Good Halloween Treats and Candy

I’ve discussed what candy I didn’t like while trick or treating, now let’s talk about what I did like. This list could go on forever, so instead of listing all the great candy that’s available all year ’round (bite size Snickers, Mounds, Twix, etc) I’m trying to limit this list to what felt extra special to me around Halloween.

Dubble Bubble – Never once as a child did I ever ask my parents to buy me some Dubble Bubble, but it was always a standard around Halloween and in the spirit of the season, I enjoyed it (it’s just too bad the flavor didn’t last long). Huge bags of those stuff were, and are still, produced. This guaranteed you could always get a handful of this stuff and throw it into your bag.

Mary Janes – Mary Janes took me a while to get used to, but once I did… MMM!

The Perfect Halloween Candy… KISS M&M’s!

I’m a huge KISS fan, so this morning I got up early and went to Walmart to pick up their Walmart exclusive new release Sonic Boom. Along with the new album, most Walmart stores have a “KISS Korner” set up: KISS albums, KISS face paint, KISS masks (Gene AND Paul), KISS Mr. Potatoheads, KISS fleece blankets, KISS trading cards and… KISS M&M’s!

I made off with the fleece blanket featuring the Love Gun artwork and grabbed the Paul Stanley bagged edition of the M&M’s. Here’s a closer look at the M&M’s:

Left to right: Eric Singer, Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Tommy Thayer

The faces on the black M&M’s don’t show up well. They used black printing on black M&M’s! Why didn’t they just use white printing or scratch the black ones altogether?

The bag was pretty expensive at $6, but who cares? It’s KISS and this is a once in a lifetime thing. And yes, I’ve destroyed my “eating right” plan for the day by chowing down on these candies.

Oh, and as for the album? So far, so good. Look for my review over at Metal Excess in the next few days.

Bad Halloween Treats and Candy

I wanna preface this post by saying that I know people mean well. I mean, how cool is it that you can just walk up to a house on Halloween and they’ll (usually) answer the door and give you free food, all while you’re dressed up like a fool? So kudos to any home that chooses to participate because it’s a really fun and big deal to kids… Unfortunately, great treats are not always handed out. Here’s what I despised getting as a child and I’m pretty sure, 20 years later, they’re still being handed out today.

Raisins - Ha, ha! You gave me FRUIT instead of CANDY, I guess the trick is on me tonight! YUCK. Only uptight people hand out those mini boxes of Sundmaid raisins on Halloween: “Oh, you don’t need any of that nasty candy! What you need is a serving of fruit.” The ol’ raisin scam may have worked on the first few kids who hit that house, but word would quickly spread in the neighborhood and kids would avoid that house like a goth chick avoids sunlight.

Candy Corn – Maybe I’m breaking some kind of Halloween code here, but I hate candy corn. This may come as a surprise since I bought Candy Corn Dots recently, but that was for the novelty of it. I never touch the real thing. I was always super disappointed to see this get dumped into my pillowcase (which was really a decapitated ghost head thanks to me drawing a ghost face on it with a Magic Marker). Sure, it’s pretty to look at, but not so much to eat. And don’t even get me started on candy corn’s cousin, those awful pumpkin mellowcremes.

Stay warm and cozy with Life Savers

I can’t remember who would have owned it, whether it would have been my family or one of my friends, but I swear I remember this slumber bag (I’ve always called them sleeping bags) from my sleepover days, which sadly, I had to put to an end last year.

That Life Savers flashlight is a nice touch. I think I’d rather have that than the sleeping bag and ooh, look! Mmm… Those blueberry & strawberry cream Life Savers were always my favorites. Do they still make those? I know they have the Creme Savers or whatever, but those are usually coffee or fruit smoothie-based.

Now, who’s in the mood to go camping ?!

Halloween Dots

I would have taken a few pictures of these myself (because I bought all three boxes despite being on an “eating right” kick), but the old lady is out of town and has the digital camera with her, so you’ll have to settle for this stock photo instead:

Is that impressive or what ?! Everything about this is great! Ghost Dots! Bat Dots! Candy Corn Dots! More Dots than you could shake a stick at!Ghost Dots have been around for a few years, if I’m not mistaken, but Bat Dost and Candy Corn Dots are entirely new.. at least to me they are. The packaging is great. Wonderful use of vibrant colors and it all just looks so cute I could eat the box along with the Dots. Here’s the breakdown on each of these flavors:

Ghost Dots - This is my first year ever trying them and they’re pretty good because as near as I can tell, they’re the regular Dots flavors (cherry, strawberry, lemon, lime, orange) just with a neato pale green poltergeist color. It’s always a mystery as to which flavor you’re going to get! Tootsie should just go all out and make these things glow-in-the-dark too because that’s exactly what they look like they should be.

Bat Dots - My favorite of the bunch, the flavor here is “blood orange” and it reminds me some type of ’80s fruit snack. Maybe I’m thinking of orange Sunkist fruit snacks? The coloring nearly makes it look like a black licorice gumdrop, but closer inspection reveals just a hint of orange coloring.

Candy Corn Dots - They look like candy corn and they kinda taste like candy corn. But it seems to taste like cheap frosting or icing that you might find on a cookie from a bakery. It’s not bad, just odd.

Overall, I consider these Halloween-themed Dots to be a success! Here’s hoping they’ve got some good ideas for Christmas.

And yes, let’s call this the first entry for Halloween Scream 2009 (don’t worry, the official kickoff won’t be until October 1st)!