Bad Candy

[Guest Michael Myers Resplendent]

The Sherbet Fountain

One year at Christmas my mom was in an Anglophile phase and got us British candy, or "sweets." I don't fucking get this one. Now here, sherbet is understood to be a variation on ice cream, usually in orange, lime, raspberry. Lots of people pronounce it "sherbert," but I don't, because I'm not a drooling idiot, but that's not the point. The point is that "sherbet" to the Britons appears to be some sort of acidic powder. Near as I can tell, what you do is lick a piece of licorice (which doesn't taste quite right) and then dip the moist stick in the powder and lick the powder off the licorice. It's unredeeming, stupid, and bad.

 

Mounds

Fuck whatcha heard: everyone always feels like a nut, because this is the alternative. It's just chocolate-covered coconut paste. Disgusting. I mean, coconut candy is a dicey undertaking when it's just a small part of the confection, but as the main event, it's revolting.

 

Candy Buttons

Ah, candy buttons. The silent killer. You see, the first few are pleasant little dabs of sugar. However, they're so small and inconsequential that you, and by you I mean I, feel like the cnady buttons need to be further consumed to justify the snack outing. After clearing the first few rows, you realize that the taste gets kind of obnoxious, but you're almost from the blues to the yellows, so things will get better, I swear! In that one gradient line of green, you convince yourself that there's been a modicum of flavor change as you pass from color to color, but we all know you're just fooling yourself in order to justify candy button gluttony. As you reach the yellows, the horrifying realization that you've been sitting here eating sugar off paper for like three minutes now. As the pinks approach, the taste becomes overwhelmingly hideous, the aftertaste worse still, and you run to wash the taste out of your mouth. Candy buttons.

 

Violet

I don't know what the fuck the story is with these motherfuckers. One time we were all at my grandmother's house, and she said she found some candy, maybe we could try it and see if it's any good. Now this house where my dad and his sisters grew up is in this one little weird corner of Northbrook that was built in the early 1960s, and the neighbors all moved in at once and never left until they started retiring and dying in the last year or two. It is entirely possible that these candies were there since the house was built. It's been about seven or eight years since the incident, so it's hard to really verbalize the taste. All I have is the enduring memory of "bad." As best I remember, it was somewhere between urinal cake, deodorant, potpourri, chalk, and Altoids. One of the ingredients was "invert sugar," appropriate, since this was the opposite of candy. We all spit them out; I spit mine very, very far. Apologies from all parties involved. I believe they served a decorative purpose for a couple of years following the incident. If you ever happen upon these things, buy them, and then set them on fire.

 

Sen-Sen

THIS ISN'T CANDY

I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS

JUST AVOID IT

[foleyfanforever88 0]

I rarely eat Mounds, but I love Almond Joys.

[King Kamala 0]

The only one I've ever eaten out of the ones you listed are Mounds and the Candy Buttons. Candy Buttons are awful but I like Mounds alright. Though if presented the choice between an Almond Joy and a Mounds, I'll almost always pick the former.

 

Those 2 for $1 bags of candy seem like a decent idea but they're always terrible. My least favorite candy to get trick or treating as a kid was Dots. Now I haven't had them since I stopped trick or treating (I was 13, sad but true) so maybe I'd like them more now but those things absolutely repulsed me as a child.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

Sen-sens, despite sounding like pandas, look like condoms. That's befitting, because....

 

 

Fuck you, Czech. Mounds are awesome.

[Maztinho 0]

It's coming up on Easter so I have to show my hatred for Peeps.

 

SCREW YOU BIRD FORMED MARSHMALLOWS.

[fazzle 0]

I'm about to win this mother fucking thread.

 

 

Pica Pepino. CUCUMBER flavored lollipops, filled with chili.

 

Think about that.

[Red Baron 0]

I know people would call me out on this.

 

 

Snickers

 

Worst Chocolate Bar Ever!

[Smartly Pretty 0]

Those ones that look like pills and are white and pink. I forget what they're called. Gross as fuck.

[Guest Michael Myers Resplendent]

Snickers aren't that bad. Too ubiquitous to really be a good entrant in Bad Candy. That's like nominating Nacho Cheese Doritos in "Bad Chips." I mean, yeah, I think they're awful, but not so awful that one can hope they'll be banished to the ends of the earth like my goddamned flower-flavored candy up there.

