Unfrosted: The Pop-Tart Story, Jerry Seinfeld’s love letter to breakfast, is like eating two bowls of Frosted Flakes. It’s good, but it won’t exactly sustain you. If you can skip the latter and dig broad-style comedy, Unfrosted is a treat. Otherwise, this absurd comedy can get bogged down by its own parody.
Oftentimes, Unfrosted feels like those Saturday morning cartoons we watched while eating cereal. Except here, those wacky characters and situations have been dreamt up by first-time director Jerry Seinfeld from a screenplay he co-wrote with longtime Seinfeld collaborators Spike Feresten and Andy Robin and Barry Marder (Bee Movie). In a recent interview with MovieWeb, Feresten called Unfrosted “a bigger longer Seinfeld episode.” That it is. Much ado about nothing. But that may be what wins people over in the end.
That or the comedic talent Seinfeld roped into this: Melissa McCarthy, Hugh Grant, Amy Schumer, Max Greenfield, Peter Dinklage, Christian Slater, Jon Hamm and countless others. If you love Easter Eggs, start counting them because references from The Godfather to The Right Stuff to every favorite consumer brand fill this thing out. Bottom line: If It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World fucked Up There and they had an all-star child during a sticky 1960s-set misadventure loaded with creative Ritalin and hypomanic hijinks…dig in.
Welcome to Michigan 1963 where bitter cereal rivals Kellogg’s and Post are racing to create a breakfast pastry that will change morning meals forever. Who will pop up the best Pop-Tart first? Enter Bob Cabana played by Bob Cabana himself (Seinfeld). The ambitious Kellogg’s exec is urged on by Edsel Kellogg III (Jim Gaffigan) to beat Post in this breakfast-war race. Bob recruits former Kellogg’s ally Donna Stankowski (McCarthy) who injects the mission with some much-needed hutzpah. Seinfeld and McCarthy are fun together. Like cereal and milk it works, with McCarthy delivering the more grounded performance of the two.
Over in the land of Post, we find Amy Schumer’s matriarch Marjorie Post secretly scheming to bring Kellogg’s down. Schumer’s trademark tongue-in-cheek deliveries are cranked up here and her frequent scene partner Max Greenfield as her floundering better half Rick can’t keep up with her whimsical and twisted mind. Greenfield finds a nice groove and hits his comedic beats but Schumer plays it a bit over the top, which is what the script calls for, but there’s something off about it and it doesn’t always sit well especially when she’s barking at Greenfield’s Rick.
Seinfeld establishes that frenetic ping-pong-match vibe from the get-go and most scenes employ that device throughout. Eventually you realize that he’s serving us everything we love about his Emmy-winning show, his brilliant stand-up musings, pop culture, and those beloved stars who make us feel good. For example: Schumer’s distinct originality … Greenfield’s manic buffoonery … Hugh Grant’s dry sarcastic Britishness…
On Grant, the comedian is in the middle of a comedic revival. From being an evil Oompa-Loompa in Wonka to playing disgruntled stage actor Thurl Ravenscroft here, who is also the voice behind Tony the Tiger for Frosted Flakes commercials, imagine him trying to figure out how a commercial works or feeling like he’s not getting his due respect. It’s funny.
But then the comedy gets a little lost in the middle. Bob and Donna vs. Marjorie and her minions creates as much comedy as possible while still having guest stars pop up throughout. In this case, since it’s set in the 1960s Jon Hamm (Mad Men) might fit right here. Watch and enjoy that moment. There’s also a Milkman Mafia with Christian Slater’s Mike Diamond and some other kind of problem that could impact Bob’s mission for Kellogg’s.
Snap, Crackle and Pop — from those Rice Krispies — are there too, played by Kyle Mooney, Mikey Day and Drew Tarver respectively as The Troika tries to get Monkees big. But wait, there’s more! Bill Burr appears as JFK, Dan Levy shows up as Andy Warhol, Bobby Moynihan plays Chef Boy Ardee Kyle Dunnigan does Walter Cronkite (and Johnny Carson), James Marsden is Jack LaLanne…and there are kid spies? Yes! Unfrosted has them too! It’s packed with stars and references.
As a director Seinfeld gets his job done. It’s bright colorful splashy overtones through production design — it was before JFK died and America was happy — you feel that winningly captured by this thing. Seinfeld easily brings us into a looney world where everything is real but absurd — sure they compete for who makes breakfast pastries between Kellogg’s & Post but everything else: The Milkmen Mafia grumpy brand mascots… these were never real.
This is a passion project for Seinfeld, and you can tell that he and everyone else in the cast are having a ball. Unfrosted isn’t deep, but it’s wide — there are so many subplots that don’t go anywhere, one-off jokes, quirky encounters between characters; things get crazy and silly with wild abandon. Yes, there’s also plenty of era-specific humor, as well as commentary on advertising and branding then versus now versus what we know it turned into after things went far too divided.
But maybe it’s not so bad to let someone like Seinfeld spoonfeed us everything we like about outlandish escapist comedy filled with familiar faces and crazy situations. It’s not HBO’s Barry. Unfrosted isn’t meant to dive into the psychological underbelly of its characters. We’re supposed to enjoy them all and laugh at how nuts they are in every which way possible. Take this knowledge with you — love Unfrosted! And honestly know that we rarely ever get quite this much Seinfeld served up for us who have been waiting for more from one of the greatest comedians in history — gobble him up! Consume this over-sweetened tale of ambition and betrayal delivered through animation brought to life by hand-drawn characters voiced by some of our favorite actors will do just fine for a quick sugar rush in time for breakfast before it wears off minutes later while still being available on Netflix starting May 3rd or if you prefer something funnier than usual when waking up early.
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