BEFORE: Hugh Grant carries over from "Wonka". I was kind of joking last week about some kind of virtual "Reno 911!" reunion, but look, this film has cameos from Cedric Yarbrough and Kyle Dunnigan (who played Trudy's boyfriend, Craig) so I guess I manifested that, because it came true, really the only people missing are Niecy Nash and Joe LoTruglio, but LoTruglio was really only on the last couple of seasons. Based on the huge cast list below, however, this is also something of a reunion of the casts of "Seinfeld", "SNL" and "Mad Men".
THE PLOT: In 1963 Michigan, business rivals Kellogg's and Post compete to create a pastry that could change breakfast forever.
AFTER: Tonight's film is about the creation of a new food, the Pop-Tart. Well, it was new at one time, as everything once was. There's so much work left to be done in the creation of new food shapes and flavor combinations, and I promise you that I have done extensive work in this arena by traveling to state fairs in the last few years and discovering things like fried stuffed chicken wings, deep-fried clam chowder, and brisket and waffle balls on a stick. I swear, I made none of these up. Last month I had a BBQ pork and mac & cheese egg roll in North Carolina, because this is important research that needs to continue.
Last night I working at the theater and debating whether to have Popeye's or pizza again, when a quick Yelp search revealed that two blocks away there was a burger restaurant that serves an unusual menu item, the burgerrito. Yes, it's a mash-up of a burger and a burrito - two burger patties, cheese, fries, bacon and avocado wrapped up in a tortilla. I'm not going to say it was the greatest thing I ever tasted, but it was also very far from the worst. Would have again, but I allowed myself to make two alterations to the menu items, first I asked to get tater tots inside instead of fries - a probable improvement - and also I requested no chipotle honey sauce, a definite improvement. Who puts THAT on a burgerito, when the obvious correct sauce should be thousand island dressing? No need to thank me, I'm willing to sacrifice my body for the cause of food research and improving the world, one food order at a time.
It's only a bit weird because I had the "burgerrito" on my vision board, basically a list of mashed-up food items based only on wordplay, I have no idea if any of these are feasible in the real world, but I wrote a huge list of them on my phone, like "egg pho yung" and "matzoh-rella sticks" (or "mozza-ball soup", whichever) and "dumpling-uini" and "cole slaw-py joes". From "pork chop suey" to "Philly cheesecake", "clam-burger" to "sour cream cheese", "cocoa-cola" to "pasta-rami", "ramen-istrone soup" and the still completely imaginary "sashimi-changa", in my opinion the world of mash-up foods is almost completely unexplored to date. Oh, sure, I've had potachos, who hasn't? Or a barbe-Cuban sandwich, ho hum. And everyone's tried a fa-waffle, right? People, we've only scratched the surface of weird mashed-up food, we've got to DIG DEEP and keep creating, keep saying "yes" to weird flavor combinations and if it doesn't already exist as a mash-up, for God's sake, mash it up!
Which brings me back to a time when there were NO Pop-Tarts, all people had to eat for breakfast were eggs and bacon, which caused people to die of heart disease in their 30's, and sugary cereals, which caused people to die of diabetes in their 40's. Before the 1960's, the world of breakfast cereal was even worse, because in the 1950's people ate things like unflavored oatmeal, non-frosted flakes (really, they were just called "flakes") and raisin bran, only without the raisins. But it was a different time, and people just didn't know that life could be better, and that food was supposed to, you know, taste good. OK, maybe America's youth weren't addicted to sugar, but they also didn't have enough energy to get through the day, and that's why they allowed kids to take naps in school. Suddenly there was Frosted Flakes and Sugar Smacks and Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch, and BOOM, whole new ball game. Suddenly kids had the energy to make it through the school day, play little league in the afternoon, and then watch TV and stay up late to do their homework, with NO NAP needed. Game changer.
Once the rival cereal companies Post and Kellogg's cracked the code, and got kids hooked on sugary cereals, they turned their attention to pastries. How could they package a fruit-filled pastry in a way that would get them into boxes on store shelves, and get some of the money that was going to corner bakeries to come their way? Really, it's the same dilemma that Amazon faced when they drove small bookstores out of business, by making their delivery system more convenient, I mean who wants to shop at a grocery store and THEN a bakery, making two trips, you're a busy homemaker without much time on your hands, we can cut your shopping time in half, just buy your pastries in the same aisle as the cereal and heat them up in your toaster at home! And there's fruit inside (sort of), so they HAVE to be nutritious, right? Why let your kid leave the house with a messy real apple when they can have apple-flavored goo inside a portable pastry envelope? Then the kids are on their way to school and you can listen to soap operas on the radio and work on your drinking habit!
The film relates the very untrue story of the research and development of toaster pastries, and it plays out much like an extended episode of "Drunk History", where it doesn't really matter if the facts are right, as long as it's funny, which is much more important. That's the job of a movie, to entertain, not provide a boring history lesson. Is there really a "Bowl & Spoon" awards for the cereal industry? Who knows? More importantly, who cares? Bob Cabana relates the story of the creation of Pop-Tarts to a young boy in a diner, how he was inspired by two kids who were dumpster diving, and how some of the greatest minds in marketing were thrown together in the Kellogg's lab to crack the code on this new product.
