Tasty cereal is like a great song. It can be enjoyed again and again. Although, just recently, a great song came to mind after eating an atrocious cereal. In the 1991 dance pop song “Temptation,” Corina sang the lyrics “Temptation is a part of life, it doesn’t matter if it’s wrong or right.” Back then its classic club beats brought many people onto dance floors, but if there was a dance club in my mouth, Pebbles Boulders turned my taste buds into wallflowers.
In the summer, on my friend Greg’s site Half Assed Productions, I saw that Fruity Pebbles released yet another spin-off cereal. This came a long time after the release of 2010’s disappointing Marshmallow Pebbles. Those would’ve been better if they were Marshmallow FRUITY Pebbles, but instead they failed because they offered a weird tasting vanilla/graham flavor pebble.
Giving into temptation is what the song is about and it’s exactly what I did when I was at Shop-Rite the other night. I bought a box of Pebbles Boulders. Why, Why, Why did I do this? Why is it that I continuously fall for limited release food gimmicks? Slap “For a Limited Time” or “Limited edition” and my curiosity gets the better of me. Most times I think to myself “This flavor is probably so incredible that they would sell out of it so fast so they could only produce limited quantities…NEED TO BUY.” We all know that limited edition cereals are rarely as good as their original counterparts, but somehow I fall for them anyway knowing they will most likely SUCK!
With a flavor such as stone age caramel apple, I thought it sounded original enough that it could be good. I thought about how many cereals have been apple flavored aside from Apple Jacks and Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, and there hasn’t been too many, at least on my local store shelves. In the end, I brought home the Boulders and tried a bowl. It’s hard to believe just how heinous the flavor is. They taste like ass, ketchup, and caramel apples all smashed up in a dirty gym sock. Apologies to the food flavor innovator who formulated this one. It’s too bad because Boulders is a great name for a spin-off Fruity Pebbles. And Fred Flintstone looked so convincing of their deliciousness on the front of the box.
On a side note, ever since I was a kid I have been continually disappointed by cereals, especially limited editions. I know many of you remember the Batman cereal that came out after the 1989 Batman movie. That was just Captain Crunch in bat-shapes! Then the Ghostbusters and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cereals both failed to impress me, but with further forced consumption I grew more fond of them. Not having that instant love affair with a certain cereal meant that they really weren’t that impressive. Gone are the days of my favorite cereals ever: Strawberry Shortcake (yes I’m a dude), Smurfberry Crunch, E.T, and C3P0’s. Cereal companies would make a TON of people happy if they dug up the recipes for these and re-released them. Permanently.
