Sugared Up Zombie Midgets – Breakfast With The FreakOct 15 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Not the most nutritious breakfast food but certainly the best tasting! Just in time for Halloween, grab a few boxes and unleash the monster in you!
Preface: I have held off submitting reviews for about a week now. For some reason Epinions isn’t showing them as being submitted even though I get the nice little “Your review has been published” notice. I want my Epinions back and I want them back NOW! From the demented mind that brought you the “One Person Write-Off” and “The Pauly Shore Tribute Week”, Freak369 proudly presents The 31 Flavors of Horror. You know, cereal isn’t just for breakfast. It’s one of the easiest comfort foods you can gobble up with minimal preparation time. See, in my house, Halloween is a big event; from the make shift coffin on the front lawn to the rented fog machine – we go all out for the ghouls, ghosts and goblins that come out of hiding once a year to beg for teeth rotting treats. So now that you know my passion for Halloween, you can kind of figure out where this review is going. That’s right – Count Chocula, Franken Berry and Boo-Berry. The spooktacular breakfast cereal with those awesome little marshmallows. While they are hard to find in some area’s of the country – they are on shelves now just waiting to be gobbled up - so don’t delay or you just might miss out on one of life’s greatest, non-sexual moments. Some History What would a review be without some history of the product? Classified by General Mills as Monster cereals, the three varieties were introduced in the mid-70’s [Count Chocula and Franken Berry in 1971 and Boo-Berry in 1973]. Kids initially went crazy for them, especially the cool promotional items that were included in the boxes – anything from pencil top erasers to cardboard records [you remember those, they were 45’s pressed onto the inside of the boxes and no matter how hard you tried – they still played like cr.ap]. Over time General Mills started to push other cereals – Trix, Cocoa Puffs, Cookie Crisp and of course, Cheerios. While the three current Monster cereals are getting harder and harder to find, you can order them directly from the General Mills website – but be prepared to pay a hefty price per box. A case of 16 boxes [12 ounces each] will set you back $70.80 or for a smaller purchase you can buy a lot of 4 boxes [12 ounces each for $18.66. I fully expected to get slammed for shipping fees and was so curious that I actually went ahead and started to order some online. Are you ready for this – I ordered 4 boxes of each flavor and shipping was only $3.50 total. Of course Wal-Mart has them for $2.00 a box [plus the coupon for $1.00 off two boxes making it an even better deal] so I decided not to complete the transaction. If you are interested in ordering online, do so at www.generalmills.com. Current promotions include a spooky CD and the ever popular “Halloween Three Pack”. The CD’s are inserted inside the boxes and are visible through a plastic wrap – they were packaged this way to prevent them from being stolen off the boxes. The “Three Packs” are usually found at stores like Target or Wal-Mart and are only around for the Halloween season. They usually contain a bonus item to ease the price tag of $6.00 - $7.00 dollars. In the past they have given away key chains that light up or glow in the dark, scary monster faces and miniature figures of the characters. Another current promotion is as follows: buy two specially marked boxes and get a Scooby Doo treat bag for free. It says that the Scooby treats are packaged with the cereals – but mine weren’t and after 10 minutes someone finally found the correct bag of Scooby snacks to fulfill the offer. ^V^ ~ The Monsters ~ ^V^ Count Chocula [1971 – present] Description: Chocolate cereal [bat shaped of course] with marshmallow bats, ghosts, stars and featuring Hershey syrup as the main flavoring. Awesome taste, great crunch, retains texture after sitting in milk for a while and the left over milk tastes simply spooktacular. Count Chocula is by far my favorite of the three but don’t tell Franken Berry – he gets a little cranky. When has was first created and distributed he wasn’t the cute little – almost friendly looking – vampire that he is today. He never smiled, had devilish ears and a chin that would make Jay Leno proud. Sure, he still has those features today, but they are more ‘kid friendly’ and less shocking to the youngsters. Even though he’s technically considered a vampire – if you look at the box he’s only got one tooth. Maybe he needs to brush more after wolfing down those marshmallow ghosts, bats and stars. Boo-Berry [1973 – present] Description: Blueberry flavored cereal – once again in the same bat shape as Count Chocula -and marshmallows in assorted shapes including ghosts, stars and mystery shapes [Scooby Doo boxes only]. Good taste, nice texture, lasts a while in milk, and of course the left over milk tastes great as well. Boo Berry hasn’t really changed much over the years – he started out a lot more blue but has faded over time. He still has the cute smile and holds his cereal bowl proudly but he’s becoming one of the harder cereals to acquire in the pre and post Halloween seasons. The newer boxes of Boo Berry feature Scooby Doo and his friends teaming up for some hauntingly good fun! Franken Berry [1971 – present] Description: Berry flavored cereal