Unfrosted: The Pop-Tarts Story [Media Notes 119]

Was it funny? Yes. Worth watching? I suppose. But it wasn’t the laugh-out-loud hilarity fest I was hoping for. It wasn’t Duck Soup for the 21st century.

I like Seinfeld, a lot. I’ve written a bunch of posts about his stuff, mostly Comedians in Cars and assorted stand-up bits, and gathered most of those into two working papers, Seinfeld's Comedy, Jokes are Intricately Crafted Machines (2023), and Jerry Seinfeld & the Craft of Comedy (2016). That Seinfeld is a miniaturist. Unfrosted: The Pop-Tarts Story started life as a stand-up bit. In this clip Seinfeld talks about how he created that bit (with shots of his hand-written notes on a yellow legal pad):

I wonder about that line he mentions (02:36), “chimps in the dirt playing with sticks.” He explains why he likes it, four of the seven words are funny (underlined). It makes me think of the Kubrick’s 2001, which picks up on the space theme Seinfeld had introduced seconds before (02:30 “it was like an alien spacecraft”). Was that connection rattling around in Seinfeld’s mind as well? Who knows? Does it matter? Maybe yes, maybe no. And he’s only halfway through his explanation.

Back to the movie, Unfrosted. It’s bright and cheery, something Seinfeld was aiming for. In one or three of the dozen interview clips I watched over the past week he says that, just as you are greeted with a shelf of brightly colored cereal boxes when you go to fix breakfast in the morning, so this movie about a breakfast pastry needs to be bright and cheery. Bright and cheery? I’ll give it a smile and two chuckles.

Seinfeld also goes on and on about getting to work with Hugh Grant, a hero of his. Hugh Grant is cast as Thurl Ravenscroft, a Shakespearean actor reduced to (the indignity of) playing Tony the Tiger – remember Alan Rickman in Galaxy Quest, “by Grabthar’s Hammer”? In that role he comes up with that famous tag-line, “They’re g-r-r-r-eat!” You know what? Not so great. Add two smiles and a chuckle to the score. And then in the climax, which is a mascot rebellion filmed as a parody of MAGAs storming the Capitol Building on January 6, Hugh “Tony the Tiger” Grant is wearing a horned fur helmet like Jacob Chansley, the QAnon guy. Why?

The movie’s set in the 1960s, the clothes, the cars, the music – Chubby Checker doing “The Twist” fergodsake! – Khrushchev, JFK, the missile crisis, Walter Cronkhite, NASA & Tang, it’s all there. What’s the MAGA rampage doing in there? It makes no sense. A mascot rebellion? Fine. But all those shots modeled on video footage of the MAGA insurrection? That reference is just a distraction that adds nothing to the story.

The idea seems to be that you take the Pop-Tart comedy bit, turn it into a competition between Kellogg’s and Post, and then frame that competition as a parody of the 1960s space race – I must have heard that in a half-dozen of those interviews. It sounded promising each time I heard Seinfeld say it. I was intrigued. But on the big screen? Where are we, three smiles and three chuckles? That seems about right. You can’t take a Godzilla toy, hook it up to an air-pump, and expect to inflate it into a city-consuming comedic monster. That’s not how these things work.

But that seems to be what Seinfeld has done. Here’s what the good folks at Rotten Tomatoes had to say: “Much like a preservative-packed toaster pastry, Unfrosted is sweet and colorful, yet it's ultimately an empty experience that may leave the consumer feeling pangs of regret.” That’s a bit harsh. No pangs of regret, and no ultimate anything. But not particularly filling.

* * * * *

Bonus: I decided to see what kind of scenario ChatGPT could come up with. Here’s a record of a session I had with it. It’s not g-r-r-r-eat!! But it got a couple of chuckles from me. As always, my prompt is in boldface, the Chatster’s response is plain-face.

I’m going to give a comedy bit by Jerry Seinfeld. It’s about Pop-Tarts.I want you to use that as the basis for a movie treatment. The movie is about the invention of Pop-Tarts. But you are going to make it into a competition between Kellogg’s and Post to become the first to create a breakfast pastry that you can heat in a toaster. Make that competition a satire of the space race of the early 1960s. Now, here’s Seinfeld’s comedy bit:

Different foods hit you different at different ages.

