But their luck was destined to change last Friday. Stevie Stroud had no idea that after being picked up early from a bad day at school, his friend Owen would be waiting in the car to pay him a special visit.
A heartwarming video of their reunion has been spreading smiles, and a few tears, across the internet. If you’re in need of an extra dose of sweetness today, you’re in luck.
In the video, Stevie approaches the car, backpack and basketball in hand. On seeing his friend in the back seat, he is filled with excitement.
3 yrs ago, best friends Stevie & Owen where separated when Owen moved to Missouri
Recently, Stevie had a bad day a… https://t.co/hp3axnIbml
“What are you doing?” he asks. The basketball drops and tears fall. Stevie lets out a wail as his head falls into Owen’s arms.
“What are you doing here?” Stevie asks again, sniffling. “I don’t know, what am I doing here? I’m visiting you in Chicago, that’s what I’m doing here,” Owen replies. Clearly, Owen is the jokester of the two.
As Owen pats his shoulder, Stevie says, “You just made my day. I’ve had the worst day ever.”
The cries turn into laughter as Stevie hops in the car next to his pal. And the clip ends with Stevie saying “I think I’m dreaming.”
Seeing these two young boys express their love for one another so purely and freely is definitely worth a view, so it’s no wonder the video has now gone viral.
Gracing our phone screens since April, the “that girl” TikTok trend shows us an archetypal, if not stereotypical, wellness formula usually consisting of an early morning wake up + healthy breakfast (plant-based, preferably) + wellness activity + goal setting. Have this done before 7 a.m., then go boldly forth into your new day with full confidence that you have earned your happiness. Document it all for the world to see, and voila, you have now become “that girl.”
On the one hand, “that girl” encourages us all to bring our A-game every day. By offering a small snapshot of what our lives could look and feel like if we really committed to morning routines, we can find motivation to follow through on our goals. And hey, if multiple studies show that faking it till you make it actually works, then maybe posting that yoga routine will genuinely boost confidence and help it stick. Nothing wrong with that.
And “that girl” inspires us to find joy in the small things, even our daily habits. Much like the #maincharacter trend, which encourages everyone to see themselves as the hero of their own story, “that girl” is all about romanticizing life. Sometimes, that can be good medicine.
However, things that at first glance appear empowering can often have more insidious effects on mental health.
For example, when it presents a narrow view of wellness. Though you’d think that we could move beyond picturing healthy eating as avocado toast and celery juice, trends like “that girl” allow that narrow view to permeate. The biggest danger of this message being that good health is only a result of a privileged lifestyle. Not everyone can easily have access to fermented coconut yogurt and goji berries; only a certain few, therefore, can trully become “that girl,” even though everyone should, apparently, be striving to become “that girl.” Yikes, even writing out this logic is exhausting.
In this instance, wellness takes on an all-or-nothing attitude. Where instead of one person jogging at the crack of dawn in their Lululemons, everyone is, and therefore you should be too. It seems harmless enough, but when women, especially young girls, are being bombarded with images of extremely low calorie diets, and only one aspirational body type, it’s a recipe for disappointment. If not worse.
all that the that girl trend did to me is give me an eating disorder and made me hate my life 🙁
Of course, we can’t put all the blame on “that girl.” This idolizing of a certain aesthetic of health and success is no new trend. “That girl” goes by many names: girlboss, bossbabe, bosslady. Whatever moniker she takes on, “that girl” is here to tell us to wake up earlier, eat cleaner, get the reps in, and you can be everything you want to be. And before TikTok and Instagram, “that girl” showed up in magazines, showing us all exactly what to do to have the perfect life.
The real question here is: Why won’t this trend die? Why does it continue to reinvent itself even in a digital space? What is so intoxicating about the idea of perfection that generations of women have become addicted? In a word, it’s control. The dizzying high of knowing deep in your bones that Z always follows X and Y. That if you control your body, you control your life, and if you control your life, you control destiny. You will be worthy. And at the heart of many women, there is a fear of UNworthiness. If that uncomfortable, unattainable, downright rigid routine keeps you at arm’s length from the dreaded UNworthiness? Then sobeit.
