Hello! Welcome to the Oct. 17, 2026, edition of the Saturday Wrap. Here’s everything you might have missed from The Omnicosm.
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Milk Bar Birthday Cake Empanada. / Snackology
Taco Bell and Milk Bar celebrate the Birthday Cake Empanada
Did you have Taco Bell for breakfast this morning? I did. And not, like, a Breakfast Crunchwrap. I’m talking about the real Taco Bell menu, the menu you order from at lunch or dinner or 3 o’clock in the morning.
The Milk Bar Birthday Cake Empanada made its debut today, and I knew this isn’t the kind of Taco Bell item that sticks around for days. When I started to put my order into the Taco Bell app, though, I discovered two surprises waiting for me: The Classic Chicken Crunchadilla and the Sriracha Chicken Crunchadilla. (Read more)
A KFC/Taco Bell combination restaurant. / Snackology
SCOOP: Combo KFC/Taco Bell locations to serve Coca-Cola and Pepsi
When news broke on Thursday that KFC was switching soda providers from Pepsi to Coca-Cola beginning in January, the world wanted to know what would happen to combo KFC/Taco Bell locations. Would Taco Bell switch to Coca-Cola too? That would mean there would be Taco Bell locations without the chain’s iconic Mountain Dew Baja Blast.
It turns out Coca-Cola and Pepsi will service combination KFC/Taco Bell restaurants, a KFC representative tells Snackology. (Read more)
Skittles Gummy Crystals Original and Skittles Gummy Crystals Tropical Splash. / Snackology
It’s crunch time for Skittles Gummy Crystals
It’s been a big year for gummies coated in crunchy sugar. Last spring, I discovered Target’s Blue Raspberry Crunch Coated Bears. Those fellas blew my mind, and I immediately ordered several more bags to be shipped to our home. Over the summer, I put Sweet Stash Rock Jams to the test. They’re easily my favorite of the Sweet Stash lineup now.
But now one of the biggest names in candy has entered this world. Skittles Gummy Crystals are set to hit the TikTok Shop on Nov. 2 before going nationwide in 2027. (Read more)
Ghirardelli takes its chocolate expertise to the cookie aisle
Snackology is no stranger to covering a crossover between a candy brand and a cookie brand. The partnership that brought Oreos to Reese’s Cups and Reese’s Cups to Oreos was a huge, huge deal when it launched. (And that collab recently celebrated its one-year anniversary.) But what if the candy brand is the cookie brand?
That’s the bold, new world of Ghirardelli Crispy Cookies. (Read more)
Cheetos Bag of Bones are back for Halloween
Cheetos Sweet Phantom Heat Puffs are the major new seasonal release for Cheetos this Halloween, but that limited-edition release is joined by the return of Cheetos Bag of Bones. The skeleton-shaped snack is back in both White Cheddar and Cinnamon Sugar varieties. (Read more)
Austin Abrams and Josh Brolin in Whalefall. / 20th Century Studios
Whalefall is ambitious and ridiculous and beautiful. I love that it exists.
If you’ve been reading Popculturology since pretty much its inception as a newsletter, you know that I’ve been looking forward to Whalefall. I read the book when it came out in 2023, and I wasn’t surprised when movie rights were almost instantly snapped up.
Seeing Whalefall on its opening Thursday was never a question for me. I very much wanted to see how Brian Duffield and his team at 20th Century Fox turned Daniel Kraus’s novel about a guy who accidentally gets eaten by a sperm whale and has only an hour left on his air tank to survive could be turned into a film.
Would it be 127 Hours? Would it be The Martian?
Whalefall is unlike any film I’ve ever seen. (Read more)
Shane Gillis on SNL. / NBC
Shane Gillis’s misogynistic SNL monologue is now Lorne Michaels’s legacy
In a normal world, there’s no way that Shane Gillis ever hosts SNL to begin with, much less does he host the show three times over four seasons. But Michaels has a score to settle. Public opinion forced him to fire Gillis in 2019, and Michaels hasn’t forgotten that.
Lorne Michaels speaks for SNL. And until Michaels speaks up, Shane Gillis now speaks for him. (Read more)
Andrew Dismukes and Shane Gillis on SNL. / NBC
We knew Shane Gillis would bomb on SNL. We just didn’t expect he would f-bomb.
It’s good that SNL has a few weeks off, since the beginning of Season 52 is one of the worst opening runs I’ve ever seen for this show.
After two mediocre episodes, Lorne Michaels brought in Shane Gillis — a man who was fired from SNL before he ever appeared on the show and has repeatedly bombed when he’s been brought back to host — as his closer for the opening set of three episodes.
Gillis rewarded Michaels’s confidence — hubris? — by dropping an f-bomb during a live sketch. At least that got us talking about something else besides Gillis remarking during his monologue that “women just dress like whores now” at the gym. (Read more)
The Omnicosm is written and produced by Bill Kuchman. Copyediting by Tim Kuchman.
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The Omnicosm founder. Snackology, Popculturology and The Cold Open writer. A Rochester, N.Y., native now living in the Washington, D.C., area. Won’t pass up a Genny Cream Ale.
You need to see ‘Whalefull’ in a theater this weekend. PLUS: Steven Soderbergh steps in to finish ‘The Batman Part II’ shooting, new trailers for ‘Godzilla Minus Zero’ and ‘Narnia,’ and we have ‘Mister Miracle’ actors.
