Illustration by Michael DiMilo
Sugarcoated: Review of Unfrosted
By Geoff Carter
One of my fondest childhood memories as a baby boomer was waking up early on a Saturday morning, going to the kitchen and fixing myself a big bowl of Sugar Frosted Flakes, Sugar Pops, Sugar Smacks, Coco Krispies, or whatever the hot new cereal happened to be, and then going into the living room, turning on the TV and watching Saturday morning cartoons. Besides cartoons like Johnny Quest, Atom Ant, Secret Squirrel, Bugs Bunny, or Mighty Mouse, the commercials for toys, candies and cereal were just as attractive. This was the sixties, the golden age of advertising.
Unfrosted, a tongue-in-cheek cinematic romp about the invention and development of the iconic cereal pastry Pop-Tarts, delightfully immerses itself into this milieu of that golden era of American commercialism. Not unlike the name brand breakfast cereals which pepper the sets and production design of the film, Unfrosted is fun, sweet, light, and conspicuously lacking in nutritional value.
Although the film is ostensibly about the corporate race between cereal giants Post and Kellogg’s to develop a convenient breakfast pastry, it is about as distant from a documentary—or reality—as a feature film can get. Although the film is billed as being “loosely based” on the real-life competition between Post and Kellogg’s for the instant (and indestructible) breakfast pastry market, this version, co-written, produced, and directed by Jerry Seinfeld (who also stars in it) uses the corporate competition as a framework for a loosely structured series of sight gags, comedic bits, celebrity cameos (see Mad Men), and nod-and-a-wink references to the sixties.
In the opening scene, a young runaway packs up his belongings, including a G.I. Joe doll (or excuse me, action figure) and makes his way to a diner and orders a pop tart. The man sitting next to him is Bob Cabana (Seinfeld) who asks the kid if he wants to know how pop tarts came to be. The kid is not particularly interested, but Cabana tells him anyway.
It is 1963, and Kellogg’s once again sweeps the Bowl and Spoon award, dominating their rival Post, but the smugness of Marjorie Post (Amy Schumer) leads him to believe Post is onto something big. Soon after, Jerry stumbles upon two kids eating shelf-stable jam from a Post dumpster. Bob thinks Post might be onto a new breakfast pastry.
Bob discovers that Post has taken a product that Bob invented with Donna “Stan” Stankowski (Melissa McCarthy) and developed it into a viable product. Bob convinces Stan to quit her job at NASA and work with him to beat Post to the punch. She does.
Marjorie Post calls a meeting of the five families of breakfast, Post, Kellogg’s, Ralston Purina, Quaker Oats, and General Mill—a not-so-subtle nod to The Godfather—but it doesn’t help that all the players, even the Keebler elf, are dressed as company mascots. Marjorie announces the new product will be ready in a week, forcing Bob to visit “El Sucre” (Felix Solis) the Puerto Rican sugar magnate, and pay him for exclusive rights to sugar, freezing Post in its tracks.
Marjorie Post visits Khrushchev (Dean Norris) to secure sugar rights from Cuba. The CEO of Kellogg’s Edsel Kellogg III (Jim Gaffigan) warns Bob that because the new breakfast food can be served without milk, he may incur the wrath of the powerful milk syndicate, who do, indeed, kidnap and attempt to intimidate Calaban. During all of this, Thurl Ravenscroft (Hugh Grant), sophisticated British actor and the voice of Tony the Tiger, convinced by the milk industry that the new product will make breakfast cereal obsolete, persuades his fellow mascots to go on strike. And the absurdity goes on and on.
While this reviewer refuses to spoil the ending (if such an event could be possible), doing so would probably (at least for the baby boomer generation) be a moot point. We know who wins, but that’s not even the point. This is a film that combines smart, snappy, well-executed comedy and cleverly placed Easter eggs, along with much more obvious, sometimes ponderous references to sixties pop culture, into a potpourri of cleverly written and well-executed comedy. It is a fun movie. Moments of cultural recognition, such as G.I. Joe (but no Barbie) and the milkman, Stan’s new powdered drink invention at NASA—“tastes tangy”, says Bob—peppered in with smart one-liners and just a pinch of irony—the kids discovering Post’s shelf-stable jam in a dumpster—combine to form a pleasing menage a trois between pop culture, memory, and comedy.
It is hard to resist comparing Unfrosted to Barbie. Both feature icons of sixties pop culture, both spin fantastically surreal narratives about these products, and both are hilarious. It might be tempting think that Unfrosted was influenced by Barbie, but the latter plumbs depths of social consciousness that are barely even touched upon by Unfrosted. And while the film is amusing, there is almost nothing new or innovative about it. Considering the pool of comedic talent involved in the movie, a cast that, besides Seinfeld and the other leads, includes Mikey Day, Kyle Mooney, Jack MacBrayer, Bobby Moynihan, and Max Greenfield, and the writing talent involved in the project, the final result is a little disappointing.
Like that bowl of Sugar Frosted Flakes or Sugar Pops or Coco Puffs, the film leaves the audience feeling a little empty inside. The characters remain flatlined—no one seems to develop or learn anything—and the jokes, like the Thanksgiving uncle’s twice-told tales, are reassuringly comfortable but also more than a little stale.
Unfrosted is an okay film. It’s fun like a game of sixties Trivial Pursuit or watching reruns of Saturday Night Live or Seinfeld might be—nothing new or terribly exciting, but something worn and comfortable, like that old fleece we use to keep warm on the couch.
The most comfortable thing about Unfrosted is the fact that is doesn’t aspire to be anything more than what it is. Unlike Barbie, there is no scene-stealing speech about the impossible expectations of a breakfast cereal mascot in today’s crazy world. There doesn’t need to be. It’s just a goofy story about an ultimately goofy sort of conflict: The War of the Breakfast Pastries.
In a time when the outside world and our political discourse have taken left turns into the surreal, a bit of goofy fun, like Saturday morning cartoons, is welcome.