Though this is not the first time TikTok has inadvertently promoted body image issues, in an interview with Refinery29, a company spokesperson stated “Being true to yourself is celebrated and encouraged on TikTok. As a platform, we’re focused on safeguarding our community from harmful content and behaviours while supporting an inclusive – and body-positive – environment.” Because the platform has had several trends that actually advocate body positivity, in addition to viral success stories of self-love, there’s reason to believe the platform can help break the social media mold on beauty standards.
After all, nothing is inherently wrong with the desire for self-improvement, but there’s no need for women to be “that girl,” if they don’t want to, or can’t. They’re perfectly fine being themselves.
It’s been a while since experimental R&B duo Majid Jordan — that’s Majid Al Maskati and Jordan Ullman — have released a full-length body of work. The Canadian duo’s last album, The Space Between, dropped October 27, 2017, climbing to No. 30 on their home country’s Billboard albums chart and No. 74 stateside. However, in all that time, they’ve never been forgotten or overlooked by fans, who have patiently awaited news of a follow-up.
They rewarded that patience today with the announcement of their upcoming third album, Wildest Dreams. Building on the momentum of singles “Been Through That,” “Waves Of Blue,” and “Summer Rain,” the duo is set to release their latest album on October 22 through Warner Records and, as always, Drake’s OVO Sound. In addition, they’re planning a short, celebratory tour to commemorate the project’s release, hitting four US cities including Brooklyn, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco ahead of a triumphant homecoming to Toronto to complete the run.
The singles that they’ve released so far promise a return to the New Wave-inflected, dance-pop-grooving R&B we’ve come to enjoy from them — and look forward to hearing again, very soon.
Wildest Dreams is due 10/22 via OVO and Warner Records.
Majid Jordan is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
It’s rare when comic book movies bomb; even The Suicide Squad, which tanked in movie theaters, allegedly did gangbusters on HBO Max. But when they do it’s like a redwood going down. One of the genre’s most notorious black eyes is 1997’s Batman & Robin. It grossed $100 million domestically…but against a $160 million budget. And it ensured that the Caped Crusader, who had once ruled the superhero film, was AWOL for almost a decade. It has some fans now, but its star is definitely not one of them.
George Clooney attended a screening of his latest directorial opus, The Tender Bar, where a Variety reporter reminded him of one of his cinematic nadirs. They were discussing how he’s one of the old Batmen not asked to be in the multiverse-loving The Flash, which features Tender Bar star Ben Affleck as well as Michael Keaton. Clooney had a simple reason for that.
“He won’t let me watch it,” Amal Clooney says of George Clooney’s Batman movie.
“The truth is I didn’t want to do it,” he joked, before adding, even more bluntly, “No, they didn’t ask me.” He had a reason for that, too. “When you destroy a franchise the way I did, usually they look the other way when TheFlash comes by.”
Amal Clooney, his wife, then revealed that he “won’t let me watch it.” Why? “There are certain films I just go, ‘I want my wife to have some respect for me,’” he said.
Clooney did agree with the Variety reporter that in the film he did “have great nipples,” referring to an unusual sartorial addition to the iconic Batman suit. But when Amal pointed out that one day their kids may want to watch it, his eye-roll was as over-the-top as Batman & Robin itself.
This is far from the first time Clooney has dissed his stab at DC’s most brooding superhero. “I always apologize for Batman & Robin,” he said on The Graham Norton Show back in 2015. “I thought at the time this was going to be a very good career move. It wasn’t.”
You can watch Clooney’s old Graham Norton appearance below. Please enjoy his spot-on impersonation of Batman & Robin director Joel Schumacher.
