During my youth, I spent many a saturday at a little place I liked to call Showbiz Pizza (it helps that the company that owned it also called it that too). It was kinda tucked away and isolated, just off one of the main roads in my hometown of Lynchburg, VA, but boy was it ever popular.
Remember the Ninja Turtles Pizza-Crunchabungas?
Well, I do. And apparently, so do the fine people who make the TGI Friday’s brand of snacks.
Not that there’s any TRUE relationship between the two snacks, but hey, don’t be such a blogkill. No, my friends, these *NEW* TGI Friday’s Cheese Pizza Chips are not the son of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pizza-Crunchabungas, but these Pizza Chips bring us the same powerful pizza flavor that those corn crunchy TMNT pizzas did all those years ago. Yessir– Don, Raph, Mikey, and Leo would be proud.
Upon first seeing this new snack item at work, gleeful and nostalgic thoughts of those Crunchabungas came to mind. Mostly because of the pizza “flavor”, as further research has shown the Crunchabungas were corn puffs, while these are actual chips. So I chewed on the idea of whether or not to buy these chips for several days. Could they live up to the task at hand of matching the Turtle Power of the wondrously fun TMNT Pizza Crunchabungas? This was the question that burned within my soul. This was the question that I dared not ask aloud. Until lunch break.
So I picked up a bag and what a delightful surprise! They taste EXACTLY like TMNT Pizza Crunchabungas! Keep in mind, this is coming from the same memory that thought the Crunchabungas were chips as well. The chip itself is actually pretty good and I like that fact that you can break it up into “slices” if you have a couple of friends coming over and are hungry. What? Are you going to eat a whole six slice chip by yourself?
Anyway, a strong pizza flavor is there. Almost a little TOO strong and a little TOO Raph for me. I could only finish off barely more than half of this 5.25 ounce bag before feeling sick. Finally, after a few weeks of sitting in the cupboard, I just threw the rest of the bag out tonight with a heavy heart. There’s just way too much pizza dust here on this chips. A good idea in theory, but a slight tweak of flavorage would be beneficial.
Come to think of it… I kinda felt the same way about Crunchabungas. Hm. I guess I didn’t like Crunchabungas much afterall.