But, by creating a new product that can be toasted and served without milk, Bob accidentally draws the anger of Big Dairy, which is a giant cabal, or at least one powerful dairy farmer with an army of sneaky and sarcastic milkmen who KNOW where you live. Meanwhile, Marjorie Post travels to Moscow to secure Russian sugar rights from Nikita Krushchev, because Kellogg's had signed an agreement with El Sucre, the noted Puerto Rican warlord who controlled 99% of the Caribbean sugar market. Also meanwhile, Thurl Ravenscroft, the Shakespearean actor who also provide the voice for Tony the Tiger, feels that the cereal mascots will soon be obsolete, so he leads Snap, Crackle and Pop, along with all the others, in a mascot strike that looks just a bit too much like the U.S. Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2021. I wish this film didn't have to go that far, but I guess maybe somebody had to?
Again this is a WAY over-the-top fictional retelling of what really happened in the breakfast food marketplace in the 1960's. Here is what's real - the Post Company did invent a way to keep foods partially dehydrated and wrapped in foil to prevent spoiling, and at first this process was used for packaging dog food, under the brand name Gaines Burgers. The Post Company also realized they could use this same technique to package breakfast pastries, which they called Country Squares, and they were planning exciting flavors like strawberry, blueberry, and brown sugar cinnamon. BUT they announced the product while it was still in development, and that gave Kellogg's time to come up with Pop-Tarts, using a similar packaging technique. Pop-Tarts came out in more exciting flavors, like Frosted strawberry, Frosted blueberry, and Frosted brown sugar & cinnamon. See the difference? But Pop-Tarts came to the market FIRST, and who even remembers the second man to walk on the moon? Buzz somebody...
This is also true: Thurl Ravenscroft was a real person, and was really the voice of Tony the Tiger for years. But you may know him better as the bass singer of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" in the classic TV holiday special (Boris Karloff narrated the show, but he wasn't a great singer...). Also, Marjorie Post of Post Cereals was a real businesswoman and feminist who also built a resort in Florida called Mar-a-Lago. When she died it was bequeathed to the National Park Service, thinking it could serve as a sort of "winter White House", which turned out to be very prophetic. Congress returned the property to the Post Foundation in 1981 and Donald Trump bought it in 1985, later using it for its intended purpose when he was President. Huh.
(BTW, read the story on Wikipedia about HOW Trump bought Mar-a-Lago, I won't get into it here, but it's SO typically Trump...)
The rest is all speculation and comedy, it's all quite ridiculous, but maybe the story about the creation of toaster pastries needed to be more ridiculous overall. There are visual references and Easter Eggs for everything from Norman Rockwell to "Mad Men" to "The Godfather", and you may never look at Tom Carvel, Jack LaLanne or Chef Boyardee the same way again.
Also starring Jerry Seinfeld (last seen in "Kevin Hart & Chris Rock: Headliners Only"), Melissa McCarthy (last seen in "The Back-Up Plan"), Jim Gaffigan (last seen in "Peter Pan & Wendy"), Amy Schumer (last seen in "Bros"), Max Greenfield (last seen in "Promising Young Woman"), Peter Dinklage (last seen in "Cyrano"), Christian Slater (last seen in "Murder in the First"), Bill Burr (also last seen in 'Kevin Hart & Chris Rock: Headliners Only"), Cedric the Entertainer (ditto), James Marsden (last seen in "Disenchanted"), Jack McBrayer (last seen in "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop"), Thomas Lennon (last seen in "Balls of Fury"), Bobby Moynihan (last seen in "Clerks III"), Adrian Martinez (last seen in "Pieces of April"), Sarah Cooper, Mikey Day (last seen in "Hubie Halloween"), Kyle Mooney (last seen in "Brigsby Bear"), Drew Tarver (last seen in "Other People"), Tony Hale (last seen in "Because I Said So"), Felix Solis (last seen in "Man on a Ledge"), Maria Bakalova (last heard in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3"), Dean Norris (last seen in "The Frozen Ground"), Kyle Dunnigan (last seen in "Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot"), Sebastian Maniscalco (last seen in "The Irishman"), Beck Bennett (last heard in "The Mitchells vs. the Machines"), Fred Armisen (last seen in "The Bubble"), Patrick Warburton (last seen in "Scream 3"), Jon Hamm (last seen in "Ira & Abby"), John Slattery (last seen in "Confess, Fletch"), Rachael Harris (last seen in "Barely Lethal"), Nelson Franklin (last seen in "You People"), Aparna Nancherla (last seen in "A Simple Favor"), Andy Daly (last seen in "The People We Hate at the Wedding"), Earthquake (last heard in "Barnyard"), Sasheer Zamata (last seen in "Muppets Haunted Mansion"), George Wallace (last seen in "Think Like a Man Too"), Ronny Chieng (last seen in "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings"), Darrell Hammond (also last seen in "Ira & Abby"), Dan Levy (last seen in "Admission"), John Forest (last seen in "Life Partners"), Sarah Burns (last seen in "A.C.O.D."), Cedric Yarbrough (last seen in "Drillbit Taylor"), Jeff Lewis, Alex Edelman, Eleanor Sweeney, Bailey Sheetz, Isaac Bae, Chris Rickett, Catherine Last, Kue Lawrence (last seen in "Resistance"), Ken Narasaki, Gregory Burke, Thomas Silcott, Morgan West, Shane Carpenter, Will Allan, Michael Joseph Pierce, Winter Bassett, Jessica Seinfeld, Mark Kwak, Susan Elle, Tad Griffith (last seen in "The Boy Next Door"), Bette Bentley, Keyshawn Chisholm, Bonnie Mercado and the voice of Spike Feresten.
RATING: 6 out of 10 Univac punch cards
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