The Silly, Sweet Delight of Unfrosted
Jerry Seinfeld’s Unfrosted is a silly, sweet delight
By most standards, Jerry Seinfeld’s Unfrosted is not what you’d call a “good” movie. The visuals are flat, and the screenplay doesn’t even attempt to tell a complete narrative. But despite its shortcomings, Unfrosted is a silly, sweet delight that will leave you laughing out loud.
Brand-based films are becoming increasingly popular, with movies about the invention of Air Jordans and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos hitting the big screen. But Unfrosted takes a different approach, stringing together a series of increasingly ludicrous jokes to tell the story of the invention of Pop-Tarts.
The film takes place in 1963, in the midst of the breakfast wars between Kellogg’s and Post. The two companies are bitter rivals, but their figureheads, Edsel Kellogg III (Jim Gaffigan) and Marjorie Post (Amy Schumer), have a forbidden attraction to each other. When Kellogg’s learns that Post is working on a breakfast pastry that cuts out milk entirely, they decide to act fast and beat them to the market.
Kellogg’s and Post: bitter rivals in the breakfast wars
Enter Bob Cabana (Jerry Seinfeld), a Kellogg’s exec who recruits former colleague Donna “Stan” Stankowski (Melissa McCarthy) to help him develop the new pastry. Along the way, they assemble a team of misfits, including Chef Boyardee (Bobby Moynihan), fitness guru Jack LaLanne (James Marsden), and Steve Schwinn (Jack McBrayer), who doesn’t know anything about breakfast but can make a nice bike.
The film is full of silly moments, from a funeral sequence that had me laughing out loud to a bizarre subplot involving Thurl Ravenscroft (Hugh Grant) as a Shakespearean actor tired of playing Tony the Tiger. It’s not a great comedy, but it’s a fun, lighthearted romp that will leave you smiling.
The sweet, sweet delight of Pop-Tarts
By the time the film’s grand finale rolls around, Unfrosted is barely holding itself together. The jokes are fast and furious, but the story is threadbare. But who says you even need a story for a movie like this? What story could you even possibly have about the invention of a sugar-heavy pastry block that comes out of your toaster half-hot and full of unnaturally colored goo?
In the end, Unfrosted is a silly, sweet delight that will leave you laughing out loud. It’s not a great comedy, but it’s a fun, lighthearted romp that’s perfect for a lazy Sunday afternoon.
Jerry Seinfeld’s Unfrosted: a silly, sweet delight