It’s no secret the many award shows are struggling to pull numbers these days and the Oscars are no exception. Despite stay-at-home mandates and a lot of controversy surrounding last year’s Academy Awards, the ceremony hit a shockingly low amount of viewers in 2020 when only 9.85 million people tuned into watch. While almost 10 million people might not seem so bad in theory, it marks a staggering 13.75 million drop from 2019, or just over a 58% decrease in viewers. To add insult to injury, the Oscars ratings also took a nosedive, scoring a 1.9 rating among adults 18-49 — a 64.2% dip from 2020. Needless to say, the Academy is looking for a way to fix this major problem, and it would seem their proposed answer is film producer Will Packer.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Will Packer (Girls Trip, Straight Outta Compton, Think Like a Man) has been tapped to produce the broadcast of the 2022 Oscars. Packer marks the second filmmaker asked to helm the project, following last year’s Steven Soderberg, the director of films such as Erin Brockovich and Traffic. Packer comes to the job with no prior Oscar or television broadcast experience but brings with him a whole lot of commercial success and enthusiasm.
“The power, the beauty, the romance of the imagery in movies has always attracted me,” said Packer. “I’m fully embracing the challenge of bringing an ode to one of the most iconic mediums in the world to life. What an honor!”
Following the reveal, Academy president David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson released a joint statement citing Packer’s success in all genres as the reason they selected him for the role. The pair then stated Packer is “already bringing a boundless energy and a focus on innovation to this year’s Oscars to entertain the widest spectrum of fans” and “many wonderful surprises” lie ahead. The Oscars will air live on ABC on Sunday, March 27, 2022 at the Dolby Theatre.
Louisville rapper EST gets borderline blasphemous in the new video for “Make It Even” from his recently released mixtape Bigger Than Life Or Death, out now on Interscope Records. Actually, I guess it’s probably more sacrilegious, with its irreverent use of Christian iconography including crucifixes, altars, and confessionals as he threatens bloody revenge on his enemies.
The wicked concept constitutes something of a departure for the Collective Music Group rapper, whose videos are usually meditations on the spoils of rap and other, less legal activities. Generally, he’s surrounded by women, as he is in the “Price Tag” video, or money, like in the videos for “Riata Dada,” “5500 Degrees,” and “In Town.” Even when he’s making a guest appearance, as he does on G-Eazy’s “At Will” and 42 Dugg’s “Rose Gold,” it seems like his singular focus is money — which is why the imagery in “Make It Even” is even more jarring, whatever your spiritual affiliation.
Whatever visual cues he uses, it’s clear he’s having a stellar year, from featuring on fellow Louisville citizen Jack Harlow’s album to meeting with Jay-Z. EST Gee’s profile is rising, bit by bit, thanks to his consistency where it counts: His gritty, unapologetic lyrics.
Watch EST Gee’s “Make It Even” video above.
Bigger Than Life Or Death is out now via Collective Music Group and Interscope Records. You can stream it here.
Meek Mill’s new album Expensive Pain is out now and today, he followed its release with a music video for the reflective title track.
The video splices together clips from Meek’s lavish life, from riding in private jets and relaxing at luxury resorts to playing chess with his friends and shopping for new Richard Mille watches. Interludes sprinkled throughout the video use clips from Meek’s battle rap DVD days to contrast his gritty comeup with his glitzy current.
Meek’s album, which features appearances from A$AP Ferg, Brent Faiyaz, British rapper Giggs, Kehlani, Lil Baby & Lil Durk, Lil Uzi Vert, Moneybagg Yo, Vory, and Young Thug, finds Meek exploring new territory and stretching his creative faculties, whether that’s finding new styles of beats to rap over or trying his hand at Autotuned crooning. After releasing the album alongside new videos for “On My Soul” and “Intro (Hate On Me),” Meek received praise from frequent collaborator Drake, who expressed his pride in his colleague.
Watch Meek Mill’s “Expensive Pain” video above.
Expensive Pain is out now via Atlantic Records and Maybach Music Group. You can stream it here.
