Unfrosted: Sixties Silliness

Netflix’s new Unfrosted,the directorial debut of Jerry Seinfeld, is rated PG-13.  But you’d have to be a lot older than thirteento catch all the comic references (and would-be comic references) to the era inwhich this TV movie is set. In fact co-writer (as well as director and star) Seinfeldwas himself merely a kid in 1963 when JFK was president, NASA was prepping amoon mission, Walter Cronkite ruled the airwaves, and Kellogg’s was introducingits new breakfast idea, Pop Tarts.

 I’m not quite sure whySeinfeld and his cronies decided the world needed a fictionalized version ofthe rivalry between Kellogg’s and Post, both of then Battle Creek, Michigancompanies striving to be numero uno in the American breakfast market.But they must have felt that the rampant consumerism of the era made for alively target. And so it does, at least for a while. In their version (whichhas nothing to do with actual fact), Post—led by Amy Schumer as MarjorieMerriweather Post—has stolen Kellogg’s plans for a heat-and-serve breakfastpastry, and is preparing for a huge roll-out of the new product. To head offthis effort, Kellogg’s team has cornered the market in Cuban sugar, andborrowed the shape of a Univac punch card to create their own pastry. They’vethen brought in Jon Hamm and John Slattery of Mad Men fame to give theirinvention the proper P.R. push, making Pop Tarts fly off store shelves, unlikePost’s almost identical Country Squares.

 The film also finds room forMelissa McCarthy, Bob Gaffigan (as Edsel Kellogg III, the Seinfeld character’sboss), Dan Levy (in a brief appearance as Andy Warhol),  and Peter Dinklage (leading the milkindustry’s charge against the new product). James Marsden, hamming it up as TVexercise king Jack Lalanne, heads a lively parade of the era’s commercialicons, which include Chef Boyardee and the maker of  Schwinn bikes.  And speaking of icons, none other than HughGrant plays Thurl Ravenscroft, an actor whose claim to fame is being thesonorous voice of Kellogg’s Tony the Tiger. Ravenscroft was an actual voiceperformer, much beloved by Disney animators, but in Seinfeld’s version he’s afrustrated Shakespearean actor who ends up leading a gaggle of cerealmascots--think Snap, Crackle, and Pop—in a work action against theirunappreciative bosses.

 In an effort to leave noSixties celebrities unspoofed, Unfrosted also makes room for JohnnyCarson, John F. Kennedy (furnished with a Boston accent and a pair ofattractive blonde twins), and Nikita Khrushchev, who’s brought into theconflict by the Post folks. (Trying to woo him, they posit the introduction ofsome Russian-friendly cereals like Borscht Loops and Count Vodkula.)  There’s also much would-be jocularitysurrounding NASA’s early stabs at space exploration. One joke involving thedeath in a 1967 launchpad fire of early astronaut Gus Grissom did not go overwell in my household. 

 With Jerry Seinfeld’s humorgetting more political these days, it wasn’t surprising to notice a morecurrent allusion too. At a point near the end of the film, when strikingmascots are demanding that governmental officials “stop the certification” ofthe new product, the rhetoric is an obvious spoof of the events of January 6,2021 (and Hugh Grant’s character appears in a Tiger-striped version of theso-called "QAnon Shaman" who wore an outlandish headdress to stormthe U.S. Capitol.) Clever parody? I’m not so sure. More like a cluster ofbuddies at a late-night bull session, thinking up everything and anything thatcould make them laugh.