The Parallax Corporation recently introduced a box of
officially-licensed Stay Puft Quality Marshmallows into the marketplace. If you're getting a case of deja vu, there's a good reason for that. In 2010, Omni Consumer Products produced a box of Stay Puft Quality Marshmallows for $19.99, which contained 24 large square caffeinated marshmallows. Long story short: Omni lost the Ghostbusters marshmallow license (and the use of the StayPuftMarshmallows.com domain name - which Sony owns), Parallax now has it, and as a result we have new Stay Puft Quality Marshmallows.
In this review I'll make reference to Omni's marshmallows, but my opinions on that product are based solely on the photos and information about it that were presented online by the company itself and
other reviewers. I never purchased Omni's marshmallows because the high price was a major turn off, and they never offered me a complimentary box either. Parallax was kind enough to provide me with a complimentary box of their marshmallows, though they are selling their marshmallows for less than half of what Omni was charging, so price wasn't an issue. Now that I have all of that out of the way to cover my butt legally, on to the review...
The first thing you notice about any product is the packaging.
Parallax's Stay Puft Quality Marshmallows come in a box featuring dual Stay Puft imagery. On one side is the happy Mr. Puft, while on the other side is the angry Mr. Puft. Don't make him angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry. This box design is a big improvement over Omni's nearly-plain white box. The small 5.0 oz (142g) box is approximately 4.25" x 6.25" x 2" in size.
On the left and right sides of the box is a little blurb about the big guy, the legal text, and the nutrition facts.
Now enough about the packaging. Let's open up the box.
Inside we find... A BRAND-NEW CAR!!!!! Well what did you think you'd find inside? A bag of marshmallows, of course.
Unlike Omni's product, which contains unnaturally large marshmallows, these are normal size, if not a tiny bit smaller. They're approximately 1" in diameter x 1" tall (a sugary cylinder). Here's one random marshmallow I pulled out of the bag and put up against a ruler just so you can see how they measure up (literally).
You'll find approximately 45 mini marshmallows in the box. I lucked out and got 46! Yes, I counted them. Hey, don't look at me like that. I did it for research purposes. That's the same reason I'm gonna give you as to why I decided to fashion them into a wall. Now if only I had some
Angry Birds gummies to fling at it.
I pluck a sugary brick from the wall and pop it into my mouth. The marshmallows taste good, but I can't say that they taste any different from any other marshmallow I've ever had. If you've had marshmallows before, you'll know what these taste like. So if your intent is to just buy a package of marshmallows, you're better off picking up a bag of regular old marshmallows at your local supermarket. You'll get the same amount, maybe more, for
half the price. Depending on what time of the year you go, you may even get
marshmallows in unusual shapes.
Now if your intent is to buy
Stay Puft Marshmallows, then Parallax's Stay Puft Quality Marshmallows, which you can
buy for $7.99 at Think Geek, is a much better deal than the previous release from Omni. They're less than half the price, with more marshmallows inside, and feature a better looking box. And while you're on the Think Geek website, pick up a
Stay Puft Marshmallow Man mug and some
caffeinated hot cocoa mix to complete the trifecta.
Although these marshmallows are an improvement over the Omni product in terms of price, package design, and size and quantity of marshmallows, they're still not THE perfect Stay Puft Marshmallows. (I'd call them the next best thing so far.) For that, we'd need the generic-looking bag seen in the movie sitting on store shelves right next to the bags of
Jet-Puffed Marshmallows. Because, when it comes right down to it, would you rather be Jet Puffed or would you rather Stay Puft?"
Thanks to Ghostbusters Mania, you CAN have movie-accurate marshmallows AND the officially-licensed Stay Puft Marshmallows that Parallax makes.
Buy a box of the Stay Puft Marshmallows, open up the box, take out the bag of marshmallows, and put the box on a shelf for display. Now print out
Ghostbusters Mania's movie-accurate Stay Puft Marshmallows label onto an adhesive label, slap that label onto the clear bag of marshmallows, and
voila!
As a side note - because I had no place to put this in the regular review -
Richard Roy pointed out to me that Parallax's "Stay Puft Quality Marshmallows" logo bears a strong stylistic resemblance to the IHOP (formerly International House of Pancakes) logo. I didn't notice it before but, yeah, it does.