Garytoons!

 

Most people have at least some vague notion of what they’d do if they were ever elected president.  You know, eradicate hunger, eliminate poverty, have big statues of themselves erected all over the place…

 

I am no exception.  I know the very first two things I would do in the semi-unlikely event that I am ever elected president.

 

First of all, I would publicly pressure General Mills to make their monster cereals with the original oat-based recipe, instead of the disgusting current corn-based recipe.

 

Second of all, I would publicly pressure Quaker to bring back my beloved childhood favorite cereal Vanilly Crunch.

 

I’m sure I’d get to all that hunger, poverty, and statue stuff too, eventually.  You know – priorities.

 

Whenever I go to the grocery store (or, occasionally, as in this case, Walmart (shudder!)) my eyes involuntarily and vainly scan the cereal aisle shelves for both of those coveted items.

 

Did I ever tell you that I’ve actually had numerous dreams that I was in a cereal aisle and saw monster cereals made with oats?  And how deliriously ecstatic I was in my dream?  And how terribly disappointed I was when I woke up afterwards???

 

We’re looking into medicines.

 

But THIS time, I thought I actually might have struck paydirt.

 

There, staring up at me with his soulful blue eyes, was the ol’ Cap’n himself, holding what I’d wanted to see him holding for decades upon decades – a little white, vanilla-flavored cereal globe.

 

Could it be?  After all these years?  They’d finally brought back my beloved Vanilly Crunch?????

 

Could it????

 

Well, sure, it could…  but was it????

 

Let’s find out!

 

My expectations were low (it was called Arctic Crunch, not Vanilly Crunch, and it had both blue and white cereal pieces, although they did say it was vanilla flavored), but my hopes were cautiously high.  I brought it home and patiently kept it in the pantry for an entire night before trying it first thing the very next morning!

 

Lunatic Purist that I am, I even separated out a bowlful of white pieces, just in case the blue pieces tasted different, to try to get something that both visually and flavorly (it’s a word if you want it to be) most closely approximated my old beloved Vanilly Crunch.

 

 

A few of the pieces had a bit of a bluish hue to them, but I decided it was close enough for jazz.

 

I poured the milk and took a big spoonful……

 

aaaaaannnnndddddddd……….

 

drum roll, pleeeeeeease………………..!

 

 

It didn’t taste like Vanilly Crunch.  Honestly, it didn’t taste a whole lot like much of anything.  The Capn’s Red, White & Blue Crunch actually had a lot more flavor than this cereal did.  It was a little sweet, I guess.  It mostly just sat there.  And got soggy way too early.

 

Interestingly, the blue pieces do taste a little bit different.  They taste like blue dye!  I said different, not better. 😉

 

So…… in the end, my low expectations were unfortunately met, and my moderate hopes once again cruelly (albeit predictably) dashed.

 

Instead of bringing back my beloved Vanilly Crunch (did I mention that it was beloved?), they created something that looks like it but isn’t.

 

Le sigh.

 

Oh, well… experiments were once again done in the name of science, and I have a big ol’ family-sized box of mediocrity sitting in my fridge to show for it!  (We refrigerate our cereals to keep them from expiring and so we can have lots of boxes open at the same time.)

 

Join me next time, though, intrepid cerealers, when I take yet another sugar-laden nostalgia trip even farther down memory lane and revisit a cereal that was a bit before my time and that is making a limited-time comeback on Walmart shelves only….

 

Twinkles!