414 replies to this topic

[jhlurie]

{The content of various "what is your favorite candy bar" and confection threads--at least ones not devoted to specific products--have been merged into one unified topic. In a few cases, if someone simply gives a one word answer they might simply be answering the question about what their favorite candy bar is... -- Nov 11 2003}


While at my local convenience store I spotted the following completely useless, but interesting item:

Mint Skittles...

It made me think about the fact that I've never outgrown a certain... let's say fascination... with the infinite stream of novelty confections which seem to show up regularly at these stores.  I'm very glad I'm not a parent, because I can't comprehend saying "no" to a child when I can't even deny myself buying something as dumb as this at least once.

Other recent "acquisitions" include:

Reese's "Fast Break"...

Listerine CoolMint PocketPacks...

Am I sick?  That last one isn't even necessarily candy...  

Any one else with this "problem"?  

[col klink]

Yup, somehow I was attacked by a feral sweet tooth and picked up this little item I haven't seem in years:

Abba Zaba!

I blame Dave Chappelle: "Abba-Zaba, you're my only friend"

It was horrible!  But I don't like taffy, it always feels like it's trying to pull out my fillings.

[jhlurie]

Col. Klink, "Abba-Zaba, you're my only friend" has got to be a great contender for a signature line for you, coming only after "Ho-gan!"  

[Jason Perlow]

The Listerine strips have become the mouth freshener de rigeur in modern corporate america now. Everyone at Sharp uses em now, even the Japanese.

I'd like some new flavors though, like maybe cinnamon and wintergreen or somethine.

[Ellen Shapiro]

There was a mass theft (engineered by a master thief?) of Listerine oral care strips at the Costco in Yonkers this week. I went to purchase the plus-size Listerine and it's supposed to come with a free sample pack of those strips attached to the bottle neck. But the master thief had removed the sample pack from the neck of every single bottle on the display rack. Only a few scraps of paper and adhesive remained behind on each bottle, a souvenir of the master's work.

He will give himself away in the lineup on account of his minty fresh breath.

[mamster]

First of all, I tried the Reese's Fast Break, and it's no Reese's Ticks, or whatever they call those things.

This, however, seems a perfect time to tell my Big Hunk story.  I was at the store on a weekday morning and overheard this conversation between cashier and customer:

Cashier:  "Hey, a Big Hunk."

Customer:  "Yeah, I need my chocolate fix."

Cashier:  "Dude, Big Hunk doesn't have any chocolate.  It's all NOOO-gatt."

Customer:  "NOOO-gatt?"

Cashier:  "Yeah, you know.  NOOO-gatt."

I was standing near home electronics trying not to crack up.

You know what novelty confection I really miss?  The Oreo ice cream sandwiches that were exactly the same size as real Oreos (or Double Stufs, at least).  They had a perfect cookie-to-ice-cream ratio that the extant large Oreo sandwiches can't touch.

[Rachel Perlow]

I bet those Mini Mint Skittles taste and chew like Mentos.

[jerobi]

I have about 5 Reeses Fast Break bars sitting on my desk at home (all free from coupons at NiftyNews, do a search from there).  I constantly pick them up, look at the 320 calories on the label, and put them back down.  That's just too much of a calorie hit for 1 minute of candy.

Mint Skittles though?  Man are they good!  My girlfriend and I are still fans of new candy so we always pick each other up a pack of whatever comes out.  Even though I haven't seen them in stores in PA yet, she got me both flavors of Mint Skittles and I enjoyed them.  I ended up getting a 16-pack of the Peppermint kind at Sam's Club.

Those pocketpacks are handy as well, and so powerful that they almost border on painful the first few times you have them.  I like to carry one type of breath freshener in my pocket and these strips are nice just for their compact size, even if I don't use them very often.

Know what candy I miss the most?  Fiji Fruits.  If any of you remember these, I would be shocked.  You can't even find a mention of them on the web.  But if someone were to produce a box from the early 90's, you can be sure that I would eat them stale...

ed: Fixed the link. (rp)

[Wilfrid]

Far be it from me to mention the term 'plagiarism', but the ad jhlurie posted at the top of this thread is - by chance, I'm sure - very reminiscent of a long-lasting campaign for Opal Fruits, a chewy British candy.  I can't remember the exact words, but there was a catchy jingle along the lines of "Five (something) colors, five refreshing flavors."  If only you could all hear me singing it.  

[yvonne johnson]

Opal Fruits: Made to make your mouth water!
No more I’m afraid. Mars is renaming (or has renamed) them Starburst across the globe. The Opal Fruit Party obviously couldn’t stop this atrocity. More on global branding
http://news6.thdo.bb...77000/77273.stm

As for those Listerine mouth wipes that you eat, they sound utterly horrid. I read in the NY Times Style section (of all places) that all attendees at the Grammy’s (or some such) are going to be presented with gift parcels of these. The mind boggles. Mass gagging live on tv?

[jhlurie]

In a sense they ARE horrid.  My joking about impulse buying aside, I resisted the Listerine Strips for quite a while.  Months.

