Cartoons and comics often get blamed for soliciting products to children. Many characters have been used to sell sugary cereals, candy, and other various teeth-rotting foods. The Masters of the Universe cartoon was a thinly-veiled commercial for the action figures. But the sad story I am about to tell you might be the lowest a fictional character has ever sunk to sell something.
At some point in my childhood, cigarette gum fell out of favor with the general public. This probably has something to do with the fact that is is a cigarette. For kids. This is one of those critical views I can at least see the logic behind. Unlike, say, the idea that Big League Chew would lead to kids wanting chewing tobacco.
The downside to cigarette gum disappearing is that cigarette gum is awesome. You would blow on them, and powder would shoot out, resembling smoke. And then the gum would have the paper wrapper stuck to most of it, rendering half the gum inedible. But at least the gum you were able to salvage tasted delicious. Wait. No, it didn’t. Okay, never mind. Except for the very brief novelty thrill, cigarette gum wasn’t very good.
Besides the nostalgia filter and the novelty attached to them, I think the main reason we remember cigarette gum fondly is because it is often compared to its dreadful relative – candy cigarettes.
Candy cigarettes took the worst aspects of cigarette gum, and made them even less desirable. Gone was the puff of smoke. Instead, the “novelty” for the candy version was simply a red-colored tip (“It looks just like fire!”). You might think the lack of a wrapper was an upside, because it wouldn’t adhere to the candy. The problem with this was, since you were able to eat the whole stick… you had to eat the whole stick. And they were terrible. They were, essentially, a Fun Dip stick with less flavor.
Soon, the general public thought “Wait, why are candy cigarettes okay for kids, but cigarette gum isn’t? I don’t think the gum aspect was the issue.” The problem was, everyone loved candy cigarettes, they couldn’t just take them off the market! Or, more likely, the problem was that they had mountains of the terrible-tasting ingredients required to make candy cigarettes, and they had to be used for something.
Hence, the transition into candy sticks. Where the manufacturers simply said, “Please just eat this. It has no novelty value and it tastes terrible, but will you just do us a favor and eat it anyway?”
Somehow, Popeye became the man to lead this transition. Popeye had is own line of candy cigarettes. Which makes plenty of sense when you remember that Popeye is so well known for smoking cigarettes and eating candy. Wait, no, I’m confusing things. He was famous for smoking a pipe and eating spinach. So how did Popeye get mixed up in all of this?
Once the pressure was on, Popeye transitioned his cigarettes into simple sticks by removing the red coloring on the tip. Problem solved! Popeye candy sticks are something I distinctly remember getting in my pumpkin. And despite being a child with no real discernable tastes, even I could tell these things were filler candies.
Be glad you didn’t pay to read this, because this “history” lesson is a mix of assumptions, guesswork, and my vague childhood Trick or Treating memories.
Candy sticks are one of those things that shouldn’t exist any more. It seems the only way you could get someone to even buy them is to take what the very likely cheap ingredients, and spend a little money to get a well-known license and trick kids into wanting them. But they wouldn’t sink that low, would they?
Apparently they would.
I guess one complaint you can’t have about Avengers candy sticks is the price. You get sixty two-packs for about $2. Also, it’s pretty smart packaging, where they decided to leave off the two least popular Avengers, Hawkeye and Black Widow, in order to make increase the size of the big four of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and the Hulk. This also might possibly be due to the fact that anyone foolish enough to get suckered into buying these isn’t old enough to be interested in Black Widow, anyway.
And yes, I’m aware that I got suckered into buying these. Moving on…
The packaging is nice looking, with one side featuring a single Avenger, and the other side two of them fighting together. Everything seems good so far!
And that’s the end of that. No more goodness. Making matters worse, the sticks are bubble gum flavored. The only time something should be bubble gum flavored is when is is bubble gum. Possible exception can be made for the pink amoxicillin you keep in the refrigerator.
Hard, chalky, unpleasant taste, boring aesthetics – Avengers candy sticks have it all! They’re hidden in nice packaging, but as always, candy sticks take their place at the bottom of the Halloween candy desirability rankings.
Today continues the trend from the last review, Milky Way Caramel Apple, where “Autumn”-themed candy gets lumped in with Halloween-themed candy. Unless it’s a Jones Soda-type Thanksgiving flavor, Halloween and Christmas are the only end of the year holidays that get their own candy theme.