When I was a kid,

and they invented the Pop-Tart,

the back of my head blew right off.

We couldn’t comprehend it.

It was too advanced. When we saw the Pop-Tart in the supermarket, it was like an alien spaceship.

And we were just chimps in the dirt playing with sticks.

You open the box.

The Pop-Tarts are not even visible.

They’re sealed. Inside special packets, too precious and valuable to be exposed to the air.

The packets had this silvery lining.

Some metallic alloy from NASA, in case of a Russian satellite gamma ray attack.

Once there were Pop-Tarts, I did not understand why other types of food continued to exist.

I’d see my mother cooking in the kitchen.

“What are you doing? We have Pop-Tarts now.”

You’ve got to think back to when the Pop-Tart came out…

It was the ’60s.

We had TOAST.

We had orange juice,

frozen decades in advance.

You had to hack away at it with a knife.

It was like a murder to get a couple drops of liquidity in the morning.

We had Shredded Wheat.

It was like wrapping your lips around a wood chipper.

You’d have breakfast, you had to take two days off for

the scars to heal so you could speak again.

My mother would make Cream of Wheat.

She didn’t understand the recipe.

“Mom, the amount of water in this dish… IS CRITICAL.

You’re making it too THICK.

I can’t even move my little kid spoon in the bowl.

I’m seven.

I feel like I’m rowing in the hull of a Greek slave ship.”

That was breakfast.

And in the midst of that dark and hopeless moment,

the Kellogg’s Pop-Tart suddenly appeared out of Battle Creek, Michigan.

Which, as you cereal fans know,

is the corporate headquarters of Kellogg’s.

And a town I have always wanted to visit.

Because it seemed like some kind of cereal Silicon Valley.

Filled with Breakfast Super Scientists working on

frosted, fruit-filled, heatable rectangles, in the same shape as the box it comes in.

And with the same nutrition as the box it comes in, too.

That was the hard part to achieve.

I don’t know how long it took them to invent the Pop-Tart.

But they must have come out of that lab,

like Moses with the two tablets of the 10 Commandments.

(holding over head religiously)

“The Pop-Tart is here.

Two in the packet.

Two slots in the toaster.

Let’s see you screw this up.

Why two?

One’s not enough.

Three’s too many.

And they can’t go stale.

Because they were never fresh!”

Title: Pop Wars: The Breakfast Space Race

Genre: Satirical Comedy

Logline:

In the midst of the Cold Breakfast War of the 1960s, two breakfast giants, Kellogg’s and Post, engage in a heated competition to invent the ultimate breakfast innovation - the Pop-Tart. As they race to conquer the toaster, hilarity ensues in this comedic retelling of the space race, where frosted rectangles become the new frontier.

Synopsis:

Set in the backdrop of the early 1960s, the world is entrenched in the Cold Breakfast War. Kellogg’s, based in Battle Creek, Michigan, and Post, headquartered in a rival town, vie for breakfast supremacy. Enter our protagonist, a brilliant but eccentric scientist named Dr. Crispin Cornflakes, who works for Kellogg’s and dreams of creating the perfect breakfast pastry that can be heated in a toaster.

As tensions rise between the two breakfast giants, fueled by the fear of falling behind in the breakfast arms race, Dr. Cornflakes is given the green light to pursue his groundbreaking idea for a toaster-friendly pastry. Meanwhile, across town, Post's top scientist, Dr. Flapjack, is also hard at work on a similar invention.

The rivalry between the two companies escalates as they pour resources into their respective projects. Dr. Cornflakes faces numerous setbacks and comical mishaps in his quest to perfect the Pop-Tart recipe. From exploding pastries to malfunctioning toasters, the journey to breakfast innovation is anything but smooth.

As the competition heats up, both companies resort to espionage, sabotage, and outlandish marketing schemes to gain an edge. Along the way, Dr. Cornflakes finds an unlikely ally in a quirky toaster repairman named Benny Bagel, who becomes instrumental in helping him overcome the final hurdles.

