Unfrosted

Unfrosted is a 2024 American comedy film directed by Jerry Seinfeld from a screenplay he co-wrote with his writing team of Spike Feresten, Barry Marder, and Andy Robin that is loosely based on the true story of the creation of Pop-Tarts toaster pastries. It stars an ensemble cast that includes Seinfeld, Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Max Greenfield, Hugh Grant, and Amy Schumer.

Seinfeld's feature directorial debut, he and Feresten also serve as producers of the film alongside Beau Bauman, through their production company Columbus 81 Productions. Unfrosted was released in the United States by Netflix on May 3, 2024, and received mixed reviews from critics. It was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie.

Plot
A young runaway orders Pop-Tarts in a diner, and a man named Bob Cabana offers to tell him the true origin story of the American breakfast food.

In 1963, Bob is head of development at the Kellogg's corporation, headquartered in Battle Creek, Michigan. After Kellogg's once again dominates their rival Post in the annual Bowl and Spoon Awards, Bob senses that Post is about to unveil something that could dominate the market. Soon after, Bob observes two children dumpster-diving at Post, and discovers they are creating a shelf-stable, fruit-based pastry breakfast food that seems to have addictive effects on children.

A spy at Post reports that they have further developed a product Bob's former co-worker Donna "Stan" Stankowski had created for Kellogg's. Bob convinces Kellogg to hire Stan back from NASA, and the team sets to work creating their own version of the pastry, joining forces with several prominent industry figures as "taste pilots."

Marjorie Post, the head of the Post company and Edsel Kellogg's former lover, calls a meeting of the "five cereal families": Kellogg's, Post, Quaker, Ralston Purina and General Mills. To the surprise of Bob's team, Marjorie announces that their product will be on shelves within one week. Bob undercuts them by obtaining exclusive rights to 99% of the world's sugar by making a deal with Puerto Rican criminal El Sucre.

Bob begins to worry about the taste pilots' lack of progress, but he and Stan combine several of their ideas to come up with a rectangular, fruit-filled food packaged in foil that can be toasted. Kellogg warns Bob that by creating a product that is served without milk, they may be stepping on the toes of the dairy industry, in reality an incredibly powerful and ruthless cabal whose leader kidnaps and threatens Bob.

Meanwhile, Marjorie visits the USSR in an attempt to secure rights to Cuban sugar from Nikita Khrushchev. The idea of a communist breakfast worries president John F. Kennedy, who summons the Kellogg's team to the White House to discuss the matter and ultimately agrees to instruct his brother to put pressure on organized milk.

While testing the new pastry, taste pilot Steve Schwinn is blown up in an accident and is buried with "full cereal honors". Meanwhile, Thurl Ravenscroft, a long-suffering Shakespearean actor who performs the mascot role of Tony the Tiger for Kellogg's, is convinced by the milk syndicate that the new breakfast pastry will make the cereal mascot obsolete. At Schwinn's funeral, Thurl convinces the other mascots to join him in a strike.

The team struggles with marketing the new pastry, eventually settling on the name "Trat-Pop" at the suggestion of the dumpster-divers. A mob of mascots, led by Thurl – now dressed as the QAnon Shaman – violently breaches Kellogg's headquarters, hoping to stop the product from being certified by the FDA. They are too late, and the product is certified. Walter Cronkite, reading a news brief off a piece of Silly Putty, misreads "Trat-Pop" in reverse as "Pop-Tart," forcing Kellogg's to change the name moments before they are shipped out.

The following morning, Pop-Tarts sell out of every store in the country within 60 seconds, defeating Post's poorly named "Country Squares". Thurl ends up facing a congressional committee for his role in the attack, the milkmen are implicated in Kennedy's assassination, and Marjorie Post becomes an icon of feminism who retires to Mar-a-Lago. Stan leaves Kellogg's again, becomes a hippie, and invents granola. Bob becomes nationally famous, and during an interview on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, is shot by Andy Warhol, who is furious that the name "Pop-Tart" sounds like "pop art." Bob survives thanks to the foil packet in his pocket.

In the present, the boy expresses doubt that a Pop-Tart packet could stop a bullet, and begins to question other elements of the story like the creation of a sentient ravioli creature by two of the taste pilots. Bob admits that the story was made up as the boy's parents arrive to take him home. As they turn to go, the ravioli creature emerges from Bob's pocket.

