I’m used to hating on Halloween by this point, but today is pretty great. The leaves are dead and colorful, and there’s a familiar brisky crispness to the air that always feels exclusive to October 31st. Plus, for the first time in years, the streets around here are covered in trick-or-treaters, using their Joker and pirate getups to guarantee them a serious case of 24-hour diabetes.

I can’t tell if I’m more like Uatu or D.B. Jefferies, but if there’s ever a day when it’s fun to just sit back and watch the world go round, Halloween is it.

Whatever you’re doing tonight, have fun doing it. I hope you’ve enjoyed this year’s Halloween Countdown. I know it was a bit (or a lot) scaled down in comparison to past years, but hey, at least I finished it this time. Which reminds me: here’s the last review of the spooky season!

One of the interesting things about Kellogg’s Candy Corn Corn Pops (and there are plenty of interesting things about it) is that it was produced and sold in 2001. I always get weirded out when I come across treasures that debuted after X-E was active. Granted, I basically only wrote about Transformers and He-Man in the site’s early days, but it’s strange to see something so perfectly X-Eish and know that I could’ve written about it when it was, you know, still available. But perhaps this is more interesting to me than it is to you.

Candy Corn Corn Pops really should’ve been called Candy Corn Pops, and I’ll believe that to my dying day. The cereal was a limited edition, as all Halloween cereals are, but for whatever reason, it never managed to return for additional October stints.

Part of me understands why. Candy corn is generally accepted as vile, and few people would roll the dice on a cereal flavored like it. Still, a larger part of me — let’s say my torso and left leg — is truly upset over the brand’s short stay, as Candy Corn Corn Pops features some of the best box art ever to grace the breakfast aisle. LOOK at that guy. LOOK at him! Look at him, and look at the neat way they faded the lower green background into the upper yellow background. Any reason to link back to my lymon tribute is fucking awesome.

Even in the oddball-heavy sea of cereal mascots, a mad scientist with green skin and Norfin troll hair truly stands out. The front of the box looks more like pop art than product packaging, and if I had any soul at all, I’d trim away the side and back panels, frame the front, and hang the thing in a place where everyone on the planet can see it.

The cereal is seven-years-old, which is practically fresh when compared to most of the other old foods I find and review. I didn’t want to waste the opportunity, so yes, I tried it. It really doesn’t taste like candy corn at all.

I have no way to prove this, but the smell and flavor is somehow reminiscent of C-3P0’s Cereal. There’s an overwhelming marshmallow odor, but it tastes more like watered down Corn Pops than anything else. Maybe this is to be expected from seven-year-old cereal, but something’s not quite right.

Whatever the actuality might be, the intention was a mix of regular Corn Pops and crazy, orange, candy corn-flavored Corn Pops. I wouldn’t call this a flavor concept straight out of my wildest dreams, but admittedly, it looks pretty good in a bowl.

Cereal boxbacks are beyond important. I’ve said this before. Breakfast is better with complimentary reading material, and it’s even more important with holiday edition cereals. Whether it’s Christmas Crunch or Candy Corn Corn Pops, here’s the blunt truth: Nobody picks a holiday edition cereal for its flavor. Even if you like the taste, you’re really getting it because you want to inject a little seasonal joy into your morning meal. A holiday edition cereal that comes in a box dressed with holiday-themed riddles, puzzles and sight gags is pretty much mandatory.

Candy Corn Corn Pops packed a decent share of hot Halloween action on its boxback. The ghoulish word search puzzle was cool, but the list of wacky party tips above it was even better. Here are two of my favorite tips, verbatim:

Have a Candy Corn Corn Pops eating contest. They make a great snack, see who can eat the most pops in 60 seconds.

Use Candy Corn Corn Pops in a lottery game. Put one yellow cereal piece for each player into a paper bag. Now take one out and put in one orange Candy Corn Corn Pops. Each players takes a turn picking (without looking in the bag), the player who picks the orange cereal piece wins.

Okay, so the first one is just hilarious from a visual standpoint, but the second one reads like a journal entry from a seventeen-year-old documenting their first acid trip in realtime.

For those keeping score, this box of Candy Corn Corn Pops expired on July 29th, 2002.

Halloween is here, and soon, it’ll be over. You know how it goes. All the decorations you love today, you’ll probably hate tomorrow. Enjoy it while it lasts, but don’t be too sad. Even better things are yet to come.

Posted by Matt. E-mail me!