March 5, 2024 • 31 mins
Whether or not you have a sweet tooth, odds are you probably have some strong opinions about candy. Following up (finally!) on their earlier Halloween conversation, Ben, Noel and Max explore some of the most divisive candies on the planet.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Who's that knocking on your door? Trick
or treating?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Why?
Speaker 1 (00:35):
It's us with our super producer, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Who's that girl? La? La La? It's Max Williams. Who's
that Max? Two hands Williams haven't? That's right? You were
a hand down.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
I got cleared by the orthopedic surgeon yesterday to begin
weightlifting again.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
All right, that's no old brack, your swollen state, that's
no brown.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I'm Ben Bowlin. Sad news for you. Max, you're also
our research associate on this episode. That's not the sad news.
The sad news is I went through a phase where
I wrote nicknames for all our co workers and Matt
Twohans Frederick.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yeah, but I mean since he's my work big brother,
so I think we'd share, like you know, nicknames.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
That's not nicknames. It's a little confusing. We might have
to workshop this one, Max.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Well, let's workshop Candy, because cast your memories back. Fellow
Ridiculous Historians. We are a very pro Halloween bunch, and
we had a lot of opinions about Halloween candy in
a previous episode, and I don't know whether we'll play
a clip or not, but in classic ridiculous history fashion,
(01:53):
far after that conversation during Halloween, we are returning to
you with some opinions about candy. Now, to be fair,
we are a history show, so we will explore history
of candy. But we just want you to know going
into this.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
We get a lot of hot takes nostalgia candy. The
nostalgia candy scene is rife with garbage candy, although there's
there's a few gems you know, hidden within the rough, right,
isn't that how it goes? Can I tell you guys that?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
So we started writing this brief back last year, and
around that time I bought my dad an entire this
is the only wee you can buy neck A wafers
now like wafers, the chocolate, the selection and a shirt.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
It was like one hundred dollars. He loved it. He's
beyond like happy about it.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
But it's like, man, I would have the father, who
was a passionate defender of neck A wafers and.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Grape necko wafers to me to strike me as like
wartime candy. Yeah, like they're Halloween hard tags.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
And I just want to point out that we are
going to talk about a candy today that was both
a depression era and a wartime rationing candy.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah, literally in their history. So it's true. Yeah, and
that's why they stick around. It also reminds me for
our friends further south, it reminds me of the Ansac cookies,
the Australian biscuits a n Zac those tooth on those Yeah,
those are a result of wartime stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
You know.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
It's the thing. It's the thing about candy. There is
such a panopoly of possibility. Generally, even people who don't
consider themselves as folks with a sweet tooth, they'll have
one candy. And to your point, Nol, it's often nostalgia related, right,
It's like I ate whoppers the first time I saw
(03:55):
a movie that I loved. So I don't eat candy,
but I do have an exception for whoppers. I suggest
we begin with Tutsie rules, as are as our pal
Max introduces it. Here's the question, have you ever looked
at your cat's turts and thought what if that was chewy?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Or oh wow? Yeah? No, but I do have to
take issue with something that Max wrote in his jury
here that we sort of repassed. You think kit Kat, reseason,
Almond Joy or bad candy?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
I'm saying, if you or you buy the variety of Pivo,
you get the kit Casts, you get the Receeds, which
are a plus candies, and you get an Almond Joy,
which is just trash candy.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
No, that's what I'm saying. That's my favorite candy.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Are you serious?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
I love Almond Joy?
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Did you read the next sentence that said you were
one of the seven people who are getting bad about this?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Anyway, I'm mad, and I also like Receas is considerable
as a beloved candy. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Well, that's what you say, but shout out, shout out
to Shang Weng who has an excellent piece about almonds
versus mounds. What's your allmon joy versus bounds. What's your
mounds opinion?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Well, allmon Joys have nuts and mounds don't, right, So
sometimes you feel like and usually I feel like a nut.
When I don't, I eat some other candy that's not mounds.
