Seinfeld’s Netflix Pop-Tart movie Unfrosted embarrasses everyone

polygon.com:

Growing up, I liked Pop-Tarts. I don’t think that’s a particularly novel sentiment for an American child to have; they’re delicious little squares of crust and fruit goo packed in silvery packets, like bricks of kid-friendly cocaine. Like a lot of children (and some adults), I never thought about the fact that something I liked might be bad for me, until one day in the eighth grade, Mrs. Schenck saw one of us crack open a pack and said “There is zero nutritional value in a Pop-Tart.” Perhaps she thought shame would change the habits of a bunch of rangy preteens. Pop-Tarts, however, are not the purview of anyone remotely concerned with shame.

Unfrosted, Jerry Seinfeld’s Netflix-produced directorial debut, is loosely based on the wild story of how Pop-Tarts came to be. Seinfeld, who also co-scripted the film, stars as Bob Cabana, a Kellogg’s marketing executive loosely based on food-industry executive William Post. With the help of Melissa McCarthy as former NASA scientist Donna Stankowski, Cabana is tasked with beating Kellogg’s rival Post Cereals to the market with a shelf-stable pastry, a product that would change the breakfast world of 1963. It’s The Right Stuff, but about corporate snack innovation, and played with the absurdity that premise implies.

A murderer’s row of Known Funny People pop up to do bits 30 seconds at a time, from Hugh Grant as a diva Tony the Tiger (playing on his real-world reputation) to Drew Tarver of The Other Two playing Pop, one of the Rice Krispies mascot elves (playing off the reputation of his character on The Other Two). It’s a pretty family-friendly affair, even if most of the jokes will fly over kids’ heads. How familiar are your children with the January 6 insurrection?

Naturally, the premise sounds silly. Foolish, even. But Seinfeld doesn’t let it show. Unfrosted is briskly paced, gamely acted, and its script, co-written by Spike Feresten, Andy Robin, and Barry Marder, does not contain a whit of self-consciousness. It’s also