Kotas Reviews Frute Brute

Welcome to Day 3 of Monster Cereals Week! Today we examine a beast that hasn't been seen in over three decades, the mysterious Frute Brute! Some fun facts about Frute Brute. First, it was originally called Fruit Brute when it was first released, and purported to be "fruit flavored cereal with key lime marshmallows". The current incarnation changes the spelling, presumably to conform to whatever regulations there are about naming something "Fruit" when that something contains little to no actual fruit. It also changes the flavorings. This is a "cherry flavored cereal with spooky-fun marshmallows". How does it stack up? Well, let's take a look!

Is it just me, or does he sport an Elvis style this go around?

The mascot himself is...uh...kind of uninspired. He's pretty much any old generic cartoon werewolf with some green overalls on. I liked the original incarnation with the jaunty hat much better. Still, he's on theme and the art work IS well done. Huh, I just noticed that the same damn castle is on each of the boxes. I guess that is where they all live? Why would a werewolf live in a castle? Oh, and this is "Artificial Cherry Flavor Frosted Cereal". That does not inspire confidence. I don't know much about how this tasted when I was a kid, because they stopped making it before I had any say in what I ate for breakfast. I'm told that Knoxville favorite son Quentin Tarantino is a HUGE fan of it though.

No monochromatic color schemes in sight!

It's nice to finally see some risks being taken with this cereal. We have double the number of colors for the cereal pieces and marbits in purple, pink, and orange! The red ghost pieces are a "more different red" than the Frankenberry ones, and the yellow ones are a nice contrast. Not pictured is the rare "orange" piece that I found after these pictures were taken, clearly the result of dye cross contamination. The marbits were all in the "monster head" shape (or maybe just blob shaped) so that was a bit of a step back. This stuff has a very, VERY strong smell of artificial cherry flavoring, what in my youth I would call "red flavor". Let's see how it tastes!

Will it live up to the hype? You make the call!

Spoilers!

NO.

Sadly, the visual and olfactory portions of the experience are the best part of this giant bowl of disappointment. I didn't expect it to blow me away, but it was simply amazing how little flavor there was, especially after the smell was so strong. The Dry Run was like eating vaguely cherry-ish flavored sugar coated packing peanuts, sprinkled with marbits that tasted like any other "generic" marbit. Not even a hint of cherry flavoring to be had in them thar marbits, let me tell you. The Gold Standard was a little better, with the milk releasing a bit more flavor. That flavor was a very generic fruit-like flavor though, and only sort of resembled the artificial cherry flavors that the smell tantalized us with. Not awful, but certainly not up to the standards of Frankenberry's distinct strawberry taste. The Aftermath left us with very good smelling, but very weak tasting cherry-esque milk. You let me down, Frute Brute. You let Tarantino down. You let all the fans out there in Internet Land down. 

On the FACE Rating System, I give this 1 frownie face. It would have been lower, but the cereal looks great and it was nice to see a bit more visual variety in this incarnation. Too bad the taste couldn't keep up with the sight and the smell. I mean, if it's called Frute Brute, I expect the flavor to hit me in the taste like, well, like a Brute. Let's hope your predecessor Boo Berry can do better!