 

 

Remember the trick-or-treating and stopping by that vaguely creepy house on the weird little cul-de-sac in your neighborhood, where you didn't really know the elderly couple that lived there very well? In fact, nobody did? We all had this family if we grew up in a middle-class suburban subdivision that was largely developed in the mid-1970s. So you stroll to the door, ring the doorbell, the doorbell doesn't ring, so you try it again, you realize it's broken, so you knock really hard, they come to the door, and you get

1) Pennies. If not pennies, you get

2) An Evangelicalism 4 Kids! pamphlet featuring books of the New Testament in a word search. If not that, you get

3)

BIT-O-HONEY

The arch-nemesis of Milky Way (it resents its softness and chewyness), positive dental health (not after one of these!), and modernity (these stopped being made in 1967), all at once, the Bit-O-Honey is one candy to avoid. Vaguely honey, vaguely peanut, and certainly disgusting, the Bit-O-Honey not only has a weird gross taste, but it stays in the deepest crevasses of your teeth FOR HOURS AND HOURS, lending notes of its foul taste to everything you eat until your saliva finally dissolves it away along with, most likely, your enamel. I always manage to find Bit-O-Honey at the impulse racks of unconventional outposts like Ace Hardware, bait shops, and seedy rural liquor stores, places where I spend a lot of time, natch. Based on its retail locations, Bit-O-Honey must be exclusively consumed by the lowest of America's social detritus. I'm not sure how we get from dank low-rent businesses to elderly Christian shut-ins, but Bit-O-Honey ties the two together. Are these the people that Bruce Springsteen wrote about on The River?

[Golgo 13 0]

 

Fucking winner.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Candy Bar Quiz

 

I got 19..I mistook a Nestle Crunch for a Hershey Krackle despite the fact they're same exact fucking thing..ugh

 

Anyway as far as my #1 worst goes:

 

 

Hershey Exec #1 - we want to do something different...

Hershey Exec #2 - yeah, everyone has a crisped rice bar, we need something new and exciting!

#1 - Yeah..how about CORN?

#2 - eh..corn itself wont work..hmm..puffed rice is like rice krispies, how about cornflakes!

#1 - CORN! YES! CORNFLAKES AND CHOCOLATE! WHY DIDN'T MILTON HERSHEY THINK OF THIS 100 YEARS AGO!

#2 - just one problem, we cant call them cornflakes..

#1 - huh?

#2 - Kellogs has that trademarked..

#1 - Corn..bits?

 

Other candy observations:

 

Mint 3 Musketeers = peppermint patty

All the filled Hershey's Kisses are actually pretty good, except for the Green Tea flavor..ew (and I like green tea)

Ive wanted to try the Elvis Reese's cup (Peanut Butter and Banana, thankfully no bacon)

The WHATCHAMACALLIT is still my favorite candy bard despite a growing favoritism of dark chocolate.

[death_by_burrito 0]

 

Fucking terrible.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

I demand respect for my comment earlier. Fucking gold.

 

 

Cadbury's Crunchie features, what they claim to be, a honeycomb centre. In England, as you all know, there's a variety of terms that are said differently compared to North America. Elevators are often referred to as lifts, for example. Honeycomb, for another example, is actually the British colloqiasm(sic) for "styrofoam".

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

I've always hated Sweet Tarts and those similar tasting candies which for some reason I think is called "Rocket Ship candy" (I think that's just one of the brandings on some of the bags), basically just little discs stacked up in a clear wrapper. Those were my Halloween zonks.

 

 

I remember commenting to my mom when I was really young that Crispy Crunch tasted like sand, but I took a liking to it eventually. I see from wikipedia the bar is not available in the States.

[Dandy 0]

Are you guys seriously hating on Smarties? See, they are white and pink (also featuring blue and yellowish colors), look like little pills, and are stacked up in a roll in a lear rapper. I mean, it appears you are hating on them, but this can't be true. Please tell me you are not hating on Smarties.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

When I eat my Smarties I eat the reds one last. In Canada - and the UK, I guess - Smarties are basically just M&Ms.

 

 

Yes Dandy, it appears Smarties (also known as "Rockets" outside of the US according to wikipedia, so I got that almost right) are what I hate.

 

[Dandy 0]

Smarties are M&M's? That's...an entirely different candy all together*.

 

 

*I just watched Airplane II last night and I was hoping I would get a bunch of posts following this saying, "That's...an entirely different candy."

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I demand respect for my comment earlier. Fucking gold.