What they ARE is a head rush.  They do truly make your mouth taste better, but the "cost" is that at first they taste way too strong.  

Rachel Perlow told me that she likes to tear them and use half, but that actually escapes the point.  They taste too strong because they're delivering a certain dose of the stuff, and "half" seems to only have half the long term effect.

In other words... they ain't candy.    See the icon I used next to this reply to see the color green and expression my face had the first time I tried one.

[Wilfrid]

Are they as strong as Fisherman's Friends?

[yvonne johnson]

As strong as Fisherman's Friends? :wow:

I doubt it. I think they are quite popular here in New York, though. I've seen them in several pharmacies.
http://www.fishermansfriend.com/

[tommy]

i can't get enough of these things.  still hoping for the golden ticket.

Wonka Bar

[jhlurie]

Two more favorites...

Glee Gum (Tangerine. Cinnamon & Peppermint also avail.)

Here are the ingredients: Ingredients: Cane, Sugar, Gum Base (contains natural chicle), Rice Syrup, Orange Oil, Tangerine Oil, Resinous, Glaze, Beeswax, Carnauba Wax, and Beta Carotene

Chocolate Velamints (the best Sugar Free candy in existence, I think...)

[tommy]

i used to love the Marathon bar from mars.  apparently, it was taken off the shelves in 1981, which makes me feel very old.

and, in my research to find the below picture, i found out that they had a marathon bar in the UK as well, but it was chocolate, caramel and peanuts, aka Snickers.

[jhlurie]

tommy seems to like chocolate!

have you tried this one?


It's like a Kit Kat, only 3 times as fattening.

Kit Kat, you're my only friend.

[tommy]

tommy seems to like chocolate!

oddly enough, i don't have a sweet tooth in the least.  i very rarely order dessert at a restaurant, and don't have any sweet snacks around the house (although mrs. tommy has turned me on to frozen yogurt, which is, like, awesome).

however, that kit kat looks delicious.  where can i get me some of those big ol' kit kats!?!?!?!?

[Wilfrid]

The best way to enjoy kit kats is with a cup of tea.  You may dip them (or dunk, if you prefer).

[tommy]

The best way to enjoy kit kats is with a cup of tea.  You may dip them (or dunk, if you prefer).

silly brit.

[col klink]

This particular candy gave my dentist fits:

Spree!

[Wilfrid]

silly brit.

I shall Report this post to A Moderator.  And this thread is giving me toothache.

[Ellen Shapiro]

You all are causing me a tremendous amount of pain and pleasure. Ah, the marathon bar. I remember that one. It was a long braided caramel candy bar covered in chocolate. I haven't thought about that in years--now I miss it terribly and I wonder if I will recover.

Has anyone encountered the "Mr. Big" bar? It's Canadian (go figure) and happens to be really good but I bought it for Steven many years ago because of the humor element. The slogan "when you're this big, they call you Mister" puts it over the top. In the past year or two, they removed the slogan thereby turning the candy bar into only a moderately appealing confection. I got more mileage from that candy bar--had I only known the Canadians would become as Puritanical as we are, I would surely have stocked up!

[Rachel Perlow]

Oh! As Homer Simpson would say, "Mmmm, marathon bar"

Used to get them frozen from the snack bar at the pool. They'd start off frozen, but by the time you finished it, it had defrosted and was all gooey.

[jhlurie]

"Mr. Big" candy bar...

See THIS LINK to buy more Canadian candy.

[tommy]

jhlurie and i are in a dead-heat for the Best Web Surfer award.  this award is of course historically given out to geeks and nerds.

[Jason Perlow]

Sorry. None of these candy bars beats the ultimate classic candy bar experience:

The Goldenberg Peanut Chew. Accept no substitutions.

Goldenberg Candy Inc. (web site)

[jhlurie]

Of course, inevitably, this thread was hijacked from the original subject about addiction to new confections.  But if we are going to talk about nostalgic candy, I suppose I can dig even deeper into the niche than Goldenberg's, Marathon, and Spree.  How 'bout a candy so rare it's only available in one city?

When I was visiting Kansas City I had (and loved) Valomilk cups.

See the Valomilk Website (click here) for the whole Valomilk story.  Apparently it used to be very popular throughout the whole midwest, but is now limited to K.C.  If I'd known that when I was out there I would have bought a whole case...

[jerobi]

If I'm not mistaken on the name, I believe that the Mr. Big bar is the one I learned about while working at Hershey Foods for two summers.

Know what goes into that bar?  Whatever is left over.  They just dump all the ingredients left over from producing the other candies for that day, add some cherry syrup (to taste, by a few workers that apparently "know" what it should taste like), and make a chocolate bar out of it.  For what I was told the label even says "May contain:" before all of the ingredients.

Tasty, eh?

[Jim Dixon]

speaking of candy & Brits...

a mention of Gravity's Rainbow on an earlier literary thread made me think about the section where Slothrop is eating bizarre English hard candies with the ditty aunt of one of his sexual conquests...great descriptions of whacky flavors, like rhubarb filled with cubeb, and commentary on Brit palates.

Jim