Mounds is darker chocolate too. I don't know, man, people
have really strong opinions about shredded coconut, And I don't
know if you know this. You know, there's some surgeries
(05:25):
that people get. I believe it's I forget the name
of it, but it's when you get your stomach reduced
in size some people that have trouble with weight gain
and it's a procedure that can be done to literally
decrease the size of your stomach, and there's some kind
of suture or staples or whatever that stay in there forever.
That shredded coconut can literally shred So people that have
(05:45):
these procedures they are no longer allowed to eat shredded
coconut of any variety for the rest of their lives,
which it sounds like you guys would be fine.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
With gastric staplings. That's the one. Yeah, there's now clearly,
as we're going into it, there is one candy which
is obviously the worst candy bar, and that is the
zero bar. We're not going to talk about the zero
bar because that would be like platforming terrorism. We just
need you to know that we are aware of that
(06:15):
war crime on the mouth man.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Such strong opinions about I haven't had one in years.
I think, what is it? It's basically nugat wrapped in
white chocolate. Are there some almonds in there? There's some
kind of crunchy nut.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Peanut and almond nugat covered with white fudge.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Which is weird because just like an improvised explosive device,
those ingredients on their own are harmless, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
When weaponized in the form of a weaponized well. And
then the question then arises too, I mean, if certain
some of these candies are so hated, why are they
still manufactured? You can still see the Zero bar is
right there on the candy aisle. It's your local convenient
in store gas station, right next to the Hits. It's
(07:02):
been around for one hundred and four years.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Well, thankfully with dust on them, that's how you'll see
them on the shelf. And that's I think a good
thing for America. But we're not talking about the Zero.
We don't want a platform that terrible stuff. There's a
lot of good candy out there. Opinions differ on the
candy known as the Tutsie Roll.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Hate them You're not a tousy boy? Oh no, no,
My girlfriend really likes them a lot. But I just
I don't like the texture of them. I don't like
the way they get stuck in your teeth. Yeah, they
do resemble cat turns, there's no question about that. I
(07:45):
just find them patently unpleasant.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
So let's go to kat Eshner from writing for Waters Smithsonian,
who gives us a bit of the history.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Here.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
On the twenty third of February eighteen ninety six, Leo
Hirshfield opened a shop in New York City. He's originally
an Austrian national. And I got a pause here because
I know this story from a thing called Stuff of
Genius that we did many years ago of video series
on YouTube. Yeah, all right, So here's the idea. He
(08:18):
is working our buddy Leo in this shop and he
invents the Tutsi role for one reason or another, and
then it becomes very popular. It's like it's got a
wax like texture. Some people like it, some people don't.
It's not quite gum. It's definitely not you know, like
a Hershey kiss or something. But at this point New
(08:43):
York goes crazy for it. They want the little Tutsi
roll snacks. And I think the first flavor was only chocolate,
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
I believe. Yeah, that's certainly the classic tutsi role, and
they have there are fruit fruits adjacent flavored tootsi rolls.
There's the one that resemble like kind of what Et
looked like at the end of the movie when he
sort of shriveled up and turned white and kind of
looked like a cat turn that have been left out
for quite a few days and dried out. There's definitely
those as well. What other varietals of tutsi rolls are
(09:15):
out there?
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Vanilla? Okay, Yeah, there are a couple of I want
to say, for a short time, they had the potential
to become like kit cats in Japan. Every time I
have to go, yeah, I pick up a ton of
kit cats because they're in KitKat flavors in Japan are
are are amazing because they are very much not one
(09:41):
to one palette comparisons. You can get kit cats that
are ocean wave flavored or like.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
What does that daste like?
Speaker 1 (09:50):
They're very Miyazaki, you know, like there's I'm sure there's
a kit Cat out there named a Dream I Had
or something like that. But with boy Hirshfield, after he
invents the Tutsi roll, he merges with an outfit called
Stern and Solberg to get scale of economy, to make
(10:12):
more Tutsi rolls, and to bring them to more places.