Meek Mill is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
The season one finale of Marvel’s What If… is almost here and with it just one final question: what if the Watcher broke his oath of never interfering with the universe? According to director Bryan Andrews and head writer AC Bradley, the answer to that burning question and oh-so many more await in the first season’s ninth and final episode.
In a recent interview with EW, Andrews and Bradley divulged some pretty exciting information regarding their plans for the show as they wrap up season one and venture onward to season two. First and foremost, Bradley confirmed that all the fans who have been hoping for a chance to catch their favorite What If… characters back in action one last time are in luck.
“We will pop into and re-meet some of our heroes from the previous episodes, including the lovely Captain Carter [Hayley Atwell], Strange Supreme, Party Thor [Chris Hemsworth], and even Killmonger [Michael B. Jordan],” Bradley reveals. “Early on in the first season, like day one talking about it, there was this notion of we’re creating all these great heroes, but we only get to sit with them for 20 or 30 minutes. Wouldn’t it be great to see them again in the finale? And then once that decision was made, it liberated me to make the endings a little bit darker and bigger, knowing that we can give some sort of resolution in the finale.”
Andrews then expanded upon what kind of resolution we can expect following episode after episode of cliffhangers and unanswered questions, stating that in the episode it “feels like all the stuff that’s been percolating across the episodes, the adventure that we bring you into for the ending, ends, to a certain degree.” However, he then confirmed that despite the show reaching a climactic and star-studded “end,” all of season two’s episodes have already been written, and actually pull from a lot of what’s to come in Marvel’s ongoing phase four.
“Hopefully, we’ll see hints of Eternals and Shang-Chi and the Black Widow characters. The fun of What If…? is that we get to explore the entire infinite multiverse, so we try and bounce around as much as we can. I want to play with all these characters, and as much as I love Captain Carter, we’ve got to share the love. I’m very excited to show new worlds, new heroes.”
Lastly, Bradley said that while season one contained multiple “big, let’s end the world, let’s kill everyone” arcs, What If…‘s second season will “focus a lot more on the character stories and these heroes and showing a different side of them that people don’t expect and hopefully they can relate to,” meaning we’re hopefully in store for a lot of death and despair later on down the road. The season finale of What If… hits Disney+ Wednesday, October 6, but never fear Marvel fans, fresh MCU content won’t be away from the streaming service for too terribly long. The Hawkeye television series starring Jeremy Renner, Hailee Steinfeld, and Florence Pugh hits the platform later this year on November 24.
The Closer (Netflix comedy special) — Dave Chappelle’s stand-up comedy run with Netflix has been a lucrative one for both parties. This combined body of work includes The Age of Spin, Deep in the Heart of Texas, Equanimity, The Bird Revelation, and Sticks & Stones, and the supposed final chapter is called The Closer. There’s no telling whether Chappelle and Netflix’s common goodwill (after CEO Ted Sarandos helped him receive The Chappelle Show license back, along with millions of dollars) will result in a re-upping of a deal beyond this sixth stand-up special, but for now, the The Closer (with returning, Emmy-award winning director Stan Lathan) is closing things out.
Escape The Undertaker (Netflix interactive special) — Following Bandersnatch, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. The Reverend, and You Vs. Wild: Out Cold, this new interactive special features WWE Superstars aplenty. Uhhh, The Undertaker’s living in an extreme haunted house and The New Day tag team is simply trying to survive his wrath. I’m not gonna lie, this is awfully confusing stuff, but our next selection is not any less baffling.
La Brea (NBC, 9:00pm) — Natalie Zea stars in this series about an LA sinkhole that sucks an unfortunate group into some primeval hellhole, where pterodactyls and bad CGI reside. It’s preposterous and not objectively good but might attract Manifest fans, and the sabertooth tiger cliffhanger dangles some promise. This week, Eve’s fighting to save Josh’s life while Gavin and Izzy attempt to launch a rescue mission.
Stargirl (CW, 8:00pm) — Pat’s reliving some upsetting memories regarding his time with the O.G. JSA due to Eclipso being on the scene and coming for the fam.
