• by Barbara Lippert , Columnist, May 5, 2024

Jerry Seinfeld’s new film “Unfrosted” is way worse than you’d expect, even if you’ve experienced his previous oeuvre, “Bee Movie.”

That animated kids’ film garnered mixed reviews and a disappointing box office back in 2007. It featured a romance between an animated bee, voiced by Seinfeld, and a cartoon woman, voiced by Renee Zellweger. 

Years later, Seinfeld ended up apologizing for “what seems to be a certain uncomfortable subtle sexual aspect” to the movie “that’s really not appropriate for children.” The sequel was canceled. Apparently, the writers --  Seinfeld, Spike Feresten, Andy Robin and Barry Marder -- had no clue that they’d offend anybody.

Unfortunately, that same needlessly clueless taste level and sensitivity deficiency clouds “Unfrosted,” written by that very same trio of "Bee Movie" bros, along with Seinfeld. He also directed and stars in the cereal-bowl dramedy.

I’ve seen a documentary about the space race to create the toaster pastry and the actual competition between Kellogg’s and Post Cereals, and I ate up every bit of detail.

Whereas this story is so cartoony, belabored, chaotic, and haphazardly built that it makes you wonder whether you’d need to be on set to get it. 

Seinfeld as Kellogg’s PR man Bob Cabana in his 1960s suits at times embodies the Brooklyn version of Dick Van Dyke.  (Hey you’re in Michigan now, maybe try to tone down the accent?) Every morning, he leaves his Brady Bunch-like house, and his wife hands him his attaché case at the front door. Her part is so underwritten that it doesn’t exist except for that handoff.

Netflix spared no expense, and the sets, costumes, and candy-color look of the film are divine. Seinfeld makes use of wonderful period music, and hired a powerful cast of thousands. 

Unfortunately, a whole solar system of comedy stars has been hurt making this film.

Amy Schumer plays Marjorie Merriweather Post as a cartoony bitch, rather than the interesting woman she was, who built Mar-a-Lago and discovered Clarence Birdseye.

Two kids play major roles in Unfrosted -- and the round-faced girl, Eleanor Sweeney, perhaps 10, is the best actor in the cast.  At one point, Schumer’s character yells at the girl, “You listen to me, Cabbage Patch!” which seems out of line, given Schumer’s own struggles.

Sadly, Melissa McCarthy is wasted as the former NASA employee who teams up with Seinfeld’s Cabana. They have zero comic chemistry amid the woeful Tang and Gus Grissom jokes.

I kept waiting for “Unfrosted” to find its form: A parody? An homage? A cartoon? A sketch? A bunch of Tik-Toks put together? Nah. It’s just four guys in the writer’s room vying to get their jokes in.

The film includes two scenes with Jon Hamm and John Slattery as Mad Men Don Draper and Roger Sterling. Be still my heart!  Don reprises his speech about nostalgia, for a pitch, but it soon bogs down in adolescent “Her toaster is eager to receive his now-warm pastries” schtick.

And then there are the gratuitous historical references -- are they aimed at bottom0feeder boomers?

It’s a movie about “splitting the breakfast atom.”

So why would JFK’s womanizing be the source of about five minutes’ worth of cringe material? At one point Cabana and Kellogg go to see him, and the President Kennedy impersonator greets the cereal men with “Have you guys considered calling a cereal Jackie O’s?” (You’ll want to kill yourself if you’re sensitive to anachronisms.) Then he adds, “I’m kind of in the doghouse after you know who sang 'Happy Birthday' to me.”  

For anyone old enough to remember Walter Cronkite, the Tiffany Network news anchor, there’s more JFK-adjacent sacrilege. The Uncle Walter character is shown constantly removing and putting his big black glasses on.

That’s what the guy did for real, out of his own sense of decency and respect. On Nov. 22, 1963, Cronkite had to break in live from the newsroom during  “As the World Turns” to announce the shocking newsflash from Dallas that President John F. Kennedy was dead.

Cronkite got choked up and his eyes watered as he noted the time of death, but he put his glasses back on and got on with the show. Americans who could get near a TV set started sobbing and screaming in disbelief.

The contemporary references are worse. There’s a moment when the Kellogg mascots go on strike.

The act of striking runs through Jerry’s movies. The bees struck, too, and inadvertently destroyed the world. Right-wing critics loved it.

Here, Kellogg’s mascots break into headquarters. They’re costumed, climbing in through windows, and it’s done in a way that recreates the feeling of  the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. (Fun!) Tony the Tiger, brilliantly played by Hugh Grant as a Shakespearean actor chewing the scenery, leads them inside, but shows up bare-chested and wearing Viking horns.

Did they really have to kid about the rioter dubbed the  “QAnon shaman” --for his horned headdress-- who got 41 months in prison for his destructive role that day? Too soon? Have you no shame?

In doing promotion for the movie, Seinfeld told Entertainment Weekly, “This movie is the opposite of ‘Barbie.’ ‘Barbie’ is made by Mattel. Kellogg's had no idea and would never allow us to do anything like this. And if we don't get sued, it'll be a miracle. We thought that'd be phenomenal publicity if we do get sued.”

That just shows how out of it he is, thinking this film is so badboy edgy and daring.

The reality is that “Barbie” took huge potshots at Mattel’s fictional dumb CEO and his corporate stooges. The reason it resonated to the tune of $1.3 billion worldwide at the box office came from the surprising depth and humanity of Barbie’s character facing the modern world.

Whereas the Kellogg’s overlords should be thrilled with this 90-minute ad, a paean to Jerry’s  personal obsession with cereal.

Then again, Kellogg’s own recent advertising, such as the football activation involving a Pop Tarts Frosted Strawberry mascot and a giant toaster,  killed. Not one Jackie-O’s joke sogging up the place.