It’s that time of year again—specifically Monster Cereal time, when I binge on Count Chocula, Franken Berry, Boo Berry, and, on those wonderful, rare, special occasions when they bring it back, my personal favorite, Frute Brute. Also Yummy Mummy, which knocked Frute Brute out of the lineup back in 1988, and which also only rarely makes a comeback. And this year, for the first time in thirty-five years, the first female mascot has joined the Monster Cereals team: Carmella Creeper, who seems to be a zombie. She’s also Franken Berry’s “long lost cousin”.
I would seriously love to know the Berry/Creeper family tree but General Mills hasn’t been forthcoming with more information, although one of those genealogical websites should be able to handle reanimated corpses.
Carmella is, as you might guess from her headphones, a DJ—presumably being in that booth prevents her from attacking and devouring unsuspecting dancers—and obviously shops at Hot Topic. I don’t think of Radiohead as being very bass-heavy but then I don’t know what kind of mixes Carmella spins. Still, come on, “Creep” has got to be her favorite song, right?
The story of her reunion with ol’ cousin Frankie is pretty fun. I did wonder why Frute Brute and Yummy Mummy weren’t invited to play video games with the other three—aside from Frutie being killer at Skyrim—but if you squint at the bottom panel you can see they were well ahead of the rest of the gang in bumpin’ to Carmella’s phat beats.
And, finally, there’s that cereal which is supposed to be “caramel apple” flavor. The fluorescent color had me worried that they were trying for “green apple”—a notoriously difficult flavor because you don’t want to go too sour, but instead they went for a mild sweet flavor with a caramel aftertaste. It’s not bad but I think the Monster Cereal squad’s first female deserves something better. Clever design and a funny backstory are great but with breakfast cereal it’s what’s inside that counts.
Stevie Wonder has a great song named “Creepin'” … I wonder if Carmella plays that one? Thanks for taking one for the team by testing all those cereals, Chris. Sweet.
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I bet Carmella does play Stevie Wonder’s “Creepin'”–you can’t go wrong with Stevie, although when she’s DJing I bet she’s more inclined to go with “Superstition”.
Oh, now I need to check out the cereal aisle. I do love a good corporate backstory.
While you’re there get the Monster Mash cereal too. I have a post about it coming up because with the Monster Cereals they just keep coming up. Wait, that doesn’t sound right…