In a climactic showdown reminiscent of the space race, Kellogg’s and Post unveil their respective Pop-Tart prototypes at the World Breakfast Expo. The event is filled with hilarity as the two companies engage in a battle of wits, with toaster mishaps and breakfast-themed antics aplenty.

In the end, only one company can emerge victorious, but both Kellogg’s and Post realize that the true prize is not just the perfect Pop-Tart, but the journey of innovation and friendship that brought them there. As the credits roll, Dr. Cornflakes and Dr. Flapjack share a toast (with Pop-Tarts, of course) to a new era of breakfast greatness.

Pop Wars: The Breakfast Space Race is a hilarious and heartwarming comedy that celebrates the absurdity of corporate competition and the universal quest for the perfect breakfast.

Give me some examples of the comical mishaps and breakfast-themed antics, perhaps involving cereal mascots.

Certainly! Here are some examples of comical mishaps and breakfast-themed antics involving cereal mascots:

1. The Great Toaster Rebellion: As Dr. Cornflakes conducts a test run of his latest Pop-Tart prototype, the toaster malfunctions, causing a chain reaction of toasters throughout the Kellogg’s lab to go haywire. Cereal mascots like Tony the Tiger and Toucan Sam join forces with the Pop-Tarts to take over the lab, resulting in a chaotic breakfast rebellion.
2. The Battle of the Breakfast Billboards: Kellogg’s and Post engage in a fierce advertising war, with each company erecting giant billboards featuring their respective cereal mascots. However, things take a hilariously competitive turn when the mascots come to life and engage in a slapstick showdown atop the billboards, complete with cereal box shields and Pop-Tart catapults.
3. The Case of the Missing Ingredients: In a classic comedy of errors, Dr. Flapjack’s top-secret Pop-Tart recipe mysteriously disappears from the Post lab, leading to a madcap investigation involving a motley crew of cereal mascots turned detectives. With suspects ranging from the Trix Rabbit to Snap, Crackle, and Pop, the hunt for the missing ingredients becomes a whodunit filled with twists and turns.
4. The Pop-Tart Taste Test Disaster: As part of their marketing strategy, Kellogg’s hosts a Pop-Tart taste test extravaganza, inviting breakfast enthusiasts from around the world to sample their latest creations. However, when a mischievous leprechaun sneaks into the event and switches the Pop-Tarts with Post’s impostor pastries, chaos ensues as unsuspecting taste testers recoil in horror at the unexpected flavors.
5. The Breakfast Olympics: In a bid to settle the rivalry once and for all, Kellogg’s and Post agree to compete in the inaugural Breakfast Olympics, featuring events such as the Pancake Flip, Cereal Box Relay, and Pop-Tart Toss. The competition heats up as cereal mascots trade in their aprons for athletic gear, resulting in a series of comedic mishaps and breakfast-themed antics on the world stage.

Not bad. How about a couple more.

Certainly! Here are a couple more examples:

6. The Great Cereal Heist: In a desperate attempt to sabotage Kellogg’s Pop-Tart production, Post's nefarious mascot, Sugar Bear, hatches a plan to steal the secret recipe. Disguised as a deliveryman, Sugar Bear sneaks into the Kellogg’s lab, only to find himself tangled in a web of booby traps set by Tony the Tiger and his cereal mascot cohorts. The ensuing cat-and-mouse chase through the lab results in a series of slapstick mishaps, with Sugar Bear narrowly escaping capture in a whirlwind of breakfast chaos.
7. The Pop-Tart Parade: To celebrate the launch of their revolutionary invention, Kellogg’s hosts a Pop-Tart parade through the streets of Battle Creek, complete with larger-than-life floats and marching bands featuring cereal mascots. However, when a mischievous prankster releases a horde of hungry pigeons into the parade route, chaos ensues as the mascots scramble to protect their precious Pop-Tarts from airborne thieves. The parade culminates in a hilarious showdown atop a giant Pop-Tart float, with cereal mascots and pigeons engaged in a comedic battle for breakfast supremacy.

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