Now there'a reason to get up in the mornings. Netflix just released the trailer for the Pop-Tart origin story film Unfrosted directed by Jerry Seinfeld, Variety reported.
The film is set to be released on May 3. According to the streaming platform's Tudum site, the film's logline says, “Michigan, 1963. Kellogg's and Post, sworn cereal rivals, race to create a pastry that will change the face of breakfast forever. A tale of ambition, betrayal, sugar, and menacing milkmen, ‘Unfrosted' stars writer-director Jerry Seinfeld.”
Seinfeld has wanted to make the Pop-Tart movie for several years now. He posted on X (formerly Twitter) in 2018: “At one point, I was thinking about an invention of the Pop Tart movie. Imagine the drunk on sugar-power Kellogg's cereal culture of the mid-60's in Battle Creek, MI. That's a vibe I could work with.”
The film also stars Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Amy Schumer, Hugh Grant, Max Greenfield, Christian Slater, Bill Burr, Daniel Levy, James Marsden, Jack McBrayer, Thomas Lennon, Bobby Moynihan, Adrian Martinez, Sarah Cooper and Fred Armisen.
Seinfeld also wrote the script with Spike Feresten, Barry Marder and Andy Robin. He also served as a producer with Feresten and Beau Beaumann under their production company, Columbia 81 Productions. This is the comedian's first feature film as a director. His most recent project was the stand-up Netflix special 23 Hours to Kill.
I'm not American and I've never had a Pop-Tart. Not even when I went to the US a few years back. I wasn't interested in the kind of breakfast food I had to prepare myself. I was more into the diner experience.
In other parts of the world, our breakfast consists of a full meal like you would any other times of the day: rice, some kind of meat, eggs and hot coffee. It's only in the last 20 years that having cereal and fresh milk for breakfast became the norm. It's easy and convenient. However, there are hardly any Pop-Tarts available in my country. You'd have to go to what we call PX (post exchange) stores or the ones that have imported products to buy them.
Pop-Tarts 101
I'm saying all of this to preface that I don't know what the fuss is about. This seems to be a very American thing. But that's why we have the internet… for research.
So according to my research, Pop-Tarts are also available in Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. As the trailer showed, in the 1960s, there was a race for the most convenient breakfast food item ever. The biggest names involved were Kellogg's and Post.
Post the first one to invent a process to dehydrate food and then packaging it in foil in order to keep it fresh. Fun fact: this was originally used for dog food.
Post then wanted to expand their market to toaster-prepared breakfast items. Before the product went to market, the company announced their new item Country Square to the public in 1964.
And because Post had announced the existence of their product before they ever hit the grocery shelves, Kellogg's was able to develop their own version. They named their breakfast item Pop-Tarts taken from the pop art movement.
The first Pop-Tart flavors were strawberry, blueberry, brown sugar cinnamon and apple currant, later renamed apple-berry. They originally came unfrosted in 1964, but when Kellogg's was able to develop frosting that would survive a toaster, the Pop-Tarts became frosted in 1967. As of this year, there are currently 20 standard flavors.
Another fun fact: In 2001, the US military airdropped 2.4 million Pop-Tarts in Afghanistan.
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