Pop-Tarts' Terrifying Edible Mascot Returns — With Backup
If you thought Pop-Tarts' wide-eyed, bad-dream character mascot was gone for good, well, I have some disappointing news for you. Not one, two, but three versions of the mascot are returning on December 28 of this year as part of college football's Pop-Tarts Bowl game. The mascots are all based off of existing flavors, including the hypercolored Wild Berry, chocolatey Hot Fudge Sundae, and one recently announced character that Pop-Tarts challenged people to figure out beforehand, as it was based off a discontinued flavor. (And no, Flamin' Hot Pop-Tarts were never in the running.)
The discontinued flavor is making its way back to store shelves, and Pop-Tarts recently revealed it to be Frosted Cinnamon Roll. Fans were challenged to submit their choices to the Pop-Tarts website, with correct submissions getting the chance to win a physical piece of the 2024 Pop-Tarts mascot itself (weird memorabilia, I guess), along with the more practical prize of a year's worth of Pop-Tarts. Someone's about to get a boatload of Pop-Tarts.
Which flavor will be eaten for the big game?
One of the mascots' flavors will be chosen by the MVP of the winning team after the game has been concluded, and the "Edible Mascot" will be then eaten in a blaze of glory. It is the Pop-Tarts Bowl, after all. Since the previous ad campaigns featuring the bug-eyed Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tart mascot did so well, I'd expect to see these figures to make their appearance in unexpected places prior to the football showdown.
As an aside, I wonder if there'll be butter on hand for the football players, because supposedly, some people are into buttering their Pop-Tarts, which actually doesn't sound half bad. But it is fascinating to go down the rabbit hole of just how many Pop-Tarts flavors there have been in the past; at one point our nosing around on the internet yielded the discovery that Pop-Tarts once had at least 24 flavors (and as of this moment, there's a whopping 35 flavors across multiple product lines). I can picture my teeth aching from all that sugar right now.