There's a side note here involving Star Wars.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Right, there's an advertisement for something called The Empire Strips Back,
which I believe is a Star Wars themed burlesque show
that just recently I passed through Atlanta. I believe a
friend of the show, Nick Benson, Nick Admiral Turbo Benson
wentz and said it was quite quite a hullabaloo featuring
stormtroopers something called Twilex Twilex. I'm not familiar with the
(10:46):
Star Wars creature, Boba Fetts. You think they would have
given them more risque names. The image associated with the
ad featured a very sexy job of the hut being
quite risque.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Risque.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yeah, well, what has this to do with the episode,
you might ask this.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yeah, nothing, It has nothing to do with it other
than us sharing the specific types of targeted ads are
paled max is getting.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I thought the Star Wars universe has bad candy made
from that blue milk. Perhaps, well, the Tutsi role everybody
in the West recognizes it. When it started it solved
to problems. It didn't melt, and it was individually wrapped.
And this was a huge, huge deal because if you
(11:32):
are a Wonka esque or Charlie and the chocolate factory
esque candy man shout out to the candyman, can would
you would try to sell a lot of candy, and
a lot of your candy was very temperature sensitive. So
a hot summer, when most people are going to be
out perhaps impulsively buying candy a hot summer can be
(11:56):
dangerous for things like marshmallows, which are also trash. Chocolate
also has a problem just chemically. In very hot weather,
it can turn into a sticky mass, the texture can change.
So Samira Kawash, who also authored a history of candy,
(12:17):
puts it this way. The genius of Tutsi roll was
to create a summer candy that was a flavor never
before seen in summer candies, the flavor of chocolate, because
you just couldn't get it at that time. Yeah, I
guess that's sort of chocolate, the way like diet coke
tastes like coke. I mean, it doesn't taste like diety.
It's definitely sweet, but it's I don't know, I wouldn't
(12:40):
describe it as being particularly accurate in its chocolate flavor.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
A third advantage is that it was really affordable, right,
This is kind of like penny candy.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
That's right. And then enter let's combine two things that
people apparently love at the time, which is this this
sutsy role and a lollipop. Boom bang bam, you got
yourself a Tutsi pop? How many licks does it take
to get to the center? The world may never know?
Ask mister Awl. You guys remember that classic ad. They
played it well into the nineties. This is the same one,
(13:16):
which I really respect, you know, because again they're playing
on the nostalgia and they know their brand.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Yeah, how many licks does it take to get to
the center of a Tutsi pop? A question that I
think there was actually a one or two scientific endeavors
to find the answer, which we're not going to quote today,
but let us know how many licks it takes you.
(13:43):
This is where the war comes in that Max teased
Sue Astuteley. So the Tutsi pop comes along in the
nineteen thirties. It is a It's one of the candies
that succeeds during the Great Depression, and when the US
goes to World War Two, the Tutsi role goes along
(14:04):
as well. I want to shout out our earlier episode
on chocolate science in war, which was pretty much banger.
So the Tutsi role is associated with wartime rationing and
the depression in some form and after the war. Now
as veterans are returning to the US, it becomes even
(14:28):
more popular because now it is hitting that nostalgia switch.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Have you guys seen the Japanese anime film Grave of
the Fireflies. Yes, it's a very harrowing tale, as you
guys know, anyone out there the audience who hasn't seen it,
very harrowing World War two tail told from the perspective
of a young boy and his sister who are kind
of traversing the nuclear decimated wasteland of Japan. And there
(14:58):
is a candy tie in. It's basically a ration type candy.
They're called Sakuma drops, and it's a really tragic thing
where they end up starving and all they have are
these little kind of hard candy drops. And you can
still buy these if you go to a grocery like
a Japanese or Asian market and they're branded with Grave
(15:19):
of the Firefly's imagery, which I think is the weirdest
branding tie in because it is a plot point in
the movie that will break your heart and it comes
in this like ten you know, And I actually have
one that I just keep on my mantle as like
a little curio or whatever. But I just thought that
was such an odd choice to tie in such a
depressing film to your brand.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Nostalgia is I guess that drug? Yeah, yeah, that's true.
