Pizza Hut has been promoting their new Stuffed Crust Pan Pizza. In their ad campaign, they blatantly rip off our scoring structure, giving themselves an AWESOME without a single by-your-leave.

This brashness intreagued me, and made me desire to learn more. I went to my local Pizza Hut and ordered my favorite pizza: Meat Lovers Pan with Black Olives... but with a twist... Make that a Stuffed Crust Pan Pizza.

I should have gone with my normal Hand-Tossed.

The year was 1995. Mir Space Station was still in orbit, and opening it's doors to the Space Shuttle for the first time. The "Republic of Texas," a political activist group, claimed to have set up a new provisional government for the State. And Pizza Hut was telling us to eat our pizzas backwards. Why? Because there was cheese in the crust.

I was 10 at the time, and actually insisted on eating the pizzas backwards. Which didn't work so well, actually. Unless the pizza is designed to fold well, destroying the backbone of the structure just leads to mess and heartache as the toppings disintegrate. But I digress.

Many Pizza Hut innovations have come and gone, but the good ol' Stuffed Crust has worn the test of time. But now it's time to hit the Next Generation of pizza:

The Stuffed Crust Pan Pizza.

I love their pan pizza. It's warm, crispy, fluffy bread coated with cheese and toppings. And if you eat it fast enough, the dough doesn't combine with the oils from the cheese and turn into permanent spackle in the middle of the box.

So, as the commercial implied, I simply couldn't imagine how AWESOME pizza (Pan) combined with AWESOME idea (Stuffed Crust) could fail!

And then I ate a slice.

First off, the main component of the pizza is the same. It's just a pan pizza. The bonus, as advertised, is located in the crust.

Or should I say near the crust.

It's a ridge of extra cheese placed between the meat of the pizza and the crust.

And, unlike Stuffed Crust, it adds nothing to the flavor or experience.

The excitement of Stuffed Crust is biting into that crust of the pizza and, instead of encountering the carbon hardened dead end of flavor expected, you instead end up with the equivalent of a baked cheese injected pretzel. It's quite tasty and novel.

But the experience I had with the Stuffed Crust Pan Pizza is... TOO MUCH CHEESE. After noming my way through the tasty bits, I ended up with this huge hunk of mozzarella standing between me and my fluffy, crunchy breadstick crust. Dipping the crust into Pizza Hut's "marinara" sauce didn't help either.

It's like biting into a brick of mozzarella cheese.

See, the problem is that the cheese is not stuffed. It's laid, and as anyone who eats pizza knows, about 15 seconds after the lid is opened, surface cheese starts converting into an inedible plastic substance.

Instead of having a light sheet of plastic, however, you now have a large rod of non-recyclable milk polymer sitting on the crust.

Because, see, the genious of the Stuffed Crust is that the cheese is actually stuffed into the crust. This keeps the cheese warm and non-oxidized long enough for you to finish a slice and still have a chewy bit at the end. The Pan provides no such cover for the cheese.

And now, the final tirade for the night. Morning After Pizza.

See, my favorite part of pizza is the breakfast pizza the next day, straight from the icebox. The cheese has already set into it's final plastic state, and microwaving the pizza just doesn't work for me. But, ahh, something about that cold sauce and toppings just gets me. Pair it with a leftover cup of "marinara" sauce, and I'm set!

But when I grabbed my slice I had a large hurdle to surmount. A hurdle of string cheese. Yes, that indigestible lump had solidified into inedibility. It threw off my second favorite bit of cold Pan Pizza... the cold, crispy crusts.

In other words, you gain noting but sorrow and (if you are lactose intolerant) pain. If you are a cheeseaholic, or if you actually can finish a pizza before the cardboard has cooled off or absorbed less than a gallon of pizza drippings, you might enjoy it. I know that my first impression was well met. But pizza ages quickly, and Stuffed Crust Pan Pizza does not age gracefully.

Might I recommend just sticking with Pizza Hut's scrumptious classic Pan Pizza format, or joining the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and eating your pizzas the right way, crust first, with the Stuffed Crust Pizza? In this case, two AWESOMEs don't make an AWESOME. They make a MEH.