Of all the sponsored engagement with our favorite brands this April Fools’ Day, nothing won more attention than Watch the Stove, the mixtape unexpectedly released Friday by Hamburger Helper’s helping hand, Lefty. Billboard calls it “shockingly great.” Adweek and the Los Angeles Times both went with “shockingly good.” (The A.V. Club wouldn’t go farther than “surprisingly listenable.”) One thing all the reports have in common: surprise that a Hamburger Helper mixtape would be any good. But we’re three years into General Mills’ relaunch of their flagship product in the dry dinner mix market, and anyone surprised that the brand is doing something hip must not be following Lefty on Twitter.

The fact is, Hamburger Helper has always been on top of the zeitgeist. Just look at this Feminine-Mystique-inspired spot in which a housewife laments, “Sometimes I think I'd rather just disappear and never come back than think up something new for dinner every night!”

Or this one, latching on to the widespread popularity of the Ford Administration by promising “Nine Delicious Ways To Fight Inflation.”

And then there was the time they cashed in on the Nintendo-fueled fad for mustachioed Italian stereotypes:

The less said about the mariachi era, the better; the point is, they’re adaptable. So it shouldn’t come as too much of a shock that their mixtape is good, especially when their only real competition is Waffle House. General Mills got a bunch of local Minnesota artists involved, including students from the McNally Smith College of Music, and everyone involved outdid themselves. You can hear the whole thing via SoundCloud, below:

But is the Hamburger Helper glove letting Internet fame go to its head? Despite winning April Fools’ Day and gaining a reputation as the brand to beat—even outside of the dry dinner mix market!—there’s a distressing lack of engagement on the Hamburger Helper homepage. The comment section is a garden of tragedy, filled with unanswered pleas to bring back long-gone flavor Rice Oriental:

Here’s hoping Lefty remembers another “dope rhyme”—the one that starts, “Make new friends, but keep the old.”