Charlie Brown ‘Great Pumpkin’ Cereal Compared to Cardboard: ‘Worst-Tasting Cereal I’ve Had’

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is one of the most beloved TV specials of all time, but Peanuts fans will likely be disappointed by the latest cereal celebrating it. On the Sept. 7 episode of podcast The Empty Bowl, cereal expert Dan Goubert gave a poor review of the lackluster Kellogg’s product, calling it “the worst-tasting cereal that I’ve had in recent memory.” 

“It’s difficult. We have a chill experience that we’re cultivating and curating here on this podcast, so I don’t want to use loaded words like ‘hate,’ ‘loathe’ or ‘wish to throw into a dumpster,’” Goubert said. “I wouldn’t say things like that. But I will say that the existence of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown Cereal makes me very much not happy or thrilled or [joyous] at all.”

It doesn't get much worse than "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" Cereal. It smells like cheap buttercream frosting but somehow tastes like nothing but corn & cardboard. It's barely got any marbits and the back of the box is 40% an ad for Apple TV+

0% Good, 100% Grief. pic.twitter.com/uXOdV2toKo

— Cerealously 🥛🥣 (@cerealouslynet) September 13, 2023

While retailers like Target describe the It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown Cereal as “vanilla-flavored puff cereal with orange pumpkin marshmallows,” the Empty Bowl podcaster sees it differently. Goubert, who runs the blog Cerealously, explained to co-host Justin McElroy that there’s a trend of manufacturers using various media licenses like Peanuts as an excuse to sell a “bland formula of scarcely flavored puffs with scarcely phonetically shaped marbits (marshmellow bits).”

“You get these vanilla-flavored cereals, and some of them taste bad because they have this really artificial, vanilla, sugary sheen on them,” Goubert said. “And then you have ones like this, where it just doesn’t feel like it has any flavor at all, like I’m actually crunching on cardboard and air — corny cardboard and air.” 

He also noted that the Kellogg’s product was “really lacking in heart,” even dinging it for the shameless use of box space to push free trials of Apple TV+ to consumers. (Apple TV+ has the streaming rights to the Peanuts TV specials.)

“Whether it’s a hearty crunch or an actual hearty concept, heart is an undevalued component in cereal nowadays,” Goubert said, later quipping, “Ultimately there is much more grief than good with this cereal.”

McElroy weighed in, saying. “It’s a bummer, especially since that’s such a treasured [special] … I can’t believe they pulled the football out from under you again.”

The Empty Bowl, which aims to be a mediative podcast discussing the latest news in the cereal world, is available wherever you listen to podcasts. If you’d like to eat the apparently bland It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown Cereal while you listen, the product is available in most major grocery stores.