One exception: if you would like to send me free candy, to be reviewed after Halloween but before Christmas, I will make an exception. I’m easily persuaded by free candy, which explains the numerous kidnapping attempts made on me as a child.
Pumpkin Spice Hershey’s Kisses aren’t new, but they are new to me. In previous years, they either received limited distribution from Hershey, or received limited attention paid by me. History shows I should assume the latter is the reason.
Full disclosure off the bat: it is taking a lot of willpower to call them “Hershey’s Kisses”, since when referring to them, I always just call them “Hershey Kisses”. But if there is one thing this site is known for, it is my adamant belief that accuracy is of utmost importance. Hershey’s Kisses are always one of those “Oh, there they are” candies, that I don’t get excited for, but will occasionally be happy that they are around. This is mostly when it’s the almond or dark chocolate Kisses. Almost all of the others, I won’t bother with.
I also need to specifically mention that the Cherry Cordial Kisses are disgusting. Which is somewhat odd, since I like actual cherry cordials. But I guess based on the taste, Hershey decided to add Robitussin to the ingredients, which put me off eating them.
Back to the matter at hand (Pumpkin Spice Kisses, in case you forgot), I mostly bought these because I’m a sucker for anything pumpkin-flavored. Not actual pumpkin flavor, since that’s pretty disgusting by itself – “pumpkin” flavored would be the more accurate term.
When I found the bag, I was happy until I looked closer. The depiction of the Kiss on the bag showed it being orange, with a cream-colored center. Orange-colored chocolate meant in all likelihood, this Kiss was going to be made of white chocolate. Ugh. White chocolate is always the (oh no… I swear this is unintentional) kiss of death of death for me. It’s vile.
Intrepid investigator that I am, I still soldiered on.
Unwrapping the Kiss, I am met with what appears to be the orange piece from the board game “Sorry”. It has an incredibly unnatural appearance, due to both the color and shine. It literally looks like a small candle.
As you can see, the very soft texture made my fingerprint embed into the surface despite my applying almost no pressure. I would highly discourage you from using one of these as a murder weapon, because you will be caught.
The white chocolate shell provides a creepy, mushy bite, revealing its creamy white innards. The first flavor is a brief flash of white chocolate unpleasantness. However, that is quickly washed away by the overwhelming “pumpkin” flavor. That’s “pumpkin” in extreme quotation marks.
Pumpkin-flavored foods often overdo it with the spices. The logic presumably being “just carpet bomb them with spices, and they will be reminded of Fall!” This line of thinking was definitely in place for the creation of Pumpkin Kisses. The pumpkin flavor is just overwhelming, and rather strange.
Between the appearance, the white chocolate flavor, and the very artificial-tasting pumpkin flavor, everything about the Kiss looks and tastes fake.
I still have approximately sixty more of these in the bag, and I’d say the likelihood of me eating any more is extremely low. I’d give them out on Halloween, but I don’t want kids to come back and vandalize my house after eating them.
I’m always have impressed and half ashamed at how easily I can get tricked into buying a new product. The almost surefire method is the old standby – the holiday re-theme. I will often get conned into buying products I know I don’t even like, simply because the back of my mind is telling me, “Yeah, but now it has Spooky Halloween Spice!”
That lapse in judgment is what caused me to buy Milky Way’s new Halloween offering: Milky Way Caramel Apple.
I assumed this review would be rather tokenistic, based on the simple arithmetic of I don’t like Milky Ways + I don’t like apple-flavored candy. And, yet, here I am: the proud owner of a giant bag of candy I’m predisposed to dislike.
Mars, the parent company who makes Milky Ways, was smart with the packaging. Technically, it’s an “Autumn” product, not a Halloween product. But if I have to start adding more times of year that food can be themed for, I will get thrown out of whack. So for my purposes, this a Halloween-themed candy.
Instead of the usual brown and green hues you associate with Milky Ways, the Caramel Apple comes in a eye-catching red bag. It’s eye-catching not so much because of the actual shade of red. It’s eye-catching because you see red in the candy aisle, and think, “Hey, Kit Kats and/or Take 5s!”
The individual wrappers look similar to the ones I’m already familiar with, as I look at them and leave them in the candy dish in favor of something better.
The nougat color looks much lighter than normal, maybe due to it being apple-flavored. I can’t be sure without actually comparing them to a normal Milky Way, and that amount of research seems exhausting, so I’m not going to do that.
