Our Thoughts on the Color-Changing Wicked Mac and Cheese from Walmart

So, how about all these Wicked collaborations? Wicked’s marketing budget was truly defying gravity, soaring above the GDP of some small countries (literally, the $350 million they spent comes in just between Palau and Micronesia). Per CNN, over forty products were launched this year with the Wicked logo slapped onto them. Hair dryers, candles, suitcases, and more—but today’s subject might be the strangest of them all. Walmart’s Great Value brand launched Wicked-branded Mystery Color Macaroni & Cheese. Yes, these Easy Mac-style microwavable cups of pasta will turn out pink or green when you mix in the cheese powder! Does this sound like a good idea? No! Did I try it for you people? Yes! Let’s hope I can still dance through life after this review.

New Wicked Product

Great Value Mystery Color Macaroni & Cheese

Walmart

Pros: The packaging is cool! It features cameo-style portraits of Glinda and Elphaba (conveniently, this is also cheaper than actually licensing the likenesses of Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo) and the design, as a whole, is very Emerald City. Some of the Wicked collabs I’ve seen have been pretty underwhelming in their design; props to the Great Value designers for giving it their all.

Cons: It’s really bad, y’all. That’s obvious, right? It’s store-brand microwavable macaroni and cheese; I hope we weren’t expecting a great score here. My noodles turned pink—if you can call it that. It’s a pale and unappetizing pink, for sure. The end result looked like I combined strawberry Yoplait with macaroni noodles. Plus, the powder packet inside the cup was labeled pink so the “mystery” was gone pretty much immediately. I followed the instructions exactly and I was rewarded with a pale pink mess of noodles and very little cheese flavor. Do you know how bad something has to be for me to say it wasn’t worth the one dollar I paid for it?

Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart

Rating:

3/10

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