It's happened to all of us at one time or another: It's pizza night, and you find yourself bored with pizza. You've had every crust type available with every conceivable combination of toppings, and you're just flat bored.

This is when the stunt pizzas find their way onto your family menu. You know the ones, the "limited time only" culinary experiments that the pizza chains trot out periodically to liven up their menu boards, drive sales and annoy the heck out of the cooks.

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I know from personal experience that, in the months after the addition of the "Stuffed Crust" pizza to the Pizza Hut menu, the inventor of that still-available delicacy had to go into hiding to escape hordes of angry pizza makers driven mad by hours of folding cheese sticks into the edges of pizza crusts.

Let's take a look at the latest "new and different" additions to the three major chains' menus and even allow one of their frozen competitors access to the playing field.

With the exception of Papa John's, which had not yet posted nutritional information for its new offering, the usual information is provided for one slice of each pizza. Each pizza was rated on appearance, crust quality and overall flavor on a scale of 1 to 10. There were four testers, giving a possible perfect score of 120 for each pizza.

Domino's 14-inch Crispy Melt with Pepperoni: 480 calories, 28.5 grams fat, 50 mg cholesterol, 650 mg sodium, 35 grams carbs

At first look, this reminded me a bit of the Taco Bell Mexican Pizza, with cheese, sauce and toppings sandwiched between two thin, crispy crusts and sprinkled with a bit more cheese. The crusts were quite good, with a light, crispy texture that melted in the mouth without much doughy aftertaste. The pepperoni was fairly average, and the sauce was either so light or so flavorless that it was unidentifiable.

This was definitely the least messy pizza to eat, which would make it great kid fare, especially if you plan on eating anywhere within spilling range of your new living room sofa.

The appearance was excellent, but the disappointing flavor dragged the total score down a bit to a 96.

Pizza Hut Pizza Mia with Pepperoni: 210 calories, 9 grams fat, 20 mg cholesterol, 550 mg sodium, 23 grams carbs

The Pizza Mia is an interesting experiment for the Hut, and nicely timed. With the NFL playoffs getting under way and winter temperatures driving everyone inside, Pizza Hut markets pizzas you have to buy in bulk, at least three at a time. However, at a price of $5 for a one-topping pie, you can get three pizzas for not much more than one large with everything.

And, surprisingly, the pizza's pretty good. The crust is fairly pleasing, light and chewy with a good finish. The sauce is a bit soupy, lacking some of the punch of the traditional Hut version. There's plenty of cheese, and it's of the whole-milk mozzarella variety, which is a true joy to find.

The one serious black mark was the toppings. Three different pizzas were sampled: pepperoni, Italian sausage and mushroom. Only on the pepperoni were the toppings applied evenly, and none of them were found in the abundance normally expected. But, remember, this is a $5 pizza, and it's a great buy at the price. However, our tasters didn't take price into account and gave the Pizza Mia a final score of 99.

Papa John's Double Pepperoni with Robusto Sauce: Nutritional information not available.

Papa John's doesn't do many structural tricks with its pizzas, sticking primarily with a traditional crust and offering thin and pan crusts in some combinations. The company breaks new ground, however, with topping combinations.

This pizza, however, is just more of the most popular pizza topping in the universe. Despite that, it's really, really good. On a thin crust, the pepperoni leaps up, grabs your tastebuds by the hair and shakes them. The sauce lives up to its "robusto" billing, and the crust, while not quite as crackery-perfect as expected, was quite good.

This one is pretty messy, as you'd expect from that much pepperoni, so it should probably be eaten by kids only over surfaces that can be hosed off.

The final score was a 108, with the only serious demerit coming from the crust missing the mark.

DiGiorno Ultimate Four-Meat: (1/5 of entire pizza) 380 calories, 20 grams fat, 50 mg cholesterol, 1130 mg sodium, 34 grams carbs
Note that this is a larger serving than those for the delivery pizzas, so the numbers are substantially higher

And now we come to the biggest surprise to come out of my oven since I cooked a turkey with the plastic giblet bag still inside. This is one seriously good pizza!

Remember the old, flavorless frozen pizza? Or the "crispy" crust that was so hard it broke your fillings? They may still be out there, but DiGiorno is light-years beyond that. The toppings were plentiful and flavorful, the cheese was in perfect balance, and the crust was crunchy on the bottom and tender in the center.

The last pizza I had that was this good was homemade. The testers agreed, giving DiGiorno the clear win with a 114.

Was the frozen pizza win a fluke, or do the giants really have something to worry about? That, as ever, depends on your own tastes and preferences. Other Links:

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