On Facebook recently, The Legionnaire contributor Cameron Czaja posted his brief thoughts about Unfrosted, Netflix’s new fictional history about the development of the Pop Tart, directed by and starring Jerry Seinfeld.  Cameron’s curt review mainly involved pointing out how a number of period pictures from the 1960s explains the film’s plot.  As a trained historian, this got me at least somewhat intrigued.  The retelling of one of the most pivotal decades in America’s past will make up a large portion of what proceeds, if for no other reason than they crammed in almost everything you can think of from those years.  I would also like to say a few words about Seinfeld’s career.  Since the end of the famous sitcom named after him (1989-1998), it has apparently been hard to find anything to keep him in the spotlight.  He has been doing Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (2012-present), but that started as a YouTube series and has never reached the syndication of his previous show.  While I never watched it much, I always felt it traded on his earlier success.  Is Unfrosted the vehicle that will propel him back into the hearts and minds of those looking for entertainment?  I have no idea, but you can read my review of this movie and decide for yourself.

Young George (Isaac Bee) has run away from home and sits down at a diner counter to order some Unfrosted Pop Tarts. He requests the box in which they come to read the comic strip on the back while he munches, not knowing that he is sitting next to Bob Cabana (Jerry Seinfeld).  Bob works for Kellogg’s, the cereal company that invented the popular breakfast pastries, and he tells the kid that the origin story printed on the packaging is a bunch of lies he made up.  He then proceeds to tell the boy how Pop Tarts actually came into this world.  It all stars in Battle Creek, Michigan, where Kellogg’s and their rival Post have their corporate headquarters.  Kellogg’s owner, and Bob’s boss, Edsel Kellogg III (Jim Gaffigan), is rightly proud of his star employee, Bob, who seems to have all the answers to keep the company on top of the morning meal industry.  This is validated when they go to an awards show for other companies involved in the same business, and Kellogg’s takes him all the prizes.  Of course, they put on the event, but they feel accomplished nonetheless.  At the soiree is Marjorie Post (Amy Schumer), head of the other outfit literally across the street, and she looks unconcerned by Post’s lack of accolades.  Her blasé attitude has Bob concerned, wondering what Post is hiding.  It takes seeing two children, Butchie (Bailey Sheetz) and Cathy (Eleanor Sweeney), diving into Post’s dumpsters for Bob to get his clue.  Seeing them greedily devouring what they call “the goo,” Bob suspects that Post is developing the breakfast pastry that Kellogg thought impossible.  The kids’ enthusiasm, Marjorie’s smugness, and Edsel’s reaction to this development, thinking it will mean the end of their corporate empire, spurs Bob to action.  Edsel gives his full support to Bob, with carte blanche to do whatever is necessary to save the company.  This includes bringing back an employee that Edsel is not a fan of, namely Donna Stankowski (Melissa McCarthy).  She is too forward thinking for Edsel, which, naturally, is why she is working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).  Bob feels this kind of thinking is essential and convinces her to return to Kellogg.  When they sit down and watch footage from their corporate spy inside Post and see how far they have come along in their pursuit of this supposedly revolutionary product, Donna claims they need more.  In this case, this means inviting some of the most identifiable names of the time, and it does not matter whether they are connected to food or children.  For example, there is Chef Boy Ardee (Bobby Moynihan), which makes some sense.  Yet, they also have a computer invented by the International Business Machines (IBM) corporation that is, frankly, psychotic.  Inevitably, this team of people clearly brought in for comedic effect come up with nothing but wasted time.  Yet, the junk they do create does bring Bob inspiration, once more from Butchie and Cathy, to use whatever it is they have done.  Somehow, this leads to Bob and Donna bouncing ideas off each other and drawing the sketch of a Pop Tart on a chalk board.  With a rough idea of what they want to do, they come up with the first prototype, which should give you a clue as to how they are treating this project.  Another is when Steve Schwinn (Jack McBrayer), he of bicycle fame who is another of the “minds” working on this problem, dies in an explosion when the oxygen hose for his safety suit manages to become disconnected and blows onto the toaster.  Despite this tragedy, they press ahead to production and it is time to come up with a name.  To do so, they call on an ad agency, which is John Hamm and John Slattery reprising their roles from the modern television show Mad Men (2007-2015), to label their product.  Their ideas are too sexy for this Unfrosted treat, so again they ask Butchie and Cathy.  In a bizarre mishap with an exercise machine in Edsel’s office, Butchie thinks of “Trat Pop,” and Kellogg’s runs with it.  Post has their own version, which they call “Country Squares.”  No kid wants to buy a food with that kind of branding, and once more Kellogg’s triumphs.  How do we get to “Pop Tart?”  That is because Walter Cronkite (Kyle Dunnigan) uses silly putty to read the copy of the news release.  Since this renders the words backwards, we now have Pop Tarts.  The silliness finally ends with George being picked up by his parents.

What I just described about Unfrosted is the main thread of the plot.  There are a number of side stories that I avoided talking about because they seem to be there mainly to give screen time to the myriad of cameos brought in for the movie.  The one with the actors from Mad Men made it in, but it had more to do with the development of the Unfrosted snacks.  None of them, including the central theme of the film, have much to do with Faith.  The point of the production, it seems, is to make references that I think mostly older people will get, and few others.  The thinnest connection to anything related to Christianity is Isaiah Lamb (Andy Daly), who is meant to be the guy you see on the box of Quaker Oats.  The Quakers, by the way, are a real sect of Christianity.  Indeed, the state of Pennsylvania was founded by prominent members of that group, like William Penn.  They are a pretty interesting set.  Though much fewer in numbers today, over the years they have been distinguished by a firm adherence to principles of pacificism and tolerance.  Instead, the film plays up Isaiah as a strait-laced Christian, uninterested in sullying the purity of his brand with poisonous sugar.  In other words, it is yet another stereotype about how followers of God are dorks.  It is also another indication of how far society has fallen from Christian values that being upright is so callously treated.  Little is sacred anymore, including when you have the Toucan Sam (Cedric Yarbrough) mascot singing “Ave Maria” at Steve’s funeral, before they fill his gravesite with cereal and milk to the point that the coffin floats.  Not only does this scene desecrate an important song for Catholics, but also the final resting place of the recently deceased.  Like the rest of the movie, these are cast in a trivial light, but such are the moments noticed by a Catholic reviewer.

I suppose I should lighten up when watching films like Unfrosted.  It is evidently a farce, and it maintains the same tone throughout.  Yet, I found little of it to be actually funny, and that has nothing to do with the aforementioned abuse of “Ave Maria.”  If you are into the 1960s, then it might be fun to watch it for all the Easter eggs for that period.  Otherwise, yawn.