Supergirl (CW, 9:00pm) — Lena’s hesitant to resort to magic to help uncover a totem in order to help Supergirl’s case. Meanwhile, William’s struggling in writing mode.
The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon — Queen Latifah, Kaitlyn Dever, Chris Stapleton
Late Night With Seth Meyers — Jason Momoa, Dave Bautista, Alessandro Nivola, Anthony Doerr, Barrett Martin
In case you missed these streaming picks from last Tuesday:
Britney Vs Spears (Netflix film) — Every streaming service is in on the Britney game these days, and Netflix is taking a stab at what really happened during the long, sordid history of the infamous conservatorship. Not only will this documentary paint a tragic portrait of a young woman who became trapped in her fame and family, but there’s also a shocking timeline to be unraveled here while, in real life, the pop singer moves toward (hopeful) autonomy.
Attack of the Hollywood Clichés! (Netflix special) — Rob Lowe brings his handsome to dig into the history and evolution of the most notorious clichés in Hollywood. Expect a plethora of guests to stop by, including Florence Pugh, along with screeners and critics and academics, all of whom deliver their takes on “meet-cutes” and “ladies running in stilettos.” Yes, there’s a “Wilhelm Scream” section, too.
While I like think of myself as an experienced home cook and a proud food lover, at this point, this site has assigned me, variously, to eat 25 different tacos, sample and judge each brand of store-bought marinara, and, worst of all, taste and critique every brand of store-bought alfredo sauce, among other things. Over the years I’ve come to begrudgingly accept the mantle of food stunt guy. So when Uproxx Life editor Steve Bramucci hit me up to ask if I would be willing to taste and rank every flavor of Cheesecake Factory cheesecake, the idea of not saying “yes” barely even occurred to me.
Such things had become my burden, my sacred duty. And anyway, “eat lots of cheesecake” sounds like a plum assignment compared to “eat lots of alfredo sauce.”
At the time, I didn’t fully realize that “every cheesecake flavor” on the Cheesecake Factory’s famously expansive menu would encompass more than 30 distinct varieties of cheesecake. I knew from the experience of trying to eat 25 or so tacos that the veteran move is to eat no more than one bite of each sample. Even so, 30+ bites of cheesecake still adds up to a lot of cheesecake. Maybe that doesn’t sound like as much as it is, but trust me — it’s a lot.
I brought my wife along for the trip — nine months pregnant and due any day — both because having another person to share cheesecake with would mean wasting less cheesecake, and because feeding her all the cheesecakes she wanted seemed like one of the few things I could do to try to make an uncomfortably pregnant lady carrying my massive-headed son less unhappy (at the time, his head was measuring in the 98th percentile of fetus skulls).
Reader, would it make you respect my dedication to know that this woman, eating for herself and the eight-and-a-half-pound fetus she would expel a mere three days later, only made it to 19 cheesecakes, while I soldiered on to finish all 35? Thank you, thank you. No need for applause.
There were indeed times when I considered throwing in the towel, times when I question whether or not it was all worth it, much like Jesus in his moment of doubt and pain on the cross. For the first 10 cheesecakes, I mostly thought “Oh boy, this is great! What a fun job I have!”
Edging into the late teens, I started to feel delirious and giddy, like a late-night brainstorming session when everything suddenly becomes funny. Shortly after that, I crashed and each bite became a chore. It was around cheesecake 25 or 26 when this photo was taken.
Vince Mancini
The agony, the regret…
But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. I should set the scene. Arranged through a publicist and, I presume, Cheesecake Corporate, we arrived to a predetermined cake-tasting appointment at my local Cheesecake Factory restaurant, in Fresno, California. The very nice (and maybe slightly confused?) general manager found us a spot in the corner with a table large enough to accommodate 35 separate small plates of cheesecake.
This turned out not to be all that difficult. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been inside a restaurant as truly cavernous as the Fresno Cheesecake Factory. Which, it should be noted, is merely average-sized, relative to other Cheesecake Factories. It raised so many questions. Or maybe just one question: how does a restaurant so big, with such a variety of different things, turn a profit? Without getting into the numbers, it feels like an insult to God.
