Thursday, January 2, 2014

Erik Eats Cereal: Trix (With Fruitalicious Swirls!)


First off, a bonus point to Trix for not trying to get away with something like "Frootalicious."

Minus one point because "Fruitalicious" is still a stupid word.

I'm almost sure that Trix came about because a random cocoa puff tried to mate with a froot loop, and this was the result.  It has the same lightness and shape of the cocoa puff, but the coloring is clearly from something that tries to get away with its own spelling.

Funny how two bird mascots would wind up producing a rabbit, though.

So let's get down to the review.


Before we get to taste, can I just point out that even as a child I kept asking "why can't the rabbit have some Trix?"  Surely someone out there was kind-hearted enough to supply him with at least one bowl.

Then again, it might be for the rabbit's own good.  Whereas Sonny was doing his best to cope with an addition (ultimately failing because everyone around him is terrible and decided to be an enabler/pusher), the Trix rabbit- 

Wait, does he have a name?

Tricks?  Really?  That's...pretty lame.

So anyway, "Tricks" has been pining for Trix for quite some time, and trust me, his whole "give up immediately upon being discovered" act came from years and years of abuse.


Look at that.  It's a POLE WITH A HOOKY-LATCHY-COLLAR....thing... man, I had a great rant going until I realized I had no idea what those things are called.  Anyway, why does a grocery store clerk even have one of those?  Do they get rabid dogs in there often?  The occasional dangerous wild animal?  To simply hook someone by the neck WHILE THEY'RE RUNNING and drag them out is just cruel.

It isn't that the rabbit's simply giving up upon being discovered, it's because surrender has been beaten into him, like a dog that flinches any time you try to pet it.

So back to the cereal itself.  The "natural and artificial" fruit taste isn't as strong as that of Froot Loops, but that doesn't really count against it.  I appreciate that grains are the key ingredient as opposed to sugar, but it's still particularly sweet.  Adding milk, they maintain some of their crunch better than the Cocoa Puffs did, but I still suspect I wouldn't want to leave them in there too long, if just because I really, really don't want to see what color the milk turns.

Speaking of color, it feels pretty desperate to be advertising "swirls of color" as the major selling point under the name of the cereal itself.  It doesn't really look that amazing, it carries more of a "there was an accident at the factory and they're just putting heavy spin on to it" vibe.

I do find it amusing that apparently the designers of the cereal decided to take absolutely no chances and grouped the colors based on how they are on the Roy G Biv chart.  Red is with orange, yellow with green, and blue with violet.  Still no love for indigo, I guess.

The package actually says "swirl colors may vary," but in the bowl I had they were all matching the colors on the front of the package.

I'm also just now noticing something about the logo.  I don't know if it's always been this way, but it looks like the "T" in "Trix" has been knocked back slightly, while the "r" is leaning forward.  The "i" is angled slightly sideways, and the "x" seems to have the bottom pulled out.  I can only assume this is done for one of two reasons:

1)  They want you to be aware that this isn't your average fruity sugary cereal.  They know that your major complaint about cereals is that the logos are just so boring.  If you're going to be staring at a cereal box while shoveling brightly colored corn puffs into your mouth, you want something that pops.  You want a logo that says "this ain't your daddy's fruit-flavored puffed cereal!  We have our logo all over the place!  It could fall over at any moment and take the rabbit with it!  It's crazy!"

2)  Someone didn't want that single class in Photoshop to go to waste when they designed the logo.

The cereal itself wasn't really that remarkable, I'm straining to remember specifically what tastes I had shortly after eating it.  I suppose that means it's harmless, as opposed to Froot Loops "in your face" sweetness and citrus tang, so I'd give it a six out of ten.


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