Surprisingly, the flavor is quite good. My apple-flavored candy hatred is almost exclusively aimed at “sour” apple, so maybe normal apple is a flavor I’d be willing to give a shot to more often.
The apple flavor has the apple (surprising, I know), but also some of the fall spices you associate with apple pie or cider. While it is obviously sweet, I was expecting a much more cloying sweetness, which I was happy to find was not there.
Despite the Milky Way Caramel Apple being much better than anticipated, they seem like one of those “unique” flavored candies you can only have a few of at a time. Of course, some might say you should only have a few pieces of candy at a time anyway, but that’s foolish talk.
I would advise Mars to make more themed Milky Ways, for whatever holiday or season they feel like using, or even inventing. The themed versions are clearly better than the standard ones, so we might as well get as many different themes as we can.
A disturbing trend in the sugar world has been the encroachment of Easter candy into the Halloween world. I wouldn’t have as much of an issue with it, if they weren’t trying to sneak in the bad Easter candy. If we were getting spooky Robin Eggs, I’d probably be on board. Unfortunately, we get things like pumpkin-shaped Peeps and Halloween Creme Eggs.
It might come as something of a shock, but I really don’t like Cadbury Creme Eggs. Considering the fact that it is a chocolate shell encasing what is literally liquid sugar, it seems like it would be right up my alley. But the chocolate shell is mediocre, and the “creme” is horrifying. It’s like a sweetened version of various bodily fluids mixed together.
Not content to just be annoying at Easter time, Cadbury has introduced the Screme Egg. And I’m well aware that I’m using a very loose definition of “introduced”. I’m using the definition that means “I finally got around to it.”
So, basically, it has been Halloweenified by making the yolk green, and putting a witch hat on the bunny. Yes, many candies are sold on Halloween with far less re-theming. But the Creme Egg has such a strong connection to Easter, that it needs to be more jarring of a re-theme to feel like something that should exist for Halloween.
Make all the creme green, rather than the yolk. And make the yolk a different color. Maybe a green egg with a blood red yolk. Wait no, green and red is Christmas. They could have made the white part green, and kept the yolk as that orange-y color, maybe just amp up the orange-y-ness. Sorry, this review is rapidly going downhill in terms of using made up words.
The “Fear Not! It’s the same great taste” claim just reinforces the idea that this isn’t ready to be a big Halloween candy player. We know that this is an obvious color palette swap. This is just the Reptile to the Easter version’s Scorpion. But something about the fact that they couldn’t give the customer any credit to figure this out, and they had to spell it out for us – it’s a slap in the face. How dare they underestimate our candy-buying prowess.
Besides the whole “Go away, come back at Easter” aspect, I just don’t get when this would really be applied. Not many people are going to give this out to trick or treaters. The Creme Egg works because it goes in an Easter basket, with the other… that’s right – eggs. Sure, you’ll have people buying it to shamefully eat then and there, but the majority of them are going in baskets.
As a candy-containing vessel, Easter basket to Halloween pumpkin doesn’t translate well, because most Halloween candy is given out in small and inexpensive pieces. The Screme Egg is too pricey to be given away. Plus, if you put this in a kid’s pumpkin, it would get crushed by the other candy, and you would have the creme slop spilling everywhere. If you see a Screme Egg display, look in it – there will be at least a few crushed ones, and half the eggs will have slimy liquid sugar oozing out of the wrapper. Now imagine this structural disaster in a kid’s pumpkin, ruining all of the superior, Halloween-ier candy. It would be a travesty of epic proportions.
And if someone is unfortunate to get this, this is what they will be “treated” to:
Yum, a chocolate-covered head cold!
I apologize, since I do realize that lots of people inexplicably love Creme Eggs. And I am fine with them at Easter. Just keep this crap away from Halloween.
It’s that wonderful time of year again. Where families gather to eat a metric ton of candy. Okay, maybe that isn’t the Norman Rockwellian image of Christmas that most are familiar with. But it does happen.
This year, it happens more than usual, since I spent an entire week eating nothing but Christmas candy. I’d say it’s for science, or for entertainment, or some other half-hearted reason. But mostly it’s because I really like eating candy. I guess I’ll see just how much…
I like “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” as much as the next guy who leaves it on every time he sees it on TV, but there is a lot of weird stuff going on in that movie. I’m not referring to Oompa Loompas and sociopathic Willy himself. I am referring to Charlie’s family. Do they ever shower? Don’t they have horrible bed sores? When Charlie wins the ticket, Grandpa Joe manages to get out of bed, and with a few stretches is ready to go on an arduous journey through a factory. Yet he can’t find a part time job? Look how poor your family is, do something!