And right now again, according to that awesome article, Tutsi
Rules were WW two energy bars from Kat Eshner. According
to that article, which is pretty recent from twenty seventeen,
right now, thirteen point eight percent of Americans hate Tutsi roles,
(16:02):
or I should say they did in twenty seventeen. So
is the candy still popular?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I would say yes, Ben weren't there at the time.
Maybe I'm misremembering, but like some of those ration kind
of mre situations, didn't they sometimes include a little Tutsi role.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Yeah, because they stayed fresh.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
They stayed fresh, and they're calorically dense, like we were
talking on our other show, stuff that I want you
to know about. Or maybe it wasn't on the show,
but it was a conversation we were having with a
co host, Matt that in a apocalyptic or you know
what's the word kind of bunker type situation, peanut butter
is really great to have because of its caloric density.
So the same deal with this stuff. And it also
(16:42):
keeps packs a lot of punch colorically into a little
tiny wax paper package.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah, and if you go on the tutsi roll website today,
according to mashed dot com, you will find that there
are sixty four million tiny little tutsi rolls reduced every
single day. They also walk through some pretty interesting statistics, right,
so let's.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Break down the math. The company produced sixty four million
candies a day, which averages to forty four four hundred
and forty every minute, seven hundred and forty every second.
Kind of mind boggling. I'd love to see how it's
made about the tutsi roll process because, like, you know,
just how how did they get each one wrapped so perfectly?
(17:28):
They must have a machine that twists the ends like that.
I'd love to see that assembly line in action. Massive scale.
Can only imagine.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yeah, seven hundred and forty separate individually wrapped tutsi rolls
every second. I guess it takes the longer to wrap them.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
It must ben, do you think, And I guess you
know what, I bet. I bet they're created as giant
logs that are then cut chopped, you know, like by
some massive machine, like all at the same time. But
do you think that it's tutsi rolls that are kind
of responsible for the individually packaged candy craze? Because there
are some individually packaged candies that are so small, like egregious,
(18:04):
you know, like gummies. You can find now that each
little tiny gummy has its own little plastic packaging.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
You know, I would kind of like to do an
episode about packaging. It's just such a it's a fascinating thing.
It may be its own podcast, sure, but tutsi roles,
at least in the West, were pretty early into the
individually packaged concept, you know. And now there's what a
estimated twenty three billion tutsi rolls made a year individually packaged.
(18:37):
Is pretty wild, and you know, interesting news for the
slightly less than fourteen percent of Americans who don't care
for tutsi roles. Other people like them very positive about it.
I'm one of those people, you know, if I don't know, man,
candy is so weird, like we have.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Can I make something?
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:58):
I actually like tutsi rolls. I'll put them in here first.
One on the write up.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I like it's nostalgia though, because you know, if you
grow up in like a public school environment, toutsi rolls
often end up being something you get on like Valentine's Day,
teachers give them his treats and so on.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
I really like Bito Honey, which has a very similar
texture to tutsi rolls, but a lovely honey nut kind
of flavor. So to me, it's not the texture that
Touzzy rolls that throws me off. It's just the kind
of faux chocolate flavor of it, but love a Bido honey.
Also there's another what was it called like something Jane
Mary Jane's. That's another like nostalgia candy that's very similar
(19:38):
to Bito Honey.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
There was one I still remember. Oh. It was like,
oh gosh, it's going to come back to me at
the weirdest moment. It's not a butterfinger, but it was
like it came on a stick and it was like
a little chocolatey caramel e.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Turd I was talking about. It was something daddy, sugar daddy,
sugar daddy, because then there's sugar babies and that was related.
But the sugar daddy comes on a stick.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
What's your opinion on candy corn, you guys.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Oh god, I hope we're aligned on this. I just
think it's the devil's candy.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
You're probably familiar with candy corn folks. It's the thing
that looks like little loose.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Teeth get of sugar, exactly, a little loose vampire fangs,
kind of with a orange and red and white. Maybe
not red, but there's three colors. Maybe it goes orange, white, orange,
but definitely got a repeating pattern and of course a
fun way to make variations. Because there are some festive
looking candy corns. I put them in the same category
(20:50):
as those weird little pumpkin things. They just taste like
sugary wax to me and just get stuck in your teeth.