I’m actually old enough to remember when the Cheesecake Factory was the “cool new thing” among chain restaurants. Or maybe it only seemed so for dopey suburbanite college kids in San Diego. Even then I remember being intimidated, perhaps even confused and scared, by the tome of a menu. What was this, I wondered, the Kirkland Signature of food? With a dining room styled as if they’re expecting a Disney princess? It was a little uncanny and still is. All these years later, I’ll feel honored if my suffering can help just one stoned college kid sweat less on a first date by demystifying the Cheesecake Factory menu.
Jokes aside, the most heartening thing about the experience was the employees coming over to check on us throughout the process. Kitchen staff, pleased with their handiwork, would stay for a few minutes, discussing the offerings. “Did you try the Dulce De Leche yet? Ooh yeah, that one is my favorite too,” and so forth. I remember feeling the same way when I worked at Starbucks. Sure, it was broadly soulless and corporate. Sure, sometimes people would complain about me not smiling enough. Sure, there were lots of weird customers, like the lady who would order a quad decaf iced latte with 14 pumps of sugar-free vanilla while absent-mindedly chewing on her baby’s fingernails. BUT if you ordered a dry nonfat cappuccino or whatever, I still did my damnedest to ensure that it was the best goddamned dry nonfat cap you ever tasted and took a weird sort of pride in it.
A NOTE ON THE RESULTS:
Maybe more so than anything else I’ve tasted, these rankings came down mostly to “what you like.” None of these were bad, some were just not for me. I’m not a huge chocolate person. Predictably, the chocolate offerings mostly make up the bottom chunk of the rankings. There were the occasional outliers, like the pumpkin flavors, which I generally liked more than I thought I would, or a few cinnamon and salted caramel options, which I liked less than I thought I would. But for the most part, cheesecakes landed where I thought they would, based on personal preference. If it sounds like something *you* would like, you probably will, regardless of what I think. I remember when a Danish filmmaker I was interning for brought in some chocolate-covered cherries one day, forcing us to try them because they were so much better then our trash processed American desserts and all that. I tried and you know what? They were goddamned awful. Borderline inedible. Because for me, chocolate and cherries is a revolting combination (chocolate and strawberries, on the other hand…).
Desserts are weirdly polarizing, is what I’m saying.
THE RANKING:
35. Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake
Vince Mancini
This is a beautiful, elegant cheesecake for someone who really, really likes chocolate, and that is just not me.
Original notes: “Soooooo much chocolate. Too much chocolate for me.”
34. 30th Anniversary Chocolate Cake
Vince Mancini
I tasted this one in the late twenties and wrote, simply, “Toooo dennnnnnssssee.”
33. Chocolate Truffle Tower
Vince Mancini
This one is also chocolate on chocolate on chocolate, but distinguishes itself by being extra tall.
Original notes: “I don’t like chocolate enough for these. ”
32. Very Cherry Ghirardelli Chocolate Cheesecake
Vince Mancini
Remember what I wrote about chocolate and cherries? That holds true here.
Original notes: “Tastes like chocolate cherries. Not my favorite combo.”
31. Oreo Dream Extreme
Vince Mancini
Oreos and ice cream is one my favorite combinations, one of those weird desserts that elevates both ingredients to something that’s so much more than the sum of its parts. The cheesecake version, unfortunately, is full of fudge and mousse and chocolate stuff.
Original notes: “Too fudgey, too moussey. Lots o’ chocolate.”
30. Caramel Pecan Turtle
Vince Mancini
This was probably the greatest disappointment of the bunch, considering caramel and pecan are on the shortlist of my favorite dessert things. But wouldn’t you know it, they just had to throw some fudge in there. I’m gonna say it: I don’t understand fudge. Not like the liquid chocolate kind you get on a sundae, but the cubes of hard frosting kind that comes wrapped in plastic wrap. What is even the point? It combines two of my least favorite dessert things, chocolate and frosting.
