Sunrise Superman

 Previously:

Superman Returns  - -  Look! Up in the Pantry!

Welcome back to the cereal aisle, Man of Steel!  It's been awhile since I've seen him in any part of the grocery store but it's good to have him back.  This is an odd one because, like the fruit snacks from years ago, it doesn't seem to tie in with any kind of a movie or cartoon project.  It's some kind of collaboration with Cap'n Crunch but other than his name in the top right corner of the box (and perhaps the taste of Crunch Berries), the Cap'n doesn't seem to be very involved.  

But instead of the crew of the S.S. Guppy, Supes made it a family affair and brought his cousin along.  Flip the box over and the back has Supergirl.  The skyline of Metropolis is visible behind them both.  The city, and breakfast, has never been so well protected.  The box art also gives you a good look at the actual cereal with it's red, yellow and blue "shields" but you always have to wonder how accurate that is.

Well, wonder no more.  The box art is fairly spot on with one major exception:  the inclusion of orange and green cereal pieces.  They don't match the "super" color scheme so you have to wonder what gives.  Another "Oops, All Berrys" type of mixup at the cereal factory?  Is it the work of the villainous Lex Luthor?  Some kind of Kryptonite shenanigan?  Perhaps we'll never know.

  Superman and Supergirl aren't out there on their own though.  This is a two-cereal promotion with the Flash having his own cinnamon flavored cereal.  Unfortunately I haven't found of box of those yet.  They seem to have sold out at super speed but I'm on the hunt and I won't give up until the Scarlet Speedster joins me for breakfast. 

Sweet & Power

Previously:

 Batman v Superman Fruit Snacks - - Amazing Spider-Man 2 Fruit Snacks

Iron Man 3 Fruit Snacks - - Captain America Fruit Snacks - - Superman Fruit Snacks

Super Hero Squad Fruit Snacks - - Amazing Spider-Man Fruit Snacks - - Batman Fruit Snacks

Avengers Fruit Snacks

 The DC Super Hero Girls franchise has released plenty of merchandise.  In fact, Santa brought a ton of it to my daughter this past December.  But among the dolls, costumes and play sets there was a serious lacking of any food products.  I don't know what caused the delay but I'm glad it's over because I'm pleased to announce that we now live in a world with Super Hero Girls Fruit Snacks!

DCSHG has a huge cast of characters.  At one point or other, a big chunk of the DC Universe has ended up in the web series or at least in the background of the first movie.  But the main group usually consists of Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Batgirl, Bumblebee and Katana with some occasional assists (for some reason) by Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn.

And it's that Fab Five that made the cover of the box and who also got bios on the back:

Each one is written in first person and does a pretty good job of introducing character traits and super powers while being personable.    Of course, they include the tried and true dotted lines for cutting out your favorite characters and staging battle scenes while snacking...this kind of thing is not done NEARLY enough.

Let's crack open a box and take a gander at the goodies:

Now I've been documenting novelty fruit snacks for a while now and it seems like lately they're making them harder to photograph/scan.  When I have time, I'll get my conspiracy theory thoughts organized.

Until then we've got the faces of Supergirl, Wonder Woman and Batgirl as well as the logos of Supergirl, Bumblebee and, I believe, Katana.  Not bad but, once again, we run into my pet peeve of doubling up on a character instead of including an additional one.  Sure, it would have been great to see Star Sapphire or Starfire or Fire but for now these will do fine.

You may also want to check out: 

Super Hero Girls Cupcake Wars!

Pasta la Vista

You'll never believe what I saw as I strolled down the Walmart aisles recently.  Well, I guess you don't have to guess since it's the subject of this blog entry.  Now that the dramatic tension is out of the way, here's what I saw:

It feels nice to put aside superhero shaped gummy snacks in favor of a big bowl of superhero shaped pasta in a can!  It's been awhile.  So much so, that I'm worried I might have lost my taste for what used to be a regular lunchtime treat in my younger days.  It doesn't help that these don't have meatballs.  So only one of them made it into my shopping cart and, later, my Super Friends bowl:

The taste was fairly reminiscent of the Spaghetti-O's of my youth and the little logo shapes are much larger than the old school pasta rings I'm used to.  That makes for interesting chewing.  The shapes represent the "Big 3" at DC:

Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman...no surprises here.  Seems like a Green Lantern logo might have been possible in the pasta medium but it looks like it just wasn't meant to be.  Well now isn't the time to get greedy, now is the time to fill up our Super Friends bowls with our Chef Boyardee bounty.

 

Food Fight

Anytime you get a group of super powered individuals together there is bound to be conflict.  This summer, the movie theaters were lousy with hero on hero violence.  Punches were thrown, kicks were kicked and we all ducked and dodged our way around various batarangs and repulsor blasts.

But there was another fight that landed on the small screen.  It starred DC's newest all star team and their unlikely allies.  Four groups of competitors entered the battlefield of baked goods to team up with the DC Super Hero Girls and that can only mean one thing:  WAR!

You may recall when we covered the 50th Anniversary of the Fantastic Four on Last Cake Standing.  This time we have a new super hero team on a new show.  Let's meet our contestants:

As you can guess from the title "Cupcake Wars: Kids vs. Adults," half the competitors are kids and half are adults. They are tasked with creating cupcakes that have the look and flavors that incorporate the themes and characters of the DC Super Hero Girls.

If you are not familiar with the team, they are an all-ages, all star lineup of some of the best DC Comics female heroes (and, for some reason, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy) that are meant to be inspiring and empowering to kids.

As these reality type competition shows tend to do, there is a panel of judges.  Two of which are regulars but the other two have definite comic book credibility when it comes to this team of heroines:

                     

Shea Fontana is the writer of the Super Hero Girls (which covers a ton of different different mediums from comics to animated shorts to an upcoming movie) and Ashley Eckstein is a prolific actress and voice performer who does the voice of Cheetah in the DC Super Hero Girls productions (she also voiced Dagger from Ultimate Spider-Man unlimited and Ahsoka in Star Wars Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels).  

And then we have the host:

  

I believe his name is Screamy McScreamerton.  Coincidentally, instead of talking he screams EVERY SINGLE WORD!!!

Clearly a protege of the Garrett Morris School of Inflection, Screamy instructs the competitors  through three challenges: Taste, Taste & Presentation and Display Presentation.  Unfortunately, unlike the fondant heavy Fantastic Four cakes we previously saw, cupcakes don't really lend themselves to sculpting specific, large scale images.  So the bakers had to try to convey characters through an overall theme of the cupcakes.  Let's see a few of the better ones:

We've got Poison Ivy on the left, Harley Quinn on the right and Batgirl behind them.

Here's a Katana cupcake...

...and a Wonder Woman...

And the winners had their cupcakes served at a DC Super Hero Girls themed party where the young attendees presumably became lifelong fans of both super heroes and free cupcakes.