Then when the family scrapes together a present for Charlie with what little money they have (I’m looking again at you, Joe), Charlie taunts them with his lies about winning the ticket. I didn’t win with my bar, by the way. I won’t lie to you.
Even the supposedly jolly candy man manages a few assorted moments of evil. When the rich, preferred children are in his shop, he’s singing and tossing free candy around. Then when poor Charlie walks in, the singing stops and he forces Charlie to pay. And when Charlie wants to buy a bar for his Grandpa Joe, the candy man shoves a Wonka Bar in his hand, since no one’s buying them now that the contest is over. Finally, when a strange man jumps in front of Charlie in a tunnel, Charlie stands there and listens to him! Why wouldn’t he run away, like any other child? Oh right, because he has terrible parental figures.
Anyway, the Scrumdiddlyumptious bar.
Protip: Turn the bar upside down, and it’s the “M” from the Mets’ logo.
Already, it’s off to a weak start since it’s a milk chocolate bar. But milk chocolate is fine when you’ve got some kick ass fillings to put in it. And the Scrumdiddlyumptious bar has those in spades: toffee, cookie pieces, and peanuts.
One nice thing about the bar is that it can be broken into segments for sharing, except the segments aren’t evenly sized in order to make room for the giant “W” in the middle of it. So when someone asks you for a piece, you can give them one of the tiny ones.
If you’re like me, you are interested in hearing about all of the new (disclaimer: most of them are not new) and interesting varieties of unique chocolates on the market.
More than likely, however, you’re just thinking “Hey do you know how I can kill ten or so minutes? I’m really bored.” In that case, I’ve got you covered as well.
Join me on an exciting (disclaimer: well… I’m sure you can figure this one out) adventure as I round up some of the best and worst gourmet chocolatiers have to offer.
Wonka’s Bottle Caps have long been one of my favorite candies. The little paper wrapper packets you would get on Halloween were a rare enough sighting to keep them exciting. Then when you bought a theater sized box and ate them all in one sitting, that worked as well.
Unfortunately, Willy Wonka decided that having a good heart was all it took to be put in charge of the company. Charlie Bucket clearly has no idea what he’s doing, and he’s starting to royally screw up.
Sometime in 2009, Bottle Caps changed their beloved shape.
(Picture stolen from puddingstore.com. I had permission, so it wasn’t actually stolen, I just think it sounds cooler to say.)
Do you know why they are called Bottle Caps? Because they are shaped like bottle caps. This seems reasonable enough, no? Tell that to whoever it was at Wonka that decided to change the shape from a Bottle Cap to an oversized SweeTart.
When they were shaped like actual bottle caps, they were perfect. They resembled their name sake, and it gave them a very unique texture. There’s plenty of disc-shaped sugary candies, but none shaped like these. No other candy had that indentation on the bottom. And if another candy did, it doesn’t matter, because Bottle Caps wore the indentation best.
Now Bottle Caps are soulless, flat-bottomed sellouts. They still taste good, but something is off. They seem harder than they used to be, possibly because the lack of the indentation gives them too much structural integrity. They’re definitely smaller than they used to be.
Coca-Cola admitted they screwed up with New Coke. Tropicana changed its packaging back after they realized the new one looked like store brand orange juice. So now the logical thing to do would be for Wonka to admit that the new Bottle Caps are vastly inferior to their actual bottle cap-shaped predecessors.
Look, Charlie is clearly in over his head. I don’t know whether he thinks this cost-cutting measure will help the company or what, but this kid has no business acumen. Maybe because he had a terrible education. His math teacher couldn’t even figure out what percentage two bars was out of a thousand bars, so when this unqualified hack is the one responsible for educating Charlie, it’s no wonder the kid grew up to be an idiot.
It’s like they always say, “Don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted – he inherited a great candy company and proceeded to muck up the proceedings.” Get it together, Wonka, and fix this mess.
