And no ... it's not a comedy sketch.
Jensen Karp, musician-producer-comedian and husband to Danielle Fishel—the actress who played Topanga in Boy Meets World—woke up Monday morning craving some Cinnamon Toast Crunch. However, when he poured his bowl of cereal, he found something ... fishy.
Ummmm @CTCSquares - why are there shrimp tails in my cereal? (This is not a bit) pic.twitter.com/tTjiAdrnVp
— Jensen Karp (@JensenKarp) March 22, 2021
“Something plopped out of the box,” Karp said in an interview. “I picked it up, and I was like, ‘This is clearly a shrimp tail.’” After discovering the tail-end of a shrimp, Karp looked into the bag and discovered a second tail covered in sugar. “I get really grossed out, and I’m medicated for O.C.D., so this is a total nightmare for me,” he said.
Karp posted the picture on Twitter tagging Cinnamon Toast Crunch. The company responded saying, "We’re sorry to see what you found! We would like to report this to our quality team and replace the box. Can you please send us a DM to collect more details? Thanks!"
So, a back and forth battle ensued and Cinnamon Toast Crunch determined through "thorough analysis" that the objects Karp found were not actually shrimp tails. “After further investigation with our team that closely examined the image, it appears to be an accumulation of the cinnamon sugar that sometimes can occur when ingredients aren’t thoroughly blended,” Cinnamon Toast Crunch tweeted. “We assure you that there’s no possibility of cross-contamination with shrimp.”
This angered Karp, who responded with a tweet announcing that his own investigation determined that the unidentified foreign objects were indeed shrimp tails.
Ok, we’ll after further investigation with my eyes, these are cinnamon coated SHRIMP TAILS, you weirdos. I wasn’t all that mad until you now tried to gaslight me? https://t.co/7DmADmoqUt pic.twitter.com/rSLE60pvoy
— Jensen Karp (@JensenKarp) March 22, 2021
Karp's friend called him after seeing his tweet and suggested he check out the rest of the cereal box's contents. “I had never even thought about going back into the bag,” he said. “Never even crossed my mind.”
So, his wife mustered the courage to go through the bag and found some more odd objects. It seemed as though the other bag in the family pack box was actually taped closed as if someone had opened it before. Inside, she found something that looked like dental floss.
UPDATE: my wife has a stronger stomach than me and checked the OTHER bag in the family pack. This one seems taped up (?) and also appears to include...(I don’t even want to say it)...dental floss. pic.twitter.com/yKPkpx7PWq
— Jensen Karp (@JensenKarp) March 23, 2021
The couple also found some black debris baked into the cereal squares, which Karp says may be rat feces or "shrimp-adjacent."
For real - someone tell me they aren’t like maggots or bugs. Is it shrimp adjacent? (also just found this weird cinnamon covered pea thing?)
— Jensen Karp (@JensenKarp) March 22, 2021
I wish this was a joke. pic.twitter.com/7pCs0TJCpv
In an attempt to figure out what he found in his cereal, Karp called the California Poison Control, which suggested he take a sample of the foreign objects to a lab. “That’s what I’m trying to get tested right now, because that’s the only thing that really matters to me as far as if I can get sick,” Karp said. I am most likely not sick,” he also said in a text. “But I am not against checking what I ate.”
So, he headed to a couple of testing centers before he found one that would test the "black things" in his cereal. He also tweeted that a research company is paying to DNA test his shrimp tails to determine if they are actually tails.
We’re going to a lab pic.twitter.com/utlWpU1k4I
— Jensen Karp (@JensenKarp) March 23, 2021
After identifying some labs that will run tests, Karp was contacted by General Mills via email. In its email, the company told him that if he was not willing to send a sample of the cereal to General Mills, they wanted him to send it to his local law enforcement officials. Karp responded saying that he would not walk into a police station yelling about shrimp tails like "it's a smoking gun from a murder."
I can’t believe this in a real life, publicly traded company. pic.twitter.com/v5fAz2SSyM
— Jensen Karp (@JensenKarp) March 23, 2021
The whole shrimp investigation is still ongoing, but meanwhile, in the Twitter world, fans have been coming up with theories on how the shrimp got into the box. Some people suggested that Cinnamon Toast Crunch is simply trying something new to make their cereal a little classier.
Honestly, would still eat this. https://t.co/im2wOwdTPR
— Jensen Karp (@JensenKarp) March 24, 2021
“To save their company, Cinnamon Toast Crunch needs to make cereal classy again, and what’s classier than shrimp?” pic.twitter.com/pXs2RgZh5c
— Elyza Halpern (@elyzawithawhy) March 23, 2021
Others threw out the idea that the shrimp tails could be evidence of corporate sabotage.
We’re all thinking it. https://t.co/hum50FjTeQ
— Jensen Karp (@JensenKarp) March 23, 2021
Some tried reaching out to the individual they believed was eating shrimp over the Cinnamon Toast Crunch conveyor belt.
They need to stop eating shrimp over the conveyor, while making my favorite cereal. pic.twitter.com/BY6ZkvNxt3
— RayOid (@RayOid84) March 23, 2021
Then, there were the conspiracy theorists who thought there were just way too many coincidences for this to be an accident.
I can’t believe this is all factually correct. https://t.co/imBd8Ts62c
— Jensen Karp (@JensenKarp) March 24, 2021
Needed this https://t.co/WuFoAOYK7s
— Jensen Karp (@JensenKarp) March 24, 2021
This is not General Mills' first shrimp fiasco. Back in 2011, the company sued a Michigan blueberry packer over a shipment of Adkins blueberries that were contaminated with shrimp. “Upon further inspection of the remaining cases of Lot #210082 Adkin blueberries, GMI discovered one shrimp and a shrimp tail on the outside of the cases,” the lawsuit stated. “The tainted blueberries were unsuitable for use in any GMI product, much less the intended product.”
So, how do you think the shrimp ended up in Karp's cereal box? What do you think the "black things" are? Let us know in the comments.