Original notes: “Super rich fudge layer on the bottom. Too much for me right now.”
29. Chocolate Tuxedo Cream
Vince Mancini
Too much chocolate again, but a great name for a penguin.
Original notes: “Please no more chocolate.”
28. Chocolate Mousse
Vince Mancini
Should I just skip over all the chocolate ones? There are a lot.
Original Notes: “Chocolatey as advertised. Too much choc for me but I’m not a choc guy. Less dense than expected though.”
(NOTE: You can tell I tasted this one very early in the tasting and the last one very late).
27. Hershey’s Chocolate Bar
Original notes: “Less chocolatey than it looks, still seemed too rich. ”
26. Vanilla Bean
Vince Mancini
I expected to like this one more. You’d think vanilla + cheesecake would be a winner, but apparently not. Maybe there’s such a thing as too much vanilla?
Original notes: “Nice crust, too vanilla-y.”
25. Cinnabon Cinnamon Swirl Cheesecake
Vince Mancini
Huge surprise here as cinnamon rolls are one of my favorite desserts, right up there with pecan pie and bread pudding. Sadly, this one seems designed more for people whose favorite part of cinnamon rolls is the frosting, which I don’t even like on my cinnamon rolls.
Original notes: “Lots going on here. VERY sweet. I love cinnamon rolls, but this is maybe too frosting heavy.”
The addition of peanut butter improves chocolate immensely.
Original notes: “SUPER peanut buttery. Def tastes like Reese’s.”
23. Fresh Banana Cream
Vince Mancini
Bananas are polarizing in desserts, but I’m actually a big fan. Banana cream pie? Absolutely. Banoffee pie? Yes, indeed. Bananas foster? Sign me the fuck up. This I think went too heavy on the cream part of banana cream.
Original notes: “I like bananas but not this. Too creamy? Too sweet?”
22. Caramel Apple Cheesecake
Vince Mancini
There are these little crunch balls in this one, making it one of the cooler-looking cheesecakes. Those little crunch balls rule, they should be in every cheesecake. Too much apple though.
Original notes: “Weird crunchy balls on top. Balls are good, cake has too much apple pie filling in there.”
21. Adam’s Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple
Vince Mancini
This one *sounds* like it has a bunch of heavy stuff I don’t like, but in practice, it tasted more like a Butterfingers. I don’t know who the hell Adam is, but I forgive it.
Original notes: “V rich, smells like butterfingers. Better than I imagined.”
20. Chocolate Caramelicious Cheesecake Made With Snickers
Vince Mancini
This one has arguably the most elaborate name of any of these cheesecakes, and characteristically, maybe a few too many flavors.
Original notes: “Tastes like those snickers ice cream bars in cake form. Good, but a lot.”
19. Salted Caramel Cheesecake
Vince Mancini
I love salted caramel and expected to love this. Except that it seems to have a crust made of chocolate chip cookie dough. I like salted caramel and I like chocolate chip cookies, but together they’re a bit much.
Original notes: “Cookie on the bottom? A little dense/rich for me.”
18. Toasted Marshmallow S’Mores Galore
Vince Mancini
With a torched, melted marshmallow layer, this was the coolest-looking cheesecake by far. But again, too much chocolate. Which is a shame, because the graham/marshmallow/cheesecake combo was a winner.
Original notes: “Coolest looking by far. Dig the graham, but drowned out by chocolate.”
17. Mango Key Lime
Vince Mancini
A nice, simple-looking cheesecake, with a straightforward flavor in theory, but mango plus lime plus coconut shreds is maybe too many things.
Original notes: “Tastes like lemon meringue, but mango. A bit heavy on the mango, plus coconut shreds kind of stick in your teeth.”
16. Pineapple Upside Down Cake
Vince Mancini
Pineapple upside-down cake is one of my all-time favorite desserts. No frosting and fried in butter is probably the best thing you can do to a cake.
