5 potential flavors for the Mystery Oreo, all at least better than Banana Split Oreos

NEW YORK, NY – JUNE 14: Espresso and cream cheese tarts made by chef Kevin O’Brien of Butter are served during Housing Works taste of home 2017 on June 14, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for Housing Works)

4. Cream cheese frosting

Here’s the logic for this one: Red Velvet Oreos are a real and popular thing. Like red velvet cake, they feature a standard chocolate base, dyed very red. (Technically, it is a different recipe cookie wafer, with a more “subdued” cocoa flavor.) The Red Velvet Oreo also involves cream cheese frosting-inspired filling.

But just as cream cheese frosting is not exclusively used on red velvet cake, it follows that a cream cheese frosting Oreo filling would not be confined to Red Velvet Oreos. And a Mystery Oreo featuring the classic cookie and cream cheese frosting filling would not be that different from the very successful RVO, plus we can all feel comfortable that with that parentage it will objectively be better than a Banana Split Oreo.

3. Mystery Airhead

Okay. So. First things first: This would probably be a pretty gross Oreo. (Not as bad as Banana Split Oreos, but maybe as bad as Swedish Fish Oreos, an Oreo I have not tried but imagine to be gross.) However, as a potential solution to the mystery of the Mystery Oreo, Mystery Airhead Oreo actually makes a lot of sense.

Mystery Airheads don’t really have an identifiable flavor. Mystery-flavored food products, generally, can be sweet, sometimes sour, maybe fruity, other times rich. Sometimes you think you’re onto the answer, ah, yes, it’s blue raspberry — also not a real flavor — but it’s never totally tangible.

And so while Mystery Oreos may not share Mystery Airheads exact flavor palette, there is a real chance that the mystery flavor is some combination of flavors — just hopefully not garbage ones.

Then again, that would make Nabisco’s “guess the flavor” competition kind of a jerk move.