it's reason to celebrate. And as a special edit, I just found two more spookified cereals from Kellogg's, so way to go TEAM! Check back this week for a look at the rest.
- Matt (10/22/05)
One year ago on the Halloween Countdown:
Halloween Edition Marshmallow Peeps!
Two years ago on the Halloween Countdown:
Minty Mouth Blood!
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