Post Marshmallow Mania Pebbles

While pouring myself a bowl of the new Post Marshmallow Mania Pebbles and after being frustrated with the super difficult What’s Different? puzzle on the back of the box, I remembered the times I spent in front of the television watching The Flintstones.

I also remember being told by my parents that I shouldn’t sit so close to the television or else I was going to screw up my vision.

After I came out of those flashbacks and cleaned my glasses, many questions about The Flintstones popped into my head that I would’ve never thought of as a little kid. For example:

(1) During the credits at the end of the show, when Fred dumped the sabertooth cat outside, the sabertooth cat jumped through the window, dumped Fred outside, and locked him out. Why didn’t Fred just jump through the window like the sabertooth cat, instead of pounding on the front door?

(2) Dino walked on all fours, but he also walked on his hind legs quite a bit. Why didn’t he just choose one way and stick with it? Why did he have to showoff?

(3) How could someone as hot as Wilma be married to a fat oaf like Fred?

(4) Was The Great Gazoo gay and was that the real reason why he was exiled to Earth?

As I pondered these questions, I began to chow down on the Marshmallow Mania Pebbles. After a few spoonfuls, the taste of the Marshmallow Mania Pebbles stopped my train of thought. The artificial vanilla-graham flavoring and the marshmallow-flavored sprinkles on the cereal didn’t have much taste. It made the cereal kind of bland and it disappointed me, like both of the live-action Flintstones movies, except for the scenes in the first movie with Halle Berry.

The only things that saved this cereal were the marshmallows, which have been known to make many things better, like hot chocolate, yams, campfires, the movie Ghostbusters, and William Hung’s singing, when you stuff the marshmallows in your ears.

Now the marshmallows in the cereal were supposed to be in the shapes of Fred, Barney, Dino, and Gazoo. After examining them, I have to say the only way anyone would think the marshmallows looked like any of those characters was if they were high.

Really high, like double-barrel-bong high.

Despite the large cast of character marshmallows, I really wished there were Wilma and Betty marshmallows, because I would love to eat those two.

Item: Post Marshmallow Mania Pebbles
Purchase Price: $2.50 (on sale)
Rating: 2 out of 5
Pros: Marshmallows. Low-fat. Marshmallows. Vitamins and minerals. Marshmallows.
Cons: Cereal part was kind of bland, even with its artificial vanilla-graham flavoring and marshmallow flavored sprinkles. No Wilma or Betty marshmallows. What’s Different? puzzle on the back of the box was super hard.

Reduced Sugar Cocoa Puffs

Where the hell is Sonny? I want to barbeque his orange-feathered ass.

What’s up with this 3/4 less sugar in his Cocoa Puffs?

Doesn’t Sonny realize he’s ruining the lives of grade school children everywhere? Sending them to school without adequate sugar levels is a recipe for failure in the classroom.

I hate to imagine where would I have been without sugary breakfast cereals? I probably wouldn’t have survived grade school. I wouldn’t have paid attention to my teacher, gotten good grades, completed my math worksheets before anyone else, gotten gold stars on my progress chart, become the tetherball king of the playground, or be able to handle the beating I received for being the biggest nerd, geek, dweeb, and dork.

For me, sugar was like steroids. It made me a better student. Sure I was a little “husky,” but I excelled in school and that’s all that really mattered. It’s better to be a smart “husky” kid than a stupid “husky” kid.

For a while the cereal companies had it right by adding more. They were adding more chocolate, more marshmallows, and more rainbow fruity colors.

But now the trend is to have less. So eventually is there also going to be less chocolate, less marshmallows, and less rainbow fruity colors?

Where’s the neural stimulant that kids are going to need to make it through lunch? They can’t drink coffee, because no grade school child can afford Starbucks everyday and I don’t think any of them are willing to risk stunting their growth.

So what else does all this loss of sugar get us?

It gets us Cocoa Puffs that doesn’t turn the milk chocolatey. You heard me. No chocolatey milk.

What’s to blame for this? Splenda, that’s what.

Damn you, Splenda! Damn you!

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It’s where we all get the energy to make it through work and school. For many adults that energy comes in the form of caffeine. For kids that energy comes in the form of sugar.

With 3/4 less sugar, I don’t think kids are going to go cuckoo over these Reduced Sugar Cocoa Puffs.

Editor’s Note: If you’re an astute Impulsive Buy reader, you may have noticed that today’s review is almost identical to a review we did in September for Froot Loops with 1/3 Less Sugar.


Item: Reduced Sugar Cocoa Puffs
Purchase Price: $2.50 (on sale)
Rating: 2 out of 5
Pros: Chocolate. On sale.
Cons: Reduced taste. Splenda. Doesn’t make chocolate milk anymore. I’m not cuckoo for these Cocoa Puffs. We sort of recycled a review.

Spider-Man Cereal

Spider-Man Cereal

I originally picked this cereal for one reason: It was on sale for $2.29.

It wasn’t until I got home that I realized there was another reason: This box of cereal may make me filthy stinkin’ rich someday.

If you look at the upper right hand corner of the box, it says “Limited Edition.” This cereal is a collector’s item. So if I keep everything in pristine condition, it’s going to be worth something someday. That means I couldn’t open the box and I couldn’t eat the cereal.

Since I couldn’t eat the cereal, I had a dilemma. How could I do a review, without eating the cereal? My problem was solved when I went back to the supermarket and saw that the Limited Edition Spider-Man cereal was still on sale.

I bought two more boxes, one to eat and another one to add to my Limited Edition Spider-Man cereal collection. Unfortunately, I had to search through the boxes on the shelf to get a pristine one. There were quite a few on the shelf I had to look through. I guess people don’t realize the earning potential of those cereal boxes.

For breakfast the next morning I had a bowl of Limited Edition Spider-Man cereal. It felt like I was eating away money. I wonder how much a partially eaten box of Limited Edition Spider-Man cereal would go for on eBay.

Anyway, the cereal is cleverly shaped like spider webs and tastes much like Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries. I don’t really like Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries or Cap’n Crunch because every time I ate them the roof of my mouth would get shredded raw. I have horrible memories of pulling off hanging bits of flesh from the top of my mouth.

You know what would make Limited Edition Spider-Man cereal better? It needs some kind of toy in it. How about an action figure, something that shoots out webs, or a life-sized blowup doll of Mary Jane? If it had a toy, it would make it even more of a collector’s item.

Overall, I’m not impressed with this cereal. I’m not impressed with the taste of it and I’m beginning to not be impressed with the potential value of it. I just checked and someone on eBay is selling an unopened box of the Limited Edition Spider-Man cereal they made for the first Spider-Man movie for $1.99 and no one had bid on it.

Then again, it’s only been a few years since that cereal came out. Give it a few decades and then we will see what it’s worth.


Item: Spider-Man Cereal
Purchase Price: $2.29 (on sale)
Rating: 2 out of 5
Pros: Limited Edition. Will hopefully be worth something someday.
Cons: Needs a Spider-Man toy. Tastes too much like another cereal. My retirement depends on the value of this cereal in 37 years.