When you think of Reese’s Puffs*, the cereal that doesn’t even pretend to not be candy, do you immediately think of hip-hop cred? Well, some graphic designer at General Mills clearly does, judging by the back of the cereal box. Have a look.
Yes it is a thousand degrees in my room thanks for asking
I read anything that’s put in front of me, so at the table one morn, I found myself checking out this garish corporate attempt to make breakfast Totally Tubular.™ I began by examining the DJ Name Mixer. Here is how Reese’s Puffs (possibly Reese himself!) believes DJ names are created.
1. Take the street you grew up on and the name of your first pet, then change all of the “i”s to “y”s!
Uh, Reese, maybe no one told you, but everyone knows that isn’t how you make your rap name, but your porn name. I’ll grant that the changing letters isn’t always part of the package, but I’m not sure it helps overly much. I have a feeling if I show up at a party with two turn tables and a microphone, and announce that my name is “Allyson Wynston Chyrpshryll,” someone’s gonna kick my butt.**
2. Take the name of your favorite movie or Superhero villain, then add the first letter of your middle name!
This suggestion actually isn’t half bad. It’s basically what MF Doom did, and MF Doom is the best. Still, I’m having a hard time coming with anything equally compelling for myself. M. The Green Goblin…M. Biff Tannen…M. Anton Chigurh… I think I’ll use my first name and be known as J. SNAPE. That’s about as good as I can do.
Ok, moving on from the DJ Name Mixer, we see the MixMaster, which is essentially a cereal-themed madlib where you only have four or five choices. A “rap” is pre-written for you, with specially placed blanks. However, (because if left to your own devices, you might slander the good name of Reese’s Puffs), the MixMaster gives you short lists of rhyming (sort of) words that can go in specific spaces.
what what what what what. what.
Despite my suspicion that the creators of this rap might have “sold out” and been more concerned with shilling a product than creating art, I decided to give the MixMaster a try. I plugged in and this was the result.
You may notice that, despite the masterful production by J. SNAPE, this rap isn’t very good. For one thing, it’s largely nonsensical. “That peanut butter chocolate I address is the combo that I flavor that I will obsess”??? What the crap does that even mean, MixMaster? And how exactly is one to utilize the words “craver” and “raver,” since the former is not, to my knowledge, a word, and the latter just describes people who break glowsticks and stick pacifiers in their mouths.
Also, “lyrical” doesn’t rhyme with “radical.” Yes, they both end in “cal” but the stress is on the first syllable. It doesn’t work (songwriters around the world, spread the word).
I’m never sure what sort of letter grade to give to things that are so bad that they’re good. As a rap, my Reese’s Puffs Song is abysmal. But as a blurb on the back of a cereal box, the MixMaster helped bring a sublimely silly piece of art into the world (two, if you count this review), all while tickling my funny bone and my sense-of-superiority bone. I’ll take a ludicrous rap machine over a maze with Toucan Sam any day.
GRADE: C
*All rights, lyrics, names and EVERYTHING undoubtedly reserved by General Mills.
**This is for real. I actually had some fish before good ol’ Winston Chirpshrill, but their names elude me. Possibly some of them were named after the hyenas from The Lion King.
D-d-d-damn, son. Someone call the fire chief ’cause that mic is on fire!