Hugh Grant Storms the Kellogg Capitol As Tony the Tiger in ’Unfrosted’s Bizarre Jan. 6th Parody

“Hugh Grant storms the Kellogg Capitol in Jerry Seinfeld’s Pop-Tarts movie,” is a sentence I never thought I’d type. Yet that’s exactly what happens in Unfrosted, which began streaming on Netflix today. That’s right: this absurd, over-the-top comedy about the invention of Pop-Tarts includes a scene that parodies the January 6th insurrection, and it’s exactly as bizarre as it sounds.

The Unfrosted January 6th scene serves as the movie’s grand finale. It goes like this: Kellogg employees Bob Cabana (Seinfeld) and Donna Stankowski (Melissa McCarthy) have invented the perfect new breakfast treat, the Pop-Tart, but are running out of time. Rival breakfast company Post has it’s own tasty pastry, the Country Square, hitting shelves. Kellogg needs to obtain “certification” from the FDA before their new breakfast invention can hit shelves.

Enter Thurl Ravenscroft (Hugh Grant), the classically-trained actor who reluctantly plays the Kellogg Tony the Tiger mascot. (Thurl Ravenscroft is the real name of the actor who voiced the animated Tiger for Kellogg, but all similarities to the real Ravenscroft end there.) Grant’s version of Ravenscroft is a disgruntled Kellogg employee, whose demands weren’t taken seriously and whose voice wasn’t heard. With the help of an evil milkman played by Christian Slater (long story), Grant rallies the other Kellogg mascots to strike. This quickly devolves into a riot, in which Grant leads his mascot mob to storm the Kellogg building to stop the certification of Pop-Tarts.

Grant dons a Tony the Tiger version of the horned headdress that the so-called“QAnon Shaman,” aka rioter Jacob Chansley, infamously wore on January 6th, 2021. You know, when a mob of Donald Trump supporters broke into the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to prevent the congressional certification of president Joe Biden, after he defeated Trump in the 2020 election? The photos of Chansley were spread far and wide, and he became something of a mascot for the insurrection.

Seinfeld—in an odd attempt to compare a worker strike to what many consider the darkest day in American democracy thus far—recreates the January 6th insurrection with Kellogg mascots. Grant is Chansley, ordering his mob around via a megaphone, instructing them to stop the certification.

Snap, Crackle, and Pop (Saturday Night Live players Mikey Day and Kyle Mooney, and The Other Two star Drew Tarver) scream with rage, as they rush the barrier of police to break into the building.

The Fruit Loops Toucan (Cedric Yarbrough) solemnly sings “Battle Hymn of the Republic” as he walks up the steps. The Keebler elf uses a police barricade as a ladder to scale the building. A bottle of Ketchup promises to “never let go” of a box of fries, then does let go, Titanic style. Soon, a dozen people in furry suits are crawling up the Kellogg walls.

Of course, once they actually do break into the building, the mascots find they are too late. Pop-Tarts have officially been FDA-certified. “Dignified retreat,” Grant sniffs, as he leads Snap, Crackle, and Pop back out of the building.

As bizarre as this scene is, this is not the first time Seinfeld has mocked labor strikes on the big screen. His 2007 animated comedy, Bee Movie—which he co-wrote with the same team that wrote Unfrosted, though did not direct—takes great pleasure in depicting its characters (bees!) as workers who become lazy detriments to society after demanding fair wages.

On the one hand, the Unfrosted January 6th parody is an absurd, over-the-top scene befitting an absurd, over-the-top movie. Maybe that’s all it is! But paired with Seinfeld’s history of disdain for organized labor, it feels a little darker than that. Anyway, justice for Carey Dubek from The Other Two. He deserves better.