Once again. I think they're cute for decoration, though, you know,
to fill out perhaps a bit of a Halloween cornucopia spread,
or to the point made here in the research document,
Thanksgiving cornucopia spread of candy, although we don't really associate
(21:14):
Thanksgiving with candy as much as we do with like
gluttony and pies.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
And it's actually it's tough to it's tough to find
the providence where the ultimate origin story of candy corn.
But from what we know it came around sometime in
the eighteen seventies eighteen eighties. The technology to make this
kind of stuff, I would argue, was already sort of
descending from things like marzipan, right where you use an
(21:43):
almond paste to create different shapes. Companies at this time
were all about taking conventional, easily accessible agricultural products and
using them as a flavor. I wouldn't even say a
flavor base, a flavor inspiration for different things. They would
(22:06):
they would shape like chestnut candy is still pretty popular
in different.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Nuts to the worst nut candy. Oh, yeah, you know what,
maybe I have seen we were talking earlier about the
various varieties of Japanese kit cat. I want to say
I've seen a chestnut flavored kit cat, you know, at
Super h Mart before.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
But I could probably you've probably seen it. Yeah, chestnut
flavor for different things is pretty popular in East Asia?
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Got it? And I gotta say, just putting it out there,
I'm a big Marzapan fan, but for me, that's its
own kind of nostalgia because, as you all know, I
was once a small German boy and Marzapan is huge
in Germany. There was a candy that my parents would
give me for Christmas in my stocking every year called
Mozart Cougod and their chocolated in case balls of Marsupan
(22:55):
with kind of like a liquor y kind of chocolate filling.
I guess they cook it off, but I remember them
tasting quite boozy. But it was sort of a tradition
that I would get Mozart Coogan in my stocking every year.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
And Becky Little, writing for history dot Com with the
article who Invented Candycorn dives into this strange, somewhat obscure
origin story. She posits that a guy named George Renneger
worked at a place called the Vnderlay Candy Company, and
(23:29):
he is generally going to be cited as the creator
of candycorn because while he was working at this company,
Thunderley became the first outfit to sell this stuff. And
just to be clear, everybody, candy corn is mainly sugar
and corn syrup. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
You know, it's interesting. I was just looking at Yes,
I was just looking to go back a little further,
wondering like, what was the first documented suite and it
actually zembles a lot of the kinds of candies we're
talking about today. It was, of course the ancient Egyptians
as well as folks in the Middle East and in China,
where they combined fruits and nuts, often caramelizing them inside honey.
(24:16):
And you know, they also created early versions of licorice
and kind of ginger candies. But we do see things
that are very that kind of almost preserved, you know,
chunky stuff within a kind of you know, medium of
sort of honeyed kind of gooiness. So not not like
(24:36):
candy corn, a little more like the bido honey and
the tussy rolls that we're talking about, or even things
like fruitcake. But I digress. I just wanted to quickly
just take us into the past.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
However, it was the Golitz Candy Company now going by
the name Jelly Belly Candy Company. Ah, they made candy
corn successful. They hit the economy of scale in eighteen
ninety eight. They snagged the recipe and they started selling
these little you know, sugar and corn syrup burst of
(25:10):
a burst of sweet as a candy that they originally
called chicken feed. But it makes sense. It makes sense
at the time because many more people were part of
the agricultural industry. So it's kind of like how you
will sell pretend kitchen goods to children. You know, you're
(25:32):
oshkosh b gosh toast raven and so on.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Easy bake oven and all that. Right, right, So fast
forward a little bit to the early nineteen hundreds when
candy corner really took off because much like the humble Titzzerole,
it was very very cheap to buy and to produce
and was another member of the family we know as
Penny candy. And I don't know if y'all remember, I'm
sure you do, the idea of a penny lick when
(25:58):
we refer when we did a history of ice cream
or frozen treats, that you would like it would be
a kind of a community spoon you'd play, you pay
a penny and you'd get a lick of the spoon,
or it was like a shared popsicle or something. And
I believe it actually spread disease pretty significantly back in
the heyday of the penny lick.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yeah, it was a glass. People had, like a couple
of glasses. So after you were done licking all the
ice cream out of it, Yes, they dunked it in water.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Put you know more, I can give it to somebody.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Else, similar to how lemonade or dairy would be served
from a cup that was reused. There were definitely vectors
for infection. There was a thing that happened that was
very good for candy corn, and it was the evolution
of Halloween the way it's currently celebrated in the United States.
