It’s Almost as if I AM Charlie Bucket: A Tribute to the Candy of Willy Wonka
Candy. We all love it. And who makes the best candy in all the land? According to the song in the movie, Gene Wilder does, or to a greater extent, Willy Wonka. Since Gene doesn’t have a candy line, I decided to just say it was Mr. Wonka. Now, the world of Wonka has some pretty crazy ideas out there. I mean, candy that will never go away, gum that tastes like a whole meal, etc. I mean… the dude’s clearly nuts. But, he makes the world a better place by providing us with lots of candy. For this article, I will be looking at 6 of these candies that make the world smile. To do this, I am putting myself under great personal risk. I mean, I’m pretty hyper as it is - can you imagine what’s going to happen after a day of eating candy? The results should be fun! Woo! Lets begin:
Just for the sake of science, here’s my “before” picture.
Runts
First up on the chopping block is “Runts”. Now, if you’ve never had runts, they are a candy that warrants explanation. Not only do they surpass the standard for fruit flavoured candy, they are also one of the few hard candies that are actually shaped (vaguely) like said fruit:
So, yeah, now that we’re up to speed as to what they are. Now we get to the review.
I love Runts. I downed pretty much the whole box in a matter of minutes in the car immediately after buying them. My personal favourites: the pink strawberries/human heart-shaped ones. They are delicious. Now, for some odd reason, most people in the universe dislike the banana ones. They tend to be harder to bite than the rest of them, they often come shattered out of the box because of their size, but I think it’s mostly because they don’t conform to the usual “candy-shape-standards” (that of spherical or close to it). I myself don’t mind the banana ones, as I’ve mentioned numerous times, I love all things banana-flavoured, and they are yellow, and I also love all things yellow (ba-dum-bum!). Moving on…
The box in which runts come is such a clever ploy to ensnare children. It says “Hey Kids! We’re so cool, we can even make fruit look cool!” I mean, where else can you see a banana on a skateboard in pursuit of a lime on roller blades? No where! I’m not exactly sure what the orange and strawberry are doing, but I’m going to assume that they’re hog-tying the “R”, probably for it’s delicious meat. But, who can say?
My only problem with the Runts I bought is this: as I ate them in the car, my sister asked for some she said, “No banana ones! Just an orange and a red one.” I looked in the box, and for some odd reason, I couldn’t see any of the red/cherry ones. I figured they all must be at the bottom - then I glanced at the front of the box… the others had kicked the cherry-guy out of their R-roping posse! What the hell?! Red was a staple! I mean, not that they were ever really a favorite, but why did they mess with the classic formula?! You NEED a red candy in every box of candy! That’s just how it works? Who’s brilliant idea was that anyways? Oh well, the Runts were still kick-ass without them, and considering I had already downed half the box before noticing, I guess it’s not really all that big a loss.
Nerds
Up next, a classic of the candy world: Nerds. Similar formula as Runts - they are fruit-flavoured candies, and they too break the “norms” of candy shapeness. See, not only are they not shaped like spheres, they’re not really shaped like anything. They’re just kinda colourful nuggets of goodness. Bizarre that we all love them so much. Ah well. The benefit Nerds have in the candy world is that they come in almost any flavour! (take that Bernie Bott’s Beans!) The variety I got for this particular piece: Watermelon and Lemonade Wild Cherry (that name still confuses me).
The packaging of the Nerds is perhaps the most ingenious candy packaging EVER. For one, you get two different flavours per pack, and for 2, they’re almost re-sealable! Well, not really… but they have those little doors on the top that you can open and close, so they were really hard to spill. Gotta love that. Now you can run around as much as you want, and have relatively no spill over. Ingenious.
The other thing with the packaging is again, the images. Now they stretch the abilities to make you look cool from being able to make fruit look cool to making little armless lumps of color look cool! I mean, look at that wind-surfing guy! He’s rad! And that guy playing guitar, with his feet no less! He‘s the REAL lord of the dance (what?!).
Now, as I mentioned, I didn’t really quite understand the name “Lemonade Wild Cherry” (seems almost Engrish to me, but oh well). Watermelon flavour is great - almost up there with banana. The other, not so hot. However, one of my favorite things to do with nerds is open up both trap doors and dump in candy til my mouth was full. Doing that this time was delicious. For some odd reason watermelon and lemonade-wild-cherry have an amazing taste when combined. Those guys at Wonka - they know what they’re doing.
Man… I’m only 2 boxes in… and I’m already starting to get a little full… better do something to counteract all this sugar. I know! I’ll eat the natural enemy to sugary-goods: a can of corn!
One can of corn later….
Pixy Stix
Now that the corn have done it’s job, time to kill any health remaining in me - bring on the sugar! And what better for a sugar fix than Pixy-Stix? Other than an actual bag of sugar, nothing. Actually, I think there might be more sugar in Pixy-Stix than in actual sugar. Now, I must apologize to Erin for this one: turns out I was the one who had rip-off pixy-stix. You were right - the real ones DO come in paper. I suck. So, turns out this is my first actual experience with authentic “Pixy-Stix” Everyone on earth knows what these things are, so I’m not gonna bother explaining them. Also, they seem to be affecting my mind. Weee!
The interesting thing with Pixy-Stix is that they are clearly 3 different flavours: Red, Green and Purple, however no where does it say what they are! I mean, they don’t even really taste like anything! They’re just sugar! It’s like they’re getting kids set up for cocaine! I mean, it comes with the straws and everything! Geez… It’s so weird… Wonka HAS to be in league with dentists of the world. Man… they have quite the empire going on there.
