Erik Eats Cereal: Corn Pops

One of the ad campaigns I remember the most growing up was for the cereal Corn Pops.  It followed the same basic formula of- well, let's let The West Wing and Psych's Dule Hill explain it to us:

Something gets between young person and cereal, kid starts to suffer a full mental breakdown because apparently Corn Pops are laced with opiates and withdrawal is a horrible thing to see someone go through.  Situation winds up being resolved casually, and kid acts like it was no big deal.

Repeat that same formula for years with the same theme music from Jaws, and you've summarized every Kellogg's board meeting involving the cereal during that time period.

Some of them got a bit creepy, though.

I'm pretty sure that mother arrived seconds before he beat that little girl to death with a grapefruit.  Maybe it's the crazed look in his eye, maybe the way he just casually asks "Where's Mom?" while reaching for the largest blunt object on the counter, I don't know, it just feels like it was seconds away from being a Dateline episode.

I've had Corn Pops twice in the past few weeks, once just yesterday, and here's my summary of the flavor:

It tastes ridiculously sweet, with a faint popcorn like flavor buried underneath it all.

That's it.  I had to struggle to remember that much, because there really isn't anything innovative or unusual about the flavor.  It didn't offend me, it didn't astound me, it just felt completely safe and inoffensive.  That's not necessarily bad, and it might've worked when I was young, but for an adult palate I want something that interests me.  The taste of honey, or a touch of cocoa, those are flavors that are interesting.  Feeling like I just poured milk over popcorn doesn't really feel like breakfast to me, it feels like something I'd eat when I was broke and had to scrounge what food was left in the pantry and fridge.  Even then, I'd probably eat the popcorn and drink the milk.

Before anybody assumes that I just want to rag on every cereal I taste, I'll point out that I actually liked Cocoa Puffs, and there's one more coming up next week that I actually thought was really interesting.  This one just... it just doesn't stick with me or make me crave more.

Oh, and it seemed to get soggy ridiculously fast when I poured milk over it each time.  I'm guessing the cereal is 40% sugar, 20% corn, and 40% air.

So I guess if I had to rank it from one to ten, I'd give Corn Pops a five.  It's dead middle of the road, not strong either way.