Cast
Isaac Bae portrays George, the runaway to whom Bob tells the story. Rachael Harris appears as Bob's wife Anna, and Kue Lawrence and Catherine Last play their children Bobby and Annie.

Patrick Warburton appears as announcer Tom Terranova and Ken Narasaki plays Ralston Purina. Earthquake plays Cookie Rojas while Sasheer Zamata portrays reporter Beth Donovan. Michael Joseph Pierce portrays General Mills and Ronny Chieng plays a technician named Chuck.

Jeff Lewis, Cedric Yarbrough, and Alex Edelman play Big Yella, Toucan Sam, and Apple Head, respectively, while Ali Wentworth appears as an unidentified woman at Schwinn's funeral and Darrell Hammond plays Ed McMahon.

Seinfeld's wife Jessica Seinfeld makes a cameo appearance, and Spike Feresten voices the ravioli creature as a baby, while Seinfeld provides the voice of the teenaged creature.

Production
It was announced in June 2021 that Netflix had won the rights to the project. Jerry Seinfeld would direct, produce, co-write and star in the film, which is based on a joke he told about the creation of the Pop-Tart. In June 2022, Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Amy Schumer, Hugh Grant, and James Marsden were among the newest additions to the cast. Grant provided an audition tape for Seinfeld, being the first time he had done so in over 30 years. In August, Maria Bakalova was announced for a cameo appearance. In February 2024, it was revealed that Bill Burr and Dan Levy joined the cast.

Seinfeld co-wrote the film's screenplay along with writers, Spike Feresten, Andy Robin and Barry Marder, all of whom he previously worked with Bee Movie (2007). The production was granted a tax credit to film in California in February 2022. Principal photography took place in mid 2022.

To promote the movie, Kelloggs’ and Netflix collaborated on a campaign called “Not brought to you by Pop-Tarts”, including a mock legal threat, a short starring Seinfeld, and limited-edition packaging.

Music
Christophe Beck composed the score for the film. Meghan Trainor and Jimmy Fallon provide a song for the film called "Sweet Morning Heat".

Release
The film premiered at Grauman's Egyptian Theater in Hollywood on April 30, 2024. The film was released on Netflix on May 3, 2024.

Reception
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film received a "sharply divided reaction from critics".

The Hollywood Reporter noted that reviews such as those from the "country's top critics at publications like The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle gave the film modestly positive reviews," while Chicago Sun-Times, The Globe and Mail, The Daily Beast, and Collider were "downright scathing", with the Sun-Times calling Unfrosted "one of the decade's worst movies" that Seinfeld should have aborted halfway into production. Reviews such as those from The Guardian and THR itself were also "modestly positive".

In her review for the New York Times, Amy Nicholson finds, "The jokes spill forth so fast that there's no time for the shtick to get soggy." Variety reviewer Owen Gleiberman calls it "an agreeably flaked-out piece of surrealist vaudeville" and concludes "Unfrosted, in its way, is a quintessential comedian’s movie. It thumbs its nose at everything without necessarily believing in anything. Yet it has an agreeable crunch."

In her The Hollywood Reporter review, Sheri Linden deems the film, "a straight-up comedy — no therapeutic underpinnings or civic lessons — that’s funniest when it isn’t trying too hard" and also praises behind-the-camera skill and talent, stating: "Buoyed by Christophe Beck’s score, a midcentury world-of-tomorrow vibe infuses the proceedings. The exuberant playfulness of Clayton Hartley's production design and Susan Matheson's vibrant costumes is balanced by the formal restraint of William Pope’s lensing."

The Globe and Mail found the film bereft of laughs and its runtime unendurably long, and The Daily Beast called it "as bad as you'd expect" but otherwise "superior" to Seinfeld's 2007 animated film Bee Movie. Collider compared Unfrosted poorly with Barbie as well as Tetris, Air, and Flamin' Hot—the former film the website cited for its deep social commentary and the other three for being "halfway decent biopics". The San Francisco Chronicle praised Seinfeld's direction as well as the performances and 1960s production design, while The Guardian called the film "amiable and funny in a way that's much harder to achieve than it looks". The Washington Post appreciated how the film landed more gags than missed them.

In July 2024, the film was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie.