I cannot tell you how thrilled I was when I heard Oreo O's cereal was making a comeback. It's in my top fave 90's reboots that have returned this year, along with Surge and jelly sandals (which my feet will be killing me for, but it's worth it). I know there's this joke that millennials are so nostalgic even though we're so young, but the 90's were a simpler time with simpler desires and the strangest food products.
I, like many of my fellow millennials, frequent Buzzfeed articles and one day a few years back, I came across a list of 90's food products that said farewell. On the list were the beloved Oreo O's cereal - the jump from cookie to cereal being the most logical step for a famous cookie to take, in my opinion. But if milk's favorite cookie couldn't help a cereal survive the 90's, what hope is there for any of us?
Mourning the breakfast time delicacy, I took to Wikipedia to reminiscence and then found out that Oreo O's were still being made...
...in South Korea.
I questioned why, of all places, South Korea, but then I had an idea of sheer brilliance.
You see, my roommate/BFF was studying abroad that summer in Japan, China, and... you guessed it, South Korea.
I messaged her nonchalantly: "Hey buddy, since you're gonna be in South Korea and all, it would be super convenient if you could keep an eye out for a box of Oreo O's cereal. Just, ya know, if you happen to come across it, nbd."
She replied back something along these lines: "My plane literally just landed. Are you kidding me?"
I am forever grateful that she put up with me and my crazy all through college, and her being the best friend ever managed to bring me back the best souvenir ever:
Fast forward to now where Oreo O's are back to being sold in the U.S. of A. I eagerly tore into the new Oreo O's, excited that I no longer had to wait until another friend happened to study abroad in South Korea to get them, but it wasn't the same. I'm not sure if I should really say that I was disappointed, but it clearly bothered me enough to write this article comparing the new 2017 U.S. Oreo O's to the South Korean Oreo O's I had in 2013.
First, let's cover the box. The new box is a bit simple and feels a tad generic, but that's probably because it lacks the classically cool mallow mascots. I don't know why the lack of the mellow mallows bothered me so much - I'm not attached to most other strange mascots except for Cool Spot, the retired mascot for 7Up from the '90s that oddly enough also wore cool shades.
The Crème Team being M.I.A. brought up the second issue - there are no Oreo crème bits in the 2017 version. This felt like a betrayal. You can't take the crème out of the Oreo... at that point it's just not an Oreo. Not only that, but the cookie-inspired cereal tasted different. The South Korean version I had tasted exactly the same as the one from my childhood. It transported back to a simpler time where I could rot my teeth without conventions and milk's favorite cookie reigned supreme. This new recipe was just sort of... eh. Not bad, but not the same.
Overall consensus:
I'm wondering at this point if the 2017 Oreo O's are trying to resemble their premiere cereal (which didn't have the 2007 mascot or the crème bits which weren't in the initial box) or if the copyright conflicts between Kraft and Post limited the new recipe. Maybe I'm nitpicking here. After all, what did I expect from a discontinued cereal that took years to make it back to the states? I should be grateful to have it at all considering my only alternatives were paying nearly $20 on eBay for the Asian export or send myself to South Korea and scour the stores for a box.
Overall, the 2017 was a bit of disappointment for me but maybe others who didn't have the South Korean version think differently. My tastebuds do their job but who knows how accurate their memory is now. Other cherished foods from the '90s and 2000s are making their comebacks with no complaints, so maybe I should just turn the nostalgia dial all the way up and bask in it.
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