The packaging of Pixy-Stix is also confusing. There are no clues as to the flavour here. In fact, the only thing on the box is a really creepy looking Oompa-Loompa holding a giant pixy-stick… Man. Why did Wonka hang out with these guys? I’m guessing her was pressured into it. I mean, they did out-number him. And, they’re weird little orange guys! I’d be scared to fire them!
I mean, look at the fear in his eyes!
Bottlecaps
Gotta love the mind of Willy Wonka. He musta just been looking at a bottle of Coke or something and he thinks to himself, “Man… I wish I could eat that. Wait a second… I’m Wonka! Of course I can!” and thus Bottlecaps were born. These are some pretty unigue candies.
Not only do they look like bottle caps, but they also are pop flavoured. The 4 flavours: cola, grape-soda, orange, and cherry-cola. They used to have root-beer, but they were basically the same color and similar taste to the cola ones, so I guess they just decided to go with the more mainstream of the 2. I however think there are too few candies that taste like root-beer, and for that I am enraged, but I’m also on a great sugar high, so pick canaries and fishies that fly through jello.
Now, the packaging for bottle caps has changed greatly. They used to come in bag-typed packages. Now they come in tube form. As much as I love the days of old and all things they brought us, I must admit, I like the new packaging more. For one thing, there’s way more candy in these than in the old ones. For another thing, they’re much easier to get at. Just a quick peel and you’ve got delicious pop flavoured candy. In the old packs, you had to basically rip the damn thing apart it was so air tight. I mean, 50% of the packaging was glue. Bizarre. Just like all these colors I’m seeing right now… maybe I should lay off the sugar for a while. In the mean time, I’m gonna run around the apartment complex for an hour or two… or no! I’m gonna watch that Michael Jackson special! I hear if you watch it on a sugar high, it’s the funniest thing ever!… as opposed to just creepy.
Lik-M-Aid Fun Dip
That Michael Jackson… he’s pretty messed up… Anyways, back to the candy! Oddly enough, for the new Fun Dip, I have more complaints than um… not complaints (wow… sugar greatly diminishes my… vocabulary… thing… yeah). Fun Dips were one of the more so fun candies. I mean, you get to eat the spoon! What more could you want than a edible spoon covered in colored sugar? But, beyond the novelty actually, I can’t really think of anything overly nice to say about it. This really does surprise me. Oh well. Lets get to it.
First of all, the packaging. Remember how I mentioned how suckey the old packaging for the Bottlecaps used to be? Well seems the used all the extra glue that they would have used on that on the Fun Dips packaging. So much glue for so little candy, which brings us to the second complaint…
Fun Dips only come with one kind of flavoured sugar now! What the hell is that?! I mean, they used to come with 2! And the 2 sections were pretty big! Now, they come with 1, and it’s pretty friggin’ small. I was most disappointed by that - plus the “grape” flavour I was promised was sub-par at best. Sigh. This however is not the biggest disappointment…
The “Lik-a-stik” (aka the edible spoon) is no longer pink (I think it was punch or cherry flavoured or something…). It’s now white and has very little flavour to it. It was still the tastiest part of the Fun Dip of today, but that’s not really saying a whole lot. It makes me sad to see such a great treat of my childhood altered to the point of crapiness. Fun Dips, I will miss you.
Gobstoppers
Saving (one of) the best for last, we get to Gobstoppers, aka “everlasting gobstoppers”. The truly interesting thing about these candies is that they are actually in the movie! When you eat them, yer eating a piece of Hollywood dreams! Wow… last time I did that I… um… something clever… wow… this candy is really starting to… whatever… let’s just get to the review, huh?
Sadly, there’s nothing overly special about the packaging of Gobstoppers. Pretty standard box, with a little opening at the top so only one piece at a time can come out. I guess that’s pretty cool. But other than that, the box lacks the charm of Nerds or even Runts packaging. No, the true charm of Gobstoppers is in the candy itself.
I’m not exactly sure what Gobstoppers are supposed to taste like (fruit? Vegetables? Play-doh?) but each color tastes like something different, and they’re all delicious! And it doesn’t stop there! The other great appeal with them is that, while they’re not really “everlasting” they do last for a good while if ya don’t bite into them (which in the beginning is just an impossibility if you don’t want broken teeth). While they are lasting for that good while, the color is in a constant state of change - along with the flavour! So, you can go through like 50 different flavours in a single candy! It’s truly amazing.
Another great thing about Gobstoppers is that they look exactly like small gum balls, so you can easily fool people into biting into them, thus breaking their teeth, like I mentioned above. Also, they easily fit into a gum ball machine, which you may or may not know, I am addicted to. So yeah… they got it all goin’ for them.
The best thing however, is the simplicity of Gobstoppers. They’re still exactly the same as they were 10 years ago, exactly as they are from the movie more than 20 years ago, and hopefully exactly the way they will be in the distant future. How could you try to change something so classic? Huh? Fun Dips, I’m looking in your direction!!
Well, that’s it for the World of Willy Wonka candies. Sadly, a few of the classics had to be left out, as I couldn’t find them anywhere (those being Dinosaur Eggs and Punkys) But, despite those absences, I hope you all enjoyed it… as I’m sure I’m now diabetic and chalk full of cavities. Plus, this damn rabbit behind me won’t stop telling me to burn things… not that I had a problem with burning things before, I just hate having a backseat pyro… especially a big rabbit one. Oh well, I’m sure after a few hours he’ll go away. Anywho, I suggest to you all that you go out and try some of this wonderful candy for yourselves, as it is quite yummy and deserving of costly fillings.
Again, for the sake of science, here’s the “after” picture…
Eep… just eep.