As helpful as it is, I think the internet is a bit overrated. Sure, you can find out all sorts of useful and, mostly, non-useful information. However, a while back my sister Judith brought up the fact that she was unable to find a picture of a Fat Frog ice cream bar online. My first thought was one of arrogance. “Maybe you can’t find it, but I can.” But I couldn’t. All I could find were pictures of actual fat frogs. Which are certainly interesting, just not what I’m looking for.
If it doesn’t contain easily found pictures of Fat Frog bars, what good is the internet?
Another failure of the internet is its inability to provide any help when searching for information on Disney World. When you go to Google and search Disney World, there’s just nothing. It’s bad enough there’s no television advertising. Disney currently has a promotion where you get free park admission on your birthday. With an idea this great, you would think they would want to place an ad during every commercial break of every show on TV.
Since it is impossible to find any web sites with Disney information, either official or fan made sites, I thought I should at least offer some insight.
One thing you might not be aware of when it comes to Disney World is that there are actually a lotof ways to spend money while on vacation. If you pay enough attention, you will be able to find the occasional shop that sells a few assorted items emblazoned with the Disney logo or Mickey’s head. The gift shops aren’t easy to find, but they are there. Trust me.
If you look even more closely, you will be able to find some places where you can purchase food and beverages. There are a lot more locations than you might expect, if only because Disney does such a good job of hiding them.
As a reward for reading this, I am going to let you in on a secret. If you want to find one of the gift shops or food stands in a Disney park, just follow this method. Stand anywhere in any park, and look either three feet to your left or right. There you go!
Now that you are aware of where to get food, the bigger question is, what to eat? That is a surprisingly tough question to answer, for a couple reasons. Mostly, it is because Disney World has literally hundreds of places to eat. Also, it is because I always get the same things every time, and am too much of a wimp to try new things.
So this isn’t going to be any sort of “Official Best Snacks at Disney World” list. For one thing, I don’t even know how to get a list made official. Another reason is that there probably are better things to get, I’ve just never gotten them.
I wasn’t sure whether I should do top ten, five, or what. I then thought I would settle on seven, in a tribute to the best show on TV in Florida, “Top Seven Must Sees: Walt Disney World”. However, I’m pretty mad at them. The last couple of trips have nearly been ruined by the new host, Stacey. She is the worst. At everything.
When Kryssa was hosting, it was wonderful. She was the best. Exhibit A:
Now, whenever you want some Top Seven action, you are subjected to the worst human being alive: Stacey.
Ugh.
So I’m not going to do a top seven list, in protest. Unfortunately, I didn’t want to do a top five, because I had at least six things I wanted to mention. You’re in for a treat, lady and gentleman. You are about to witness one of the rarest feats in the fast paced world of making lists: the elusive Top Six.
Is that not the worst title logo you have ever seen? I’m rather proud of its awfulness.
6) Churros
The good thing about writing about Churros is that they have already done all the work for me. I don’t have to explain why churros are good. Unfortunately, they’re also not very exciting to write or read about. They’re essentially an extra crispy, long donut. Except with that cool ridged surface. And with cinnamon sugar. So forget about reading this description, just close your eyes and imagine you were eating a churro instead.
5) Any Beverage That Isn’t From the Water Fountain
I’m not picky with water. Of course given the option, I’d rather choose bottled or filtered water. However, I’m usually fine with some tap water if that’s all there is. I don’t know what the deal is with the water in Disney World’s fountains.
The water is like that weird “unfiltered” apple juice, the cloudy stuff. I mean, I don’t like apple juice anyway; but that unfiltered juice is just creepy looking. But the Disney water is just awful. The tap water in the rooms isn’t terrible, so I don’t think it’s the water source.
I’ve heard people recommend that you can save money in Disney World buy only buying one bottle of water and just refilling it in the fountains. Don’t do this.
As far as the beverage I’d suggest as a replacement, it doesn’t matter too much. I usually have soda around the way a baby has a bottle around, so I’d probably say go with that. Or if you’re in Epcot, go into the Club Cool and get some free soda. And if you’re one of those people that think you “shouldn’t drink soda all day long”, buy a bottle of water. Just stay away from the fountains. Stay far away. You don’t even want to step in the puddle that forms near them.
4) Cinnamon Glazed Almonds
Nuts are one of those foods you’re never sure if they’re okay to eat or not. You know they are ridiculously high in fat, but you’ve also heard that it’s “good fat”. Here’s a good way to take out all the guesswork: to make it clear that they are something not okay to eat, just take a handful of nuts, and coat them in a thick layer of sugar. Problem solved!
