Ben's Cereal Bracket - Round 3!
The bracket’s a mess of ink, blood and tears, so here are today’s matchups.
#1 Honey Nut vs. #4 Trix
#3 Reese’s Puffs vs #2 Cocoa Pebbles
#1 Froot Loops vs. #5 Special K
#6 Cookie Crisp vs. #2 Frosted Flakes
#1 Cinnamon Toast Crunch vs #4 Life
#3 Cocoa puffs vs. #10 Golden Grahams
#9 Raisin Bran vs. #4 Fruity Pebbles
#6 Berry Berry Kix vs. #7 Chex
Welcome to our final blog round. We’re officially into the weeds, ladies and gentlemen, so it’s far past the time where we can count on ruling cereals out on taste alone. All (almost all) of these cereals taste good; it’s time we dig deep. It’s time we look not just at the way the starch hits our tastebuds but how it’s built from an atomic level, how it reacts to thirty, then sixty, then a hundred and eighty seconds of milk exposure. We have to consider the toll it takes on our mouths, the levity it provides our spirits when breakups have taken a toll on our hearts, and the number of units we can cram into our feeble, desperate mouths with a single spoonful.
This is the final blog round, so if you want to know how this bracket turned out listen to Episode 64 of Here’s A Podcast Are You Happy Now?
#1 Honey Nut vs. #4 Trix
Winner Honey Nut Cheerios. Trix is a poor man’s Froot Loops and Honey Nut Cheerios is a rich man’s, cough, cheerios. With a certain combination of qualifications and preferences, Honey Nut Cheerios could be someone’s #1. No offense, but Trix is nobody’s #1. It’s for kids. It’s for kids with trash taste, worthless opinions, and garbage flavor palates. No offense.
#3 Reese’s Puffs vs #2 Cocoa Pebbles
Two really quality cereals which both could go far. Reese’s Puffs is a powerful puncher with an awesome flavor combo and good staying power in the cereal bow. Cocoa Pebbles is arguably my favorite ‘chocolate’ cereal. I’m a big fan of pebble-based cereal based on the number you can cram into your mouth all at once. I love that in a cereal. I try to do that with reese’s puffs and i end up wearing a bunch of milk on my shirt. Is that a problem? Definitely not. But I’d rather that milk be in my mouth, call me a purist. Reese’s puffs wins this one because of new means of judging cereals, hereby referred to as the Big Bowl Test. What is the BBT you ask? BBT’s Saturday morning post breakup, you’re eating cereal out of a salad bowl a la Jason Segel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. You’re not washing that bad boy. You’re just letting the vitamins accumulate. You’re letting the milk leftover milk grow both in strength and temperature. You’re eating bowls of cereal that last for twenty minutes at time. In this case, Reese’s Puffs take the cake. A puff-based cereal goes soggy the slowest and maintains a steady crunch. The pebbles go full-soggy before the test even starts, and we’re eating gruel instead of crunchy cereal. That’s the BBT.
#1 Froot Loops vs. #5 Special K
Winner Froot Loops. A heartbreaking decision because of my affinity for Special K. But again, if we go to the BBT - the only answer is Froot Loops. The BBT is not kind to flake-based breakfast cereals.
#6 Cookie Crisp vs. #2 Frosted Flakes
Winner Cookie Crisp. Honestly, I like Cookie Crisp, but this is more about my dislike of Frosted Flakes than anything else. Do I understand people who would rank Frosted Flakes as their number 1 cereal? Sure I do, just like I understand people who eat white bread out of the bag or drink syrup with a straw. Sometimes simple is good, and some people are pleased easier than others. For those of us not in middle school we go cookie crisp because once upon a time a moderately motivated individual chose to put forth the smallest amount of effort to assemble a select number of ingredients, creating the chocolate chip cookie and thus moving cavemen past eating sugar by the spoonful. We choose Cookie Crisp to commemorate his effort, the fact that some of us ask for more, and the dream that some of us need, nay deserve, something greater than the bare necessities to be happy.
#1 Cinnamon Toast Crunch vs #4 Life
Winner Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Anyone who chooses Life over Cinnamon Toast Crunch is no friend of mine.
#3 Cocoa puffs vs. #10 Golden Grahams
This matchup comes down to Cocoa Puffs is not the best chocolate cereal, and Golden Grahams is the best graham-based (?) cereal. The puffs hold up better soggy, and the chocolate after-milk speaks for itself, but the cereal just falls a little short, and if I wanted a chocolate cereal I’d go with Cocoa Pebbles.
#9 Raisin Bran vs. #4 Fruity Pebbles
Winner Fruity Pebbles. Raisin Bran is the best cereal in the world for coming in fresh off a Winter’s storm. It restores strength and spirit to the body. It’s the cereal equivalent of a hearty stew. Unfortunately, I don’t make my cereal bracket decisions based off my life being like the Reverent. That would be a terrible life. Fruity Pebbles taste better so they win.
#6 Berry Berry Kix vs. #7 Chex
Winner Chex. Honestly, who cares about this? Are there any die hard Berry Berry Kix ready to die on this hill? Come to think of it, are there any die hard Chex fan? Chex wins.