and marshmallows. Shapes include ghosts, stars, mini Franken Berry shapes as well as bats. Again, the cereal bits are in the bat shape. The crunch factor is the same as Boo-Berry and Count Chocula - you get about a 10 minute time frame to eat the cereal before it starts to get a little soggy – but even then there’s still some crunch left. Not exactly a hideous monster – but more of a fun loving, politically incorrect [he’s pink, something that Jerry Falwell claims as a “homosexual reference”] goon that has had more face lifts than Joan Rivers. He started out with a pink face that resembled Frankenstein than was transformed in the early 90’s to a more ‘kid friendly’ type face then in the late 90’s the pink face was replaced with a light brown color [much like that of Count Chocula]. For collectors out there – he’s also the only official Monster to be immortalized in plastic by the Pez Company. A rare find but something that I search high and low for. I am a Pez junkie, what can I say? Yummy Mummy [1987] 1986 must have been a slow time for cereal production, Yummy Mummy was introduced on a trial run in 1986 and a full-scale release in 1987. It failed more miserably than Gary Coleman’s career after Diff’rent Strokes and was banished to the cereal graveyard. The cereal was almost generic – fruit flavored marshmallows with round cereal chunks. No wonder it failed – fruit overload. I don’t even care to discuss the color of the left over milk – but it can almost certainly be concluded that it looked horrendous. The Bastard Cereal [1973] Just like the Baldwin family, General Mills has a few skeletons in their closet – one of them being Fruit Brute. It is sort of like Trix with marshmallows but with less of a sugar coating and fruit flavor. In essence – it’s Franken Berry with different shaped marshmallows. Thrown out to the public in 1973, it was a huge flop [much like some of the Baldwin flicks] and was discontinued. The boxes that are still available are going for a price of about $50.00 and mint ones with promotion stickers run about $80.00. Now, if you have one of the first boxes – even opened – you are looking at upwards of $300.00 [or more depending on condition]. Not bad for being the bastard huh? Dirty Deeds Done Dirty Cheap So you still need a reason to indulge in these monstrously delicious treats? Consider this – on the tops of the boxes there’s a small rectangle – it’s called Box Tops For Education and for everyone you cut, clip or rip off – the school of your choice gets .10 cents from General Mills. Now, a dime might not sound like much but when other people, families and entire schools get together and save these up – it could mean new computers, supplies and even series of books that the school may not otherwise be able to provide to the students. Each year general Mills offers up to $10,000.00 to each school that participates. The only drawback is that it’s for grade schools, not high schools. For more information on the Box Tops For Education programs please visit www.boxtops4education.com or email questions@boxtops4education.com or call the toll free number, 1-888-799-2444. Freak Treats One of my favorites treats to make are Freak Treats. I’ll admit it is a blatant rip off of Rice Krispies Treats – made the same exact way only using the Monster cereal of you choice in place of the Rice Krispies. The little goblins and ghouls flock to the kitchen in droves when they see me busting open the boxes – and word spreads fast – so if you are planning on trying this out make sure you have plenty on hand or you might find the little munchkin people ganging up on you. Comfort Food As much as I hate that phrase, since it is a “chick term” you have to admit that any cereal that can be eaten straight out of the box [with or without milk] is something that we all need from time to time. Sure you can grab and handful of Apple Jacks or maybe even Frosted Corn Flakes but they lack one essential element – the compressed marshmallow. Sure you might want to grab a pint [or larger] of your favorite ice cream but that requires a bowl, spoon and often times a messy situation to clean up. Same for other breakfast type food – Pop Tarts are good out of the wrapper but to get the full taste they need to be toasted. Microwave popcorn is a guaranteed spirit lifter but it needs to be popped and then you have “that” smell in the air for hours. You could grab a candy bar but what’s the fun in that? So you see, cereal is the only option in a situation where immediate gratification is needed. And if you are going to rip open a box of cereal – why not go for the gold and grab one with flavor. The Bottom Line I’m glad that these cereals are plentiful during the Halloween season, and now that I know I can order them online if my local stores don’t restock them post-ghouls season I’m a pretty happy camper. When compared to other cereals – the price is awesome. $2.49 per box [no including coupons or sales] for a 12-ounce box is something that you’d have a hard time arguing about. If you’ve never tried any of these cereals, what are you waiting for? While I openly admit that I can kill an entire box of Count Chocula in day ‘d suggest starting off slow – you don’t want to build up a tolerance to it :] Wishing you a spooktacular day and a ghoulish night… One Martha Stewart comment and it's all over for you :] As always … thanks for stopping by … ^V^ Freak ^V^  |
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