Because come on, who wants to eat “real food” at Disney World? Okay, probably a lot of people. Other people. Oddly enough, I had never actually bought these at Disney World until my last trip. I have had them before, and am a big fan. You always see these carts in New York City, which is sort of the Disney World of real life.
Once my goth friend Dersh bought a bag of cinnamon glazed coconut pieces from one of these vendors. They were quite good, but were one of those foods you’re glad someone else bought, since one piece was pretty much all you could imagine eating. This sickly sweet flavor stuck with me, and kind of turned me off to ever buying “cinnamon glazed” anything.
During our last trip, Amy and I were on line for a ride, behind someone who had bought them. So the entire time we were waiting, this intense scent surrounded us. After getting off the ride, we decided we wanted to try them, possibly due to the subconscious suggestions from our clothing, which most likely still smelled like cinnamon glaze.
This is definitely one of those Disney World snacks that you can’t justify having too often. I guess most snacks are hard to justify having too often, but I’ve gotten pretty good at that.
3) Jelly Beans
This is one of my most cherished Disney World traditions. Every trip, I get a bag of Jelly Belly beans from one of the candy stores, and try to stretch them to last me the whole trip. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten any smarter when it comes to buying them.
As anyone who has ever bought pound candy knows, that price goes up fast. “$2.50 for every one sixth of a pound? That seems reasonable, I’m probably only going to get like a tenth of a pound anyway.” Then you go and weigh your bag and it comes to like fifteen dollars.
I do know this, and it doesn’t help. I know that in order to get all the jelly bean flavors I want, I have to only take a little of each. And yet there I go, right to Juicy Pear and dump a ton in my bag. Then I look two flavors to the left, see peach and throw more in. After putting too much in the bag and walking away, I see that I didn’t notice they had pineapple, and put more in the bag.
Considering I’m probably paying about thirty cents a bean, I need to figure out a better system for picking them out.
2) Chocolate Covered Frozen Bananas
I have discussed these here before, and every time I mention them the news gets better. The last time I brought them up, it was to share the joyous news that you could now get them at a few select carts around the Magic Kingdom. Now I am pleased to announce that they can now be found at every ice cream cart in Disney World.
The doubters have been crushed. If anyone knows that progress can’t be stopped, it is Walt Disney. So the only two plausible reasons for the influx of bananas is either that Walt Disney is reaching out from beyond the grave, or that my web site has the power to influence the Disney company’s decisions. Which option sounds more possible? That’s right, ghost Walt Disney is getting things done.
Not only are chocolate bananas an incredible snack, they are so easy to write off as not even that bad for you. Yes, they are covered in chocolate and crushed peanuts. Just ignore that part. So basically you’re just eating a banana. Also, they might just help you avoid a frightening encounter with a bathroom stall in the park.
While I know that ghost Walt is the main reason for bananas now being available everywhere, I couldn’t help feeling some pride. Every time I would see someone walking around eating one, I gave them a silent “You’re welcome.” And yeah, they might have found it odd that I was staring at them while mouthing words. But deep down, they felt gratitude.
1) Dole Whips
Pineapple Floats are alongside frozen bananas on this list in the category of “Things I’ll be angry if I don’t get.” I’m not really sure how often you can have a pineapple float, since as snacks go, they’re pretty epic. They’re also one of the more expensive snacks, so you might have to limit your consumption to ten or so a day.
These cups of love are certainly the most refreshing snack you can get. The hotter and more disgusting the weather, the better they taste. Not only do you get the incredible pineapple soft serve, it comes atop a deep pool of pineapple juice. Juice!
So really, you can have as many of these as you want, since they’re high in vitamin C. And as the nearby Pirates of the Caribbean attraction should remind you, you need that vitamin C to ward of scurvy.
And thus concludes our hard hitting exposé on Disney snacks. Unfortunately, as far as my writing is concerned, “hard hitting” is just another way of saying “less lazy and poorly thought out than usual”. So I recommend every item on this list; they all have my personal seal of approval (which is a drawing of me giving a thumbs up done in MS Paint).
That said, I’d recommend trying everything you can in the parks. There are tons of legitimately good things to eat, and it is an easy way to get rid of all that money you’re always complaining you have too much of.
