Cap'n Crunch's Choco Donuts
(Quaker, 2002)

Gimmick: Each cereal "O" appears to be a miniature chocolate donut.

New Technology: The mini-donuts are equipped with multicolored sugar sprinkles.

Purported Flavor: "Crunchy Chocolate Flavored Cereal."

Actual Flavor: Not unlike chocolate-flavored chewable vitamins.

We must applaud the bold dreamers at Quaker for making this daring foray into donut replication. While the cereal itself could've been mistaken for run-of-the-mill chocolate O's, Quaker's food scientists gave it a spectacular twist: truly realistic sprinkles. Thus, we at long last have a sugar cereal that is in itself coated in even more sugar! And by pulling out its biggest marketing guns–the Cap'n in full uniform and the word "choco"–Quaker is clearly putting everything on the line. Perhaps the company felt the heat from Kellogg's own donut-cereal attempt, Homer's Cinnamon Donut Cereal (which utilized a powdered-donut format that doesn't impress as much as hard, crunchy, colorful sprinkles). Sadly, despite its technological accomplishment, the cereal isn't nearly as addictive at its other Cap'n Crunch brethren, with the chemical/sugar flavor meter tipping too far toward "chemical."