 

 

Cadbury's Crunchie features, what they claim to be, a honeycomb centre. In England, as you all know, there's a variety of terms that are said differently compared to North America. Elevators are often referred to as lifts, for example. Honeycomb, for another example, is actually the British colloqiasm(sic) for "styrofoam".

This is actually my all-time favorite candy bar. Freakin' delicious.

[Broward83 0]

Candy Corn.

[The Metal Maniac 0]

Venk, that picture you posted of "Smarties" is blowing my mind. They were one of my favorite candies, and I only ever knew them as Rockets. That's messed up.

[Dandy 0]

I'm guessing that they are only called Smarties here in the States. That is all I have ever known them to be called. I wonder if there is any variance in texture and taste with the name change?

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Apparently they are slightly different, but some of my friends loved / love them too and think I'm nuts. But then again,

 

From wiki:

 

The candies bear a strong resemblance to tablet-style pills in shape and texture. One individual candy is in the shape of a cylinder with a diameter of roughly 1 cm and a height of roughly 4 mm. Larger ones have a diameter of 2.5 cm and are about 6 mm thick. Both sizes are double concave. There are 25 calories and 6 grams of sugar in a roll of Smarties.[1] Ingredients include: dextrose (may contain corn syrup solids and/or maltodextrin), citric acid, calcium stearate, artificial flavors, colors.

 

Smarties produced by Ce De Candy's Union Township, Union County, New Jersey plant have a slightly different taste than the ones that are produced by their Newmarket, Ontario plant. The Canadian ones generally taste stronger, with more noticeable differences between the various color flavors.

 

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

When Venkman was talking about little discs stacked up in clear paper I thought he was referring to these abominations

 

 

which certainly do belong in this discussion. Chalk is not candy.

 

Also, Wikipedia informs me that Necco is responsible for not only these but also Sweethearts AND Candy Buttons. Fuck you, Necco.

[Dandy 0]

Yeah, those suck and Smarties rule. I like Sweethearts, though. But wait...are those different than SweetTarts?

[Guest Michael Myers Resplendent]

Sweethearts are those hearts with "MAYBE TONIGHT" written on them. They're like really compressed Necco wafers. I can eat them sparingly for about a week before I want to blast the world's supply into space.

 

Necco wafers work as decoy coins at tollbooths.

 

Necco is New England Candy Company, right? Here's a quick tangent based on New England, though not quite candy: how do we feel about Marshmallow Fluff? Loved it as a kid, but I don't think it would occur to me to put it on a sandwich today. My tastes have matured. Here's what I don't get. My best friend in elementary school, his house had this stuff by the fucking pallet. (But not Owen Pallett.) Cases and cases of Marshmallow Fluff, so naturally, any visit to his house yielded Fluffernutters. Why did they have so much Marshmallow Fluff? Did his dad work in a Fluff factory? Was he a fluffer? Is it even manufactured outside of New England? They couldn't have ordered it factory-direct, did they? It's not like they grew up in New England and thus had a soft spot for Marshmallow Fluff. What a mystery. I suppose I could just ask the guy but we haven't been in touch since 8th grade, which is kind of sad.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Heres another abomination straight from hell:

 

 

First of all..VANILLA? In a Chocolate Mix flavor bag?

 

The other great part..and this is the best..none of the other 4 flavors (smores, chocolate/caramel, chocolate pudding, brownie batter) taste anything remotely like chocolate probably because theres NO GODDAMN FUCKING CHOCOLATE IN THEM!

[tekcop 0]

I tried those recently. I threw them away after trying each flavor once.

[King Kamala 0]

Necco is New England Candy Company, right? Here's a quick tangent based on New England, though not quite candy: how do we feel about Marshmallow Fluff?

 

As a New Englander, I never really associated Marshmellow Fluff with our region. I loved it as a kid and still have it once in a while for nostalgia sake and I like it alright. I'd get sick of it really fast if I had to eat it regularly. To me, marshmellow fluff is to peanut butter sandwiches, what ketchup is to hot dogs. It's fine if you like it when you're a kid and it's O.K. to have in a pinch when you don't have any jelly around but there are many better options.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

the Fluff goes in Sweet Potato casserole ( I prefer it over actual marshmallows since it doesnt burn or melt funny) or in fudge for Marshmallow Fudge.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Candy Corn.

YES. I have NO idea why these are so popular around Halloween. These things are AWFUL; they taste like plastic sugar.

 

I don't really care much for candy. I just eat chocolate bars and truffles and the like.