Original notes: “Good, maybe too much pineapple. I love pineapple upside-down cake, but mostly for the sugar/butter crust, where this is more about the pineapples.”
15. Coconut Cream
Vince Mancini
Original notes: “Is there chocolate in this too? Fuck. Tastes like those coconut popsicles with a hint of mounds bar.”
14. Pumpkin Pecan
Vince Mancini
There was SO much going on in this one (a pecan pie layer inside a pumpkin cheesecake?!) that I really didn’t think I was going to like it — but I actually did.
Original notes: “This one looks… daunting. I didn’t think I was going to like it, but… I really do. It’s like pumpkin pie with better texture. Extremely rich.”
13. Limoncello Cake Cheesecake
VInce Mancini
Original notes: “Like a lemon bar. Good cake.”
12. Lemon Raspberry Cream
Vince Mancini
Basically every cheesecake from here on down I wholeheartedly endorse. The filling in this one was delicious, but it had more of a cake crust where I would’ve preferred a crunchy, more graham-crackery one.
Original notes: “Spongey crust. Lemon cake crust? Tasty, if slightly fruity for me.”
11. The Original
Original notes: “Classic ass cheesecake. Not as light as some of them, but rich and good.”
10. Low-Licious Cheesecake With Fresh Strawberries
Vince Mancini
This was the low-carb option, which is sort of a weird ask in a cheesecake. But it was simple and light and good.
Original notes: “Nice and light, just what I want after 21 cheesecakes.”
9. Pumpkin
Vince Mancini
Am I becoming a “pumpkin spice” guy? Probably not, but pumpkin and cheesecake was a much more successful combination than I’d imagined.
Original notes: “Very light and airy. Thank god. Pretty good actually.”
8. Celebration
Vince Mancini
Original notes: “Looks exactly like the fake food from Hook. Like four birthday cakes at the same time. Tastes like good cake. Not a cake guy but this is solid.”
7. Ultimate Red Velvet
Vince Mancini
I like to bash red velvet as being mostly a name that’s fun to say and a food brand that seems to have an especially good publicist, but I couldn’t deny the tastiness here. I still think the cream cheese frosting does most of the heavy lifting on anything red velvet and the actual red velvet part is mostly replaceable, but I can’t deny the general quality.
Original notes: “Love that cream cheese frosting. V good.”
6. White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle
Vince Mancini
I don’t know that I would’ve ever ordered this one based on the name but it was good as hell.
Original notes: “V creamy, I like this one.”
5. Fresh Strawberry
vince mancini
Original notes: “Good old fashioned cheesecake. I like the simple ones. ”
4. Tiramisu
vince mancini
This one was so good that even tasting it well into the late twenties it was still hard not to go back for seconds.
Original notes: “Really good. I’m dying but that’s delicious.”
3. Key Lime
Vince Mancini
I don’t remember the last time I had a key lime pie, but based on how good this was, I’m going to order it next time I see it.
Original notes: “Cousin to the lemon meringue. Excellent.”
2. Lemon Meringue Cheesecake
Vince Mancini
I love lemon meringue pie. I love cheesecake. Lemon meringue cheesecake tastes just like lemon meringue pie in cheesecake form. I love lemon meringue cheesecake.
Original notes: “A+. Tastes like what it says.”
1. Dulce De Leche Caramel Cheesecake
vince mancini
Much like lemon meringue, this cheesecake tastes like what it is, and what it is happens to be a thing I love. I tasted this in the first round and ate three bites before I remembered I needed to pace myself.
Original notes: “Nice texture, caramel-y. Yum. Candied almonds… A++”
THE EPILOGUE:
I made it. As far as I know, I still don’t have diabetes and haven’t suffered any debilitating health effects, though I did get pretty tired an hour or so after I ate all these cheesecakes. My wife also gave birth to a healthy boy four days after eating 19 cheesecakes. Neither of us have yet sworn off cheesecakes.
Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.
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