I find reviewing new flavors of Pringles to be tricky. Unless it’s some wild concoction like Wendy’s Spicy Chicken or Wendy’s Baconator, a new flavor of Pringles usually just tastes like, well, Pringles.
The announcement of Once You Pop Mystery Boxes caught my attention, though. This promotion wasn’t about the brand tweaking the flavor of Pringles to bring us the fiftieth iteration of cheese or BBQ flavor. Like the latest Daniel Craig movie, this one was a mystery!
If you were able to get your hands on a Once You Pop Mystery Box, a set of two Pringles can was delivered to your home. One canister contained a Mystery Flavor “featuring a surprise Pringles flavor.” The other can concealed the identity of one of six Pringamabobs collectibles. (Pringamabobs aren’t for eating. They’re bag charms.)
Were the secrets of a Once You Pop Mystery Box worth my time and taste buds?
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A Once You Pop Mystery Box was $19.99. They’re currently out of stock, but the site suggests that folks should “pop back over soon for another chance.” (There’s also a Pringamabob on the website who notes that “we can’t come back if we don’t go away first ...”)
My thoughts
The back of the Once You Pop Mystery Box offers the promise that “you may just find your new favorite flavor or your new best friend. With this mystery box, you might find both.” I dunno. That’s a big promise for a tube of chips.
Pringles leaned into its Julius Pringles mascot as hard as it could for this product, plastering him all over the box, front and back, inside and out.
As I removed the canisters from the box, I heard a sound that gave me pause. Back when I worked at a CVS, someone thought it was a good idea to store food like Pringles in the stockroom loft. Ideally, we would’ve carried shipments of Pringles up the ladder and gently placed them in the loft. We were college kids, so we just chucked the boxes into the loft instead.
Always give a canister of Pringles a gentle tilt before you buy it. If it sounds like a rainstick, you should pick a different canister. My Mystery Flavor canister sounded like a rainstick, but I had no choice but to push on.
Upon peeling the top of the Mystery Flavor canister, two things were immediately clear: These Pringles weren’t in horrible shape. And whatever this mystery flavor was spelled strongly of seasoning. I struggled to place it, even after tasting a few crisps.
I had tried the Pringles Elote Mexican Street Corn flavor at some point over the past year or two. Was that the mystery flavor I was trying to pin down? It definitely felt like some kind of pseudo Mexican cuisine.
Then I realized that the label on the canister of Mystery Flavor Pringles was unusually bulky ...
Well, well, well ... is the Once You Pop Mystery Box just Pringles’ way of moving old stock? Did everyone get 7-Layer Dip as their Mystery Flavor? (A single can of Pringles 7-Layer Dip Crisps goes for two bucks on Walmart’s website.)
OK, so the Mystery Flavor of Pringles had been solved. (And partially eaten.) And while a canister of Pringles is temporary, a plastic toy that you got with your food is forever right? It was time to dive into the mystery of which Pringamabob came with my Once You Pop Mystery Box.
There were six choices: Snaxolotl, Crispybara, Puptato, Duckalips, Crunchback Whale and Pringypus. I was pulling for the adorably named Snaxolotl, but he’s apparently “rare!”
Pringles packed the Pringamabobs in blind bags before dropping them inside (hopefully) unused Pringles canisters. No rainstick sound on this one.
C’mon, Snaxolotl ...
Pringypus!
According to Pringles, my Pringamabob is a “playful prankster who treats life like a party” and “brings flavorful fun everywhere it goes.”
Snack score
🍪🍪🍪 (3 out of 5 cookies)
A few things stand in the way of me trying to snag the rest of the Pringamabob collection. Besides the fact that the Once You Pop Mystery Box is currently out of stock, knowing that I can get a can of 7-Layer Day Pringles for $2 means that the Pringamabob itself is $17.99. I’ll stick with the $2 canister of Pringles in the future.
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Snackology is written and produced by Bill Kuchman. Copyediting by Tim Kuchman.
The Omnicosm founder. Popculturology, Deep SNL Thoughts and Snackology writer. A Rochester, N.Y., native now living in the Washington, D.C., area. Won’t pass up a Genny Cream Ale.
