Good morning, readers! It’s probably not morning when you see this, but since I’m reviewing a cereal today, just let me have it. Carmella Creeper is the first new Monster Cereal in thirty-five years, although considering how infrequently they wheel out Frute Brute and Yummy Mummy you would be forgiven for thinking it hadn’t been so long. I’m not saying I forgive you, just that someone else might. Monster Cereals are generally sold from September 1st to October 31st each year and are most famously known for Count Chocula, Frankenberry, and my personal favorite the long underappreciated Boo Berry.
This is also the first female lead Monster Cereal (not that I want to assume Yummy Mummy’s gender), so congratulations ladies, it’s not a presidency, but I’m sure this is almost as good. General Mills also decided to make her a DJ, which strikes me of Poochie levels of youth marketing. The Simpsons Poochie from the late 90’s, not the 80’s Poochie, a pink haired toy dog from Mattel. If you get both references let me remind you to schedule uncomfortable procedures with your doctor. Still, good on her for having a job unlike the rest of the lay about Monsters. Unless Count Chocula actually rules his countship, but I’m not ready to start writing a treatise on Monstrous Feudalism, so I’ll let the premise lie. Hmm, would a zombie DJ just play everything on shuffle?
Upon opening the bag I was struck by the strong scent of caramel. Most caramel apple foods and candies are primarily apple flavored with a hint of caramel. This was burnt sugar straight away, a nice change of pace. Visually this may be one of brightest green foods I’ve ever seen, the picture on the box doesn’t do it credit. This is the kind of green that gets banned in Europe and is MOSTLY reserved for Disney villains (we don’t talk about Bruno). There are multicolored marshmallows of indeterminate shape, they look like Frankenberry heads, but that would be just lazy of them to do. So it’s probably what they did.
So now that I’ve distracted you long enough to have your wallet stolen (did you check your pocket?), I’ll finally describe the taste. The strong caramel scent actually balances with the apple flavor and you can distinctly taste both. It’s certainly artificial flavoring, but considering it has a cartoon zombie on the box you shouldn’t be expecting authentic undead apples in the first place. The cereal ghost bits stay relatively crunchy for a while, but they’ll eventually give up the ghost. The marshmallows are unflavored (unless dehydrated marshmallow counts as a flavor) and are distributed evenly enough that you should get one or two per spoonful. Unless you are using comically undersized or oversized spoons, but that’s on your crown, not mine.
Overall I’ll say it’s a pretty good sugary cereal. I imagine it’ll stick around for a couple years before being sent into the flavor vault. If I must make a complaint and I think I am contractually obligated to do so, it’s the name. Carmella Creeper, as if people already don’t have a hard enough time saying caramel. Is it “car-mel”, “care-a-mel”, or even“ker-muhl.” Truly a divisive issue.
Found at Giant Food
By Martin Peyruc