(26:51):
As as candy becomes increasingly associated with Halloween in the
nineteen fifties, candy corn, I would argue, also, tutsi rolls
increasingly become a convenient giveaway candy for Halloween. But it
may be a chicken feed versus the egg.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
A Yes, I like a robin egg that's sort of
like just a multicolored whopper. Really, I go, that doesn't
have chocolate on the outset. It's more of a thin
candy shell. But yeah, According to Samara Kuwash in her
book on the History of Candy, there's a quote here
There was a dramatic spike in October advertising of candy
corn starting in the late nineteen fifties, which began to
(27:34):
really cement the candy as being associated with Halloween. I
don't know. I guess it makes sense because of fall
kind of stuff and like corn mazes and you know,
scarecrows and all of that. So I guess it was
a convenient tie in, even if it wasn't necessarily envisioned
that way in the first place. Right for sure.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Yeah, there's something a tumnul about it. That's always been
an association with candy corn, and go like staying with
little here for a moment, Little notes. The National Confectioners
Association estimates more than thirty five million pounds of this
candy candy corn are sold every year. The sales do
(28:16):
seem to be pretty seasonal. It's most popular in October,
but you can also get candy corn any old time
of the year, even on February twenty ninth, even on
what was that month that got put in and taken
out Mercediusdonia, Mercedonius. Even on Mercedonius, if they bring Mercedonius back,
(28:39):
you can get candy corn.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
That's right then it's still sold in bulk, you know,
giant bulky bags. Max found a fun little article from
Pinterest on the proper way to eat candy corn. It
starts with open bag, pour candy into trash, eat Arese's
peanut butter cup, and I couldn't agree more. And you know,
and to your point better about how this stuff is
still around. There is even a special day designated for
(29:06):
those who love candy corn. It is October thirtieth National
Candy Corn Day. Seem Live is a national day for
just about everything.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Yeah, yeah, but not almond joys. Hold the phote or
hold the Halloween bag. This turned into a two parter
because it turns out, as we said at the top,
Noel Max, we have a lot of opinions about candy.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
It does seem to get people's danders up. Yeah, people
have hot takes on candy and we are right there
with you. So join us for part two coming up
this very week.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Big big thanks to super producer research associate mister Max Williams.
Big thanks to Alex Williams, the composer of this track.
And then who else? How do we want to reference
Jonathan Strickland today?
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Oh geeze what did you say earlier? Max, He's like
the Grimace of the of the Ridiculous Universe. He's a
human taste Bud.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
The circus peanut of our hearts.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Perhaps I don't hate a circus peanut.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
No, no, you know, I mean because it's like a
marshmallow basis.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
It's the little marshmallow. You know what I really like, guys,
my favorite candy of all various gummies, specifically the ones
that have like that are shaped like animals and have
little marshmallowy tummies, like the gummy sharks or gummy frogs.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
I love. I love a good gummy and love it
so much. Fellow Ridiculous Historians that you have tuned in
with us, please join us later this week when we
dive into part two of Strange Halloween Candy. I don't
even want to call it awful, you know, I don't
want to go.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Oh, strange is good. Yeah, and uh, we'll see a
nice time Fox. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or where ever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Who's that knocking on your door? Trick
or treating?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Why?
Speaker 1 (00:35):
It's us with our super producer, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Who's that girl? La? La La? It's Max Williams. Who's
that Max? Two hands Williams haven't? That's right? You were
a hand down.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
I got cleared by the orthopedic surgeon yesterday to begin
weightlifting again.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
All right, that's no old brack, your swollen state, that's
no brown.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I'm Ben Bowlin. Sad news for you. Max, you're also
our research associate on this episode. That's not the sad news.
