Kotas Reviews Fruity Yummy Mummy

Welcome to Day 5 of Monster Cereals Week! Today we unwrap the mystery of the final Monster Cereal, the mysterious and yet still incredibly silly Fruity Yummy Mummy! Fruity Yummy Mummy is the latecomer to the Monster Cereal party, debuting in 1988 and being discontinued in 1993. It was General Mills' second attempted at a generic "fruit flavored" cereal and replaced Frute Brute in the line up, if only briefly. Again, this is one I missed out on as a kid, usually because my cereal tastes by that point were growing up, as was I. It was originally a fruit-flavored cereal with vanilla marshmallows, but the current incarnation is the surprising choice of orange creme flavored. Will it curse us for disturbing its rest? Let's find out!

What's wrong with your faaaaaaaace?

Clearly, Ancient Fruity Egypt did not have much of a dental plan. Look at that thing! I've never seen a mono-tooth before. And check out the shoddy workmanship on the wrappings of the forehead! Coming loose like that is unacceptable! Anyway, the mascot isn't terrible. It's a cartoon mummy with multicolored wrappings and pretty much is what I imagined when I heard the phrase "Fruity Yummy Mummy". He's also the only Cereal Monster able to function at full capacity in sunlight, which explains why it is dawn on his box. Artificial Orange Cream Flavor is not what I would have chosen for my cereal, but I don't have a Fungineering degree. 

50 (well, 5) Shades of Reddish Colors!

The cereal pieces are a lot brighter than I was expecting after the Boo Berry debacle. They are red and orange, rather than the red and yellow of Frute Brute. The marbits are a bit boring in shape, with all of them either the generic "monster head" or just formless blobs, but the colors of orange and yellow are a welcome sight. The marbit density appears to be much higher than in any of the other fruit flavored Monster Cereals. Maybe this was just the lucky box! The cereal definitely smells of artificial orange cream, but the scent is not as strong as on Frute Brute. 

It's like a marker factory exploded into food

This was certainly an orange cream flavored cereal. It actually tastes like that, even if it is the fakey flavor you get from, well, every orange cream flavored thing ever. It is not a super strong flavor, but it is distinct and the marbits give a shock of flavor similar to Boo Berry. The difference is that it actually works in the cereal's favor. The Dry Run isn't bad, about on par with Frankenberry, but the Gold Standard? Wow, that orange cream flavor is very noticeable but not overwhelmingly so. The high marbit density means that each bite tastes pretty darn good, rather than a wasteland of awful punctuated by berry-ish "not badness". The cereal does degrade faster in milk than Count Chocula or Frankenberry, but gosh darn it, I still like it. The Aftermath is still a bit disappointing, though the milk was at least orange cream scented this time. I think I actually like this!

On the FACE Rating Scale I'd give this 2 smiley faces. It actually accomplishes what it set out to do in making an orange cream flavored cereal. Now, if you don't like orange cream (and I get that not everyone does) this is totally not the cereal for you, but if you do like it, give it a whirl. 

Thus concludes the glory of Monster Cereals Week! Hopefully I'll be able to do more Theme Weeks in the future, as I had a lot of fun with this, despite the boxes of leftover cereal. I have to say, Count Chocula still stands above the rest as my favorite of the five, but Fruity Yummy Mummy comes in as my next favorite. Frankenberry is probably better for people crazy about strawberry flavoring. The worst of them is probably Boo Berry, simply because it was all around awful, which I think is due to the current formulation. Frute Brute was just a shocking failure in the flavor department, even though it looked and smelled so good, which summoned the Twin Dragons of Disappointment: Excitement and Expectation. See ya'll next time!