Miles Teller hosted ‘SNL’ and ‘The Mummy’ is returning, but give me some Mountain Dew Baja Blast Pie and M&M’s POP’d

Hello! Welcome to the Nov. 8, 2025, edition of the Saturday Wrap. Here’s everything you might of missed from The Omnicosm.

Snackology • Thoughts for Food

I bought Taco Bell’s Mountain Dew Baja Blast Pie. (Yes, this is real.)

The very first review published by Snackology was about Mountain Dew Baja Blast Gelato. As the newsletter closes in on its 100th edition, it’s fitting that a year later, I’m finally covering the most elusive and rumored Taco Bell/Baja Blast crossover: 

Mountain Dew Baja Blast Pie.

Yes, Mountain Dew Baja Blast Pie is real. It’s quite possibly at your local Taco Bell this very moment, finally hitting stores after Taco Bell first revealed its existence at Live Más LIVE 2024 last year.

It turns out the fast-food chain was waiting for Thanksgiving season to hit, marking Mountain Dew Baja Blast Pie as a “more than a delightful dessert, the Baja Blast Pie is a Friendsgiving flex, making you the hero of thanksgiving.”

Taco Bell released Mountain Dew Baja Blast Pie on Thursday, making it super clear that this wild addition to the Taco Bell/Baja Blast partnership was going to be available in limited quantities. It’s “here for a good time not a long-time,” the Taco Bell press release notes.

Snackology • Thoughts for Food

M&M’s POP’d are the greatest freeze-dried candy I've ever eaten

The past twelve months have been big for freeze-dried candy. What was once an indie trend has now fully been absorbed by the major candy companies, with Skittles jumping into the freeze-dried candy game last year — available in both traditional and sour varieties — and a trio of classic candies getting that treatment a few months ago.

The common thread when it comes to Skittles POP’d, Spree Freeze Dried, SweeTARTS Freeze Dried and Lemonhead Freeze Dried is that these were all non-chocolate sugary candies. At the end of my candy-eating day, they all tasted kind of the same. Sugary candies turned super crunchy, to varying degrees of effectiveness.

But now we finally have a freeze-dried chocolate candy. And it’s one of the biggest brands in the world of candy. Snackology readers, I introduce you to M&M’s POP’d Caramel.

Thanks to McDonald’s latest sauce, you don’t have to choose between buffalo and ranch

I’m forever Team Blue Cheese, but I’ll allow the marriage of buffalo and ranch in this case.

The OmnicosmBill Kuchman

Deep SNL Thoughts • Episode Review

‘Property Brothers’ unleash ‘White House Makeover’ as Miles Teller hosts ‘SNL’

When SNL announced that Miles Teller was hosting the first installment of its November batch of episodes, my reaction was a very solid oh. 

When Teller previously hosted in 2022, he did a decent job shepherding the episode along, but nothing from that gig stood out. Because I care about all of you, the loyal Deep SNL Thoughts readers, I went back to his episode and refreshed my memory to make sure I wasn’t forgetting any standalone sketches.

I wasn’t.

Teller’s last episode was pretty disjointed, bouncing from a sketch featuring the Charmin bears (there was suspiciously a real Charmin commercial right after Teller’s monologue) to a sketch where Teller played a jacked Grimace chatting it up with the rest of the McDonaldland gang.

Despite Teller’s efforts as a host, his second time hosting left an even weaker impression than the first.

SNL Promo: Nikki Glaser roasts Ashley Padilla, James Austin Johnson and Kam Patterson

The comedian turned her fire on the ‘SNL’ cast during her promo.

The OmnicosmBill Kuchman

Popculturology • Friday Newsletter

‘The Mummy’ returns. Again.

Fans of The Mummy movies starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, this is your moment. News broke this week that Universal has not only put another Mummy movie starring that duo into production — and the studio plans to ignore The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, the third movie that replaced Weisz with Maria Bello.

The new Mummy movie will be directed by Radio Silence, the collective made up of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. The duo has previously directed the fifth and sixth Scream movies in addition to Ready or Not. They’ll take the reins from Stephen Sommers, who directed The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, and Rob Cohen, who directed Tomb of the Dragon Empire.

I love that Universal is returning to this franchise. While the critics didn’t always agree, people have fond memories of the first two Mummy movies, and it’s fantastic to see not only Fraser get to return to this role but that Weisz is coming back too. (No offense to Bello, but the studio should’ve never recast Evelyn.)

The Box Office Report: ‘Regretting You’ wins a lackluster Halloween weekend. Maybe.

No one went to the movies this weekend, but it was still a close race between ‘Regretting You’ and ‘Black Phone 2.’

The OmnicosmBill Kuchman