The sad news is I went through a phase where
I wrote nicknames for all our co workers and Matt
Twohans Frederick.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yeah, but I mean since he's my work big brother,
so I think we'd share, like you know, nicknames.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
That's not nicknames. It's a little confusing. We might have
to workshop this one, Max.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Well, let's workshop Candy, because cast your memories back. Fellow
Ridiculous Historians. We are a very pro Halloween bunch, and
we had a lot of opinions about Halloween candy in
a previous episode, and I don't know whether we'll play
a clip or not, but in classic ridiculous history fashion,
(01:53):
far after that conversation during Halloween, we are returning to
you with some opinions about candy. Now, to be fair,
we are a history show, so we will explore history
of candy. But we just want you to know going
into this.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
We get a lot of hot takes nostalgia candy. The
nostalgia candy scene is rife with garbage candy, although there's
there's a few gems you know, hidden within the rough, right,
isn't that how it goes? Can I tell you guys that?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
So we started writing this brief back last year, and
around that time I bought my dad an entire this
is the only wee you can buy neck A wafers
now like wafers, the chocolate, the selection and a shirt.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
It was like one hundred dollars. He loved it. He's
beyond like happy about it.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
But it's like, man, I would have the father, who
was a passionate defender of neck A wafers and.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Grape necko wafers to me to strike me as like
wartime candy. Yeah, like they're Halloween hard tags.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
And I just want to point out that we are
going to talk about a candy today that was both
a depression era and a wartime rationing candy.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah, literally in their history. So it's true. Yeah, and
that's why they stick around. It also reminds me for
our friends further south, it reminds me of the Ansac cookies,
the Australian biscuits a n Zac those tooth on those Yeah,
those are a result of wartime stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
You know.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
It's the thing. It's the thing about candy. There is
such a panopoly of possibility. Generally, even people who don't
consider themselves as folks with a sweet tooth, they'll have
one candy. And to your point, Nol, it's often nostalgia related, right,
It's like I ate whoppers the first time I saw
(03:55):
a movie that I loved. So I don't eat candy,
but I do have an exception for whoppers. I suggest
we begin with Tutsie rules, as are as our pal
Max introduces it. Here's the question, have you ever looked
at your cat's turts and thought what if that was chewy?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Or oh wow? Yeah? No, but I do have to
take issue with something that Max wrote in his jury
here that we sort of repassed. You think kit Kat, reseason,
Almond Joy or bad candy?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
I'm saying, if you or you buy the variety of Pivo,
you get the kit Casts, you get the Receeds, which
are a plus candies, and you get an Almond Joy,
which is just trash candy.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
No, that's what I'm saying. That's my favorite candy.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Are you serious?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
I love Almond Joy?
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Did you read the next sentence that said you were
one of the seven people who are getting bad about this?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Anyway, I'm mad, and I also like Receas is considerable
as a beloved candy. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Well, that's what you say, but shout out, shout out
to Shang Weng who has an excellent piece about almonds
versus mounds. What's your allmon joy versus bounds. What's your
mounds opinion?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Well, allmon Joys have nuts and mounds don't, right, So
sometimes you feel like and usually I feel like a nut.
When I don't, I eat some other candy that's not mounds.
Mounds is darker chocolate too. I don't know, man, people
have really strong opinions about shredded coconut, And I don't
know if you know this. You know, there's some surgeries
(05:25):
that people get. I believe it's I forget the name
of it, but it's when you get your stomach reduced
in size some people that have trouble with weight gain
and it's a procedure that can be done to literally
decrease the size of your stomach, and there's some kind
of suture or staples or whatever that stay in there forever.