During a recent return to Smuggler’s Notch, Vermont, the fact that many of my personality traits are indeed genetic became even more clear. If you weren’t paying attention, Smuggler’s Notch is where the much lauded Cool Pack came from. Smuggler’s Notch is a truly wonderful place that has things for everyone and every age. For children, it has all sorts of activities. The trips to Smuggler’s Notch as a kid were some of the most memorable I’ve ever been on.
Unfortunately, many times things that held your interest as a kid no longer entertain you when you grow up. I personally can’t speak from experience, since I still love most of the activities, movies, food, etc. that I loved as a child. However, I assume that for a normal person, you grow out of most of your childhood things.
Luckily, Smuggler’s Notch has a lot of activities to hold the interests of adults. From mine and my family’s experience, these activities seem to mostly be walking around, swimming, overeating, and drinking alcohol. This trip, my mother wasn’t going to be able to come; she claimed she had “work responsibilities”. Although I assume she just felt that sending my dad across the country would be more than enough of a vacation for her.
I won’t get too much into the details of our week. It can be summed up pretty much in two ways, the first being the shopping trip. When we arrive in Vermont, we go to the supermarket to buy food for the week. This usually winds up in three carts full of food. Actually, that’s not even true. One of the carts is usually wine and beer. This trip was much more reasonable: only two and a half carts. Besides the fact that there were less people, this was mostly due to the fact that since this was the first year my dad flew in, he wouldn’t be able to take the leftovers home with him in the car. Every year, we buy WAY too much food. This isn’t too much of a problem, since we wind up just taking the 5-10 boxes of cereal and countless cans of food home. The real challenge is using up all the perishables. As a result, the last night before we leave winds up being this gloriously gluttonous challenge. Can we eat these containers of ice cream, boxes of ice pops, TV dinners, and the rest of the crap? One way to find out!
The other example of our high cuisine and mature taste buds would be our first trip to the Smuggler’s Notch market. Amy was making dinner this night, because we figure that not eating out every night somehow cancelled out the overabundance of food we took in when we went out. In order to not delve completely into the realm of dirt bags, we needed fabric sheets for the dryer. So, my dad, my brothers, and I went down to the market. And what we came back with was this:
We got the Bounce sheets, and my dad even picked up some cheap shampoo, so it was almost a legitimate shopping trip. However, the remainder of the trip consisted of buying:
Ritz crackers, chocolate covered cherries, grape soda, Bit O’ Honey, fruit Tootsie Rolls, and a box of donuts.
Keep in mind, this was AFTER we got a load of junk food from the supermarket.
The final items on this receipt caused a bit of controversy. My brother Eric and I got some watermelon Laffy Taffy, because they’re awesome. However, while eating them, they had no chocolate chip seeds! Is this a common occurrence? I’ve had one of these recently, and they had the seeds. Every candy site still lists them with the seeds, yet none of our three packs had them. The watermelon taffy is still good, but it’s just… not the same.
Now that I have painted a picture (I’d say if it was a literal painting, it would be watercolor) of our truly American pig out week in Vermont, it’s time to burn off those calories. And what better way to burn calories than by getting outside and having a Boy’s Play Day?
Despite the fact that the name of this bagged collection just sounds strange and/or creepy, it does get you pretty pumped up. When’s the last time you’ve had a good play day with the boys? I wait, it’s “Boy’s”, not “Boys'”, so it’s meant to be enjoyed by those who have no friends or don’t like going outside. I’ve had plenty of those play days.
The name gave me high hopes for the excitement within. Not to ruin the surprise, but this collection did not live up to the glorious promises of its title. The bag looked jam packed with fun. After all, it is “King Sized”. However, once the bag was opened and emptied, you realized that most of the space was taken up by this big purple thing.
The “Super Sonic Disk” promised a wild adventure filled with spinning plastic, lights, and sounds. It sort of delivered on two of the three. Basically, you grab the handles, and flip the disk around until the cords get wound up and tightened, then you pull away and the disk spins. That does happen, except in order to make the disk get any sort of legitimate spin, you have to flip the disk for like three minutes. This play day is exhausting!
The “sound” comes in the form of little slits cut into the plastic, so when the disk is spinning, it whistles. This high-tech feature has been seen before, like on those Nerf balls with the huge tail, that you could throw for like forty blocks, and it would whistle the whole time. I loved those footballs, since I couldn’t actually ever throw a real football more than ten feet. Which I guess is why I am here playing with the Boy’s Play Day collection.
