‘The Basement Yard’ Hosts, Joe Santagato and Frank Alvarez, Team With Pop-Tarts to End Their Viral Food Debate

In October 2022, content creators Joe Santagato and Frank Alvarez went viral for yelling at each other for over three minutes about Pop-Tarts on their co-hosted podcast, The Basement Yard. The great Pop-Tarts debate spilled over onto social media and even morning shows. Now, the duo has collaborated with Pop-Tarts to keep the discussion going. The Basement Yard X Pop-Tarts Debate Pack will soon be available for fans wanting to try Santagato and Alvarez’s preferred flavors. 

Joe Santagato and Frank Alvarez team up with Pop-Tarts

While Santagato and Alvarez’s verbal food fight went viral in October, the debate continues. In fact, it continues in the form of a collaboration with the very makers of Pop-Tarts. Santagato and Alvarez announced the collaboration in episode #388 of The Basement Yard. 

The collaboration puts together the co-host’s preferred Pop-Tart flavors, with each host contributing four contenders to the best Pop-Tarts flavor debate. Alvarez offers up Frosted Strawberry, Frosted S’mores, Frosted Cookies & Crème, and Frosted Wild Berry as his top four flavors. The co-host insists that anyone who doesn’t like the S’mores flavor is a “moron.” Santagato had different picks, choosing Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon, Frosted Confetti Cupcake, Frosted Hot Fudge Sundae, and Frosted Blueberry as his favorite. Santagato is especially passionate about his fruit-flavored choice. 

Over the years, Santagato and Alvarez haven’t agreed on much when it comes to food. They’ve clashed about everything from cereal to sandwiches. The childhood pals agree on one thing, though. They both think frosted Pop-Tarts are the superior Pop-Tarts. Not a single unfrosted offering appears in the limited edition The Basement Yard Debate Pack.

So, which is the superior Pop-Tarts flavor?

As it turns out, breakfast foods, in general, and Pop-Tarts, in specific, are pretty divisive. Shortly after Santagato and Alvarez’s Pop-Tarts throwdown went viral, fans took to social media to share their personal preferences, and newscasters weighed in on the debate, too. All of my friends also had strong opinions, except for the one buddy who admitted to never having tried a Pop-Tart before (how?!). 

One especially passionate Pop-Tart connoisseur in my social circle agrees with Santagato’s picks for the best Pop-Tarts flavors, noting that, to them, confetti cupcake is the ultimate Pop-Tarts flavor. If you are interested in my personal opinion, which surely you are not, both hosts have offered up a smattering of Pop-Tarts flavors that are worthy of consumption. 

Still, my personal favorite is missing from the Basement Yard x Pop-Tart collaboration. Cherry, which seems to taste better when consumed straight out of the foil, doesn’t appear on the co-host’s list. I get it, though. There were a lot of great flavors to choose from. 

The Basement Yard Debate Box is available online for a limited time only. The collaboration drops on Monday, Mar. 6, the same day that The Basement Yard, episode 388, “What is the Air?” is released to the public. The episode was released to Patreon subscribers on Feb. 27.