And now, Scary-Crayon reviews... by: Wes Ah, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and Coffee -- resigning Americans to glazed inner tubes with chocolate icing as they scuttle off to work and get stuck in subway entrances since 1937. Perhaps at the cost of the nation's health and much to the delight of plus-size clothing manufacturers, the franchise has persevered through the years, and with Dunkin' Donuts has pretty much become synonymous with those olicooks of various persuasions that we love so much. Considering that Dunkin' Donuts is everywhere -- I've been places where you could find one about every three blocks -- whereas Krispy Kreme's a bit more rare, it's a wonder that double D hasn't run the KK right out of existence. But there's a reason for that. Sure, the fact that you can find KK doughnuts in supermarkets probably helps keep them from being entirely forgotten, and using the longer spelling of "doughnut" probably makes them the brand of choice for elitist snobs who despise foods with less than six letters in their names, but the greater reason for the continued success of the KK shops is in the unmatched variety of exotic doughnuts that can be found within those walls. The KKK may stand for hatred and bigotry, but one look at KK's menu and you know right away that diversity is this company's middle name. Hell, they've even got drinks masquerading as doughnuts -- behold, at right, the Frozen Original Kreme Blend, also known as <spooky music> the frozen drink that walks like a doughnut </spooky music>. See, this thing was actually the reason for my trip to Krispy Kreme. I was well aware that KK had a selection of doughnuts comparable to the 31 flavors of ice cream at Baskin Robbins, but, to be honest with you, I'm not a big fan of doughnuts unless they're sliced in half and have an omelette and cheese sandwiched within (see THE SANDWICH SO WEIRD it frightens McGriddles). Oh, jelly-filled doughnuts are a nice treat every now and then, but those fancy new-fangled cheesecake-flavored doughnuts don't impress me much. If I wanted something cheesecake-flavored, I'd just eat a slice of cheesecake, y'know? But that's only because as far as I'm concerned, cheesecake and doughnuts both belong to the same category of foods, namely "dessert cake-type shit that you don't need and should eat in moderation because enjoying them too often will make you fat as fuck", so making one taste like another isn't too impressive a feat. However, when you make a drink that tastes like doughnut, you've crossed into new territory. That's a drink, dude! Drinks are not supposed to taste like doughnuts! Or meat, for that matter, but I digress. Fan and creator of strange food combinations that I am, I had to venture to Krispy Kreme to try this intriguing doughnut-drink hybrid thing -- I really had no choice in the matter. 'Cause drinks are not supposed to taste like doughnuts! Well, after having tried KK's Frozen Original Kreme Blend, I can sincerely tell you that drinks still fucking don't taste like doughnuts. There are these little tan cookie crumbs in there that are, I think, supposed to mimic the taste of the actual dough, but given their size and the coldness of the drink they really don't taste like anything. Hell, they might as well have been more ice for all the difference they made. And the drink itself? Well, I will say this -- they got the taste of doughnut glaze down cold. Get it? Cold! Because it's frozen. Ha ha. But seriously, who the hell wants to drink a cup of iced doughnut glaze, especially when it has three times as many calories as a regular glazed doughnut? Krispy Kreme doughnuts may be good -- whether actually better than other doughnuts is debatable, especially when it comes to the generic offerings -- but I think I can safely say that the glaze on their doughnuts tastes pretty much the same as the glaze on any other doughnuts. If I wanted the taste of cold glaze, instead of making the trip out to a faraway KK shop, I could simply buy a glazed doughnut from the supermarket, leave it in the freezer, and then take it out and lick it an hour later. And you know what? I wouldn't have to deal with a cup of thin liquid that looks like and, save for the crushed ice and cookie bits, has the slightly slimy consistency of semen. Frozen Original Kreme Blend, Scary-Crayon gives you a thumbs down. And now, since it was on hand and all, let's glance at another item from Krispy Kreme's menu, shall we? Despite the marked resemblance to a hedgehog of the non-blue, tennis shoe wearing variety (hedgehog photo taken from Hedgehogs Online), the picture at left is actually the Caramel Kreme Crunch doughnut. The first thing to note is the name -- while the franchise may be called Krispy Kreme -- as in "crispy creme", but swapping the third letter of the alphabet for the eleventh -- KK threw consistency to the wind when titling this doughnut. (One can only imagine why.) And hey, speaking of consistency, I'm tired of this "doughnut" spelling. That said, on with the donut review! Well, what to say about the KKK CKC? First of all, it doesn't taste all that different from a glazed donut with chocolate icing. Yeah, there's the toffee crunch topping, but as with the cookie crumbs in the cup o' glaze, there aren't enough of them to significantly impact the flazor. What did set this apart from your average donut, however, was the caramel kreme filling. As you can see from the picture at left, in which gobs of filling are running over my fingers, there's a lot of that shit in there. Hell, the donut even has an anus for excess kreme leakage. This baby took a caramel shit on my lap. Luckily, I had a napkin there, but still... these bastards are full o' kreme. Unfortunately, the caramel flavor isn't all that intense -- seems like this is a theme here with KK -- so despite them somehow packing three times the expected amount of caramel creme filling into that little donut shell, it might as well have been filled with vanilla pudding or whatever else they use to fill donuts. And given that this thing has 350 calories, 170 of which are from fat, snagging a Twix bar for your crunchy caramel needs might leave you better off in more ways than one. On the other hand, Twix bars don't look anything like hedgehogs. I can't tell you how important that is. Thus concludes this Scary-Crayon review of Krispy Kreme's Frozen Original Kreme Blend drink and Caramel Kreme Crunch donut. Having tried them both, I'm inclined to say that Krispy Kreme's highly overrated -- sure, these things look and sound interesting, but once you get down to it they're not really all that hot, even if one will leave a load of kreme in your lap and the other one is eerily reminiscent of "kreme" from someone else's lap. But maybe these two items simply aren't great representatives for what could be a very formidable roster of assorted donuts and coffees. I mean, something's got to be responsible for keeping the franchise rolling in dough (ha ha), right? And what keeps people flocking from afar to these clandestine locations, when a good chunk of their more common -- and, I suspect, more popular -- wares can be found at the local supermarket, and cheaper at that? Seriously, donuts were going for 83 cents at that place, whereas they only run you 50 at Giant. Could it be the friendly service? The strange 1950s shoppe decor? Addictive drugs secretly mixed into the donut fillings? Could it be that those powdered donuts are actually coated with cocaine? After all, there must be something that keeps people coming to Krispy Kreme... right? Maybe it's the swank paper hats. -- Wes -- Psst...wanna make a PayPal donation to Scary-Crayon? Just click the image above! Simple, no? ;)