As far as the lights go, I’m pretty sure they just made that up. There were no lights, and I saw nowhere that even had the potential to light up. I’m sure they figured that no one would ever call them out on their lie. Maybe if I complained, they’d send me a complimentary Girl’s Play Day.
Wow, I really can’t pull off saying the names of these collections without sounding creepy.
The next toy inside involves another sport I am terrible at: basketball. The first sport was football, in case you didn’t notice the connection. I like to try to keep sub-themes running within these articles. It’s that kind of writing quality that people who enjoy reading about bargain priced bags of children’s toys have come to expect here.
Compared to the Sonic Disk, the basketball hoop was a smashing success. You use it exactly how you would think you do: tap on the little green lever, and it shoots the ball a foot past the hoop. Then the second time you tap lighter and it sort of hits it on the backboard. I never managed to get it to go in the hoop and stay. Apparently I am as good at a plastic game of basketball as I am at real basketball. Which explains why most of my basketball games consisted of me pushing people while they were in the air going for a lay up. Which also explains why no one wants to play basketball with me.
Still, the basketball hoop was pretty awesome, and the backboard is bad ass. NBA backboards should have these pictures on their backboards.
Next we have the edible part of the Boy’s Play Day. (Ugh, stop using the name.) First, we have a repeat from the Cool Pack, which were basically Pixie Stix in a plastic tube. These were all solidified like the Stix from the Cool Pack, which leads me to believe these came from the same batch as when I bought the Cool Pack two years ago.
Not that I had much hope anyway, Pixie Stix suck. Everyone thinks they’re good, because they think it’s funny to essentially eat just sugar. And they’re right; it is funny, to be sure. However, the sheer laziness of the effort Pixie Stix make to taste good aggravates me. The exception to this rule are those Pixie Stix from the ice cream man, the ones that are like three feet long, and come in a tube that looks like a Wiffle Ball bat. Those get credit for just being ridiculous.
I was really happy for the second snack in the collection, which appeared to be a fancy Pop Ice. Even the wrapper gave great promise: colors EVERYWHERE, essentially dizzying you if you focused on it for too long. It had an anthropomorphized Pop Ice man playing the guitar. This Pop Ice man was naked, except for his belt and boots. Although in this case, does the pop wrapper count as clothes or skin?
The pop was called a Jelly Ice Bar, which did raise some concern. Did it taste like jelly? Were there going to be raspberry seeds in it like a good jam? I never understand when people get jam without the seed, they make the eating experience so much better.
After the pop was frozen, I cut it open and took a big bite. Man, I sure wish I at least took a smaller bite to test the waters. The creepy waters. The texture of the pop was so, so discomforting. It was slick, like it was coated in fat, and had the texture of a gummy worm fetus. You know that scene in X-Men when Senator Kelly is dying, and right before he turns into a puddle of water, he’s just that weird blob thing? I imagine that is the same texture as the Jelly Ice Bar.
I honestly don’t know how it tasted, because I was just in utter shock and fear from the texture. I did eat the bite, but never noticed a flavor. It might not even be flavored. I couldn’t go on. I dumped the rest of the bar in the sink. And when I went back to the kitchen two hours later, it hadn’t melted. It was still completely solid, but was now curled up. It was so disgusting. I hate the Jelly Ice Bar.
I couldn’t understand how this all went wrong. I checked out the ingredients list, and things began to make sense. Water… sugar… seaweed extract…. locust bean gum. Awful.
The last toy, which oddly enough was the same texture as the Jelly Ice Bar, was a rubber blue lizard. Honestly, there’s really not too much to do with this. I tested this out on my cat Figaro, and he was a big fan.
Cats will go after anything anyway, but the fact that this thing was rubber was a big plus. Since after it was moved, the legs would continue jiggling, it looked like a real lizard (well, to a cat… I knew it wasn’t real). So I give the lizard a high rating; it may not be that much fun for a person, but its cat entertainment value is high.
Unfortunately, the Boy’s Play Day was a big disappointment after the Cool Pack. Less stuff, more dumb stuff, and more Jelly Ice Bars. I didn’t even get a full day’s worth of enjoyment out of it. Luckily, I hope to have this disappointment erased with the other collection I got: the promisingly named Fun Pack. Is it better to be cool or fun? We’ll find out soon!
Diet Coke-Babies 