That shredded coconut can literally shred So people that have
(05:45):
these procedures they are no longer allowed to eat shredded
coconut of any variety for the rest of their lives,
which it sounds like you guys would be fine.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
With gastric staplings. That's the one. Yeah, there's now clearly,
as we're going into it, there is one candy which
is obviously the worst candy bar, and that is the
zero bar. We're not going to talk about the zero
bar because that would be like platforming terrorism. We just
need you to know that we are aware of that
(06:15):
war crime on the mouth man.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Such strong opinions about I haven't had one in years.
I think, what is it? It's basically nugat wrapped in
white chocolate. Are there some almonds in there? There's some
kind of crunchy nut.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Peanut and almond nugat covered with white fudge.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Which is weird because just like an improvised explosive device,
those ingredients on their own are harmless, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
When weaponized in the form of a weaponized well. And
then the question then arises too, I mean, if certain
some of these candies are so hated, why are they
still manufactured? You can still see the Zero bar is
right there on the candy aisle. It's your local convenient
in store gas station, right next to the Hits. It's
(07:02):
been around for one hundred and four years.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Well, thankfully with dust on them, that's how you'll see
them on the shelf. And that's I think a good
thing for America. But we're not talking about the Zero.
We don't want a platform that terrible stuff. There's a
lot of good candy out there. Opinions differ on the
candy known as the Tutsie Roll.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Hate them You're not a tousy boy? Oh no, no,
My girlfriend really likes them a lot. But I just
I don't like the texture of them. I don't like
the way they get stuck in your teeth. Yeah, they
do resemble cat turns, there's no question about that. I
(07:45):
just find them patently unpleasant.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
So let's go to kat Eshner from writing for Waters Smithsonian,
who gives us a bit of the history.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Here.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
On the twenty third of February eighteen ninety six, Leo
Hirshfield opened a shop in New York City. He's originally
an Austrian national. And I got a pause here because
I know this story from a thing called Stuff of
Genius that we did many years ago of video series
on YouTube. Yeah, all right, So here's the idea. He
(08:18):
is working our buddy Leo in this shop and he
invents the Tutsi role for one reason or another, and
then it becomes very popular. It's like it's got a
wax like texture. Some people like it, some people don't.
It's not quite gum. It's definitely not you know, like
a Hershey kiss or something. But at this point New
(08:43):
York goes crazy for it. They want the little Tutsi
roll snacks. And I think the first flavor was only chocolate,
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
I believe. Yeah, that's certainly the classic tutsi role, and
they have there are fruit fruits adjacent flavored tootsi rolls.
There's the one that resemble like kind of what Et
looked like at the end of the movie when he
sort of shriveled up and turned white and kind of
looked like a cat turn that have been left out
for quite a few days and dried out. There's definitely
those as well. What other varietals of tutsi rolls are
(09:15):
out there?
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Vanilla? Okay, Yeah, there are a couple of I want
to say, for a short time, they had the potential
to become like kit cats in Japan. Every time I
have to go, yeah, I pick up a ton of
kit cats because they're in KitKat flavors in Japan are
are are amazing because they are very much not one
(09:41):
to one palette comparisons. You can get kit cats that
are ocean wave flavored or like.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
What does that daste like?
Speaker 1 (09:50):
They're very Miyazaki, you know, like there's I'm sure there's
a kit Cat out there named a Dream I Had
or something like that. But with boy Hirshfield, after he
invents the Tutsi roll, he merges with an outfit called
Stern and Solberg to get scale of economy, to make
(10:12):
more Tutsi rolls, and to bring them to more places.
There's a side note here involving Star Wars.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Right, there's an advertisement for something called The Empire Strips Back,
which I believe is a Star Wars themed burlesque show
that just recently I passed through Atlanta. I believe a
friend of the show, Nick Benson, Nick Admiral Turbo Benson
wentz and said it was quite quite a hullabaloo featuring
stormtroopers something called Twilex Twilex. I'm not familiar with the
(10:46):
Star Wars creature, Boba Fetts. You think they would have
given them more risque names. The image associated with the
ad featured a very sexy job of the hut being
quite risque.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Risque.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yeah, well, what has this to do with the episode,
you might ask this.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yeah, nothing, It has nothing to do with it other
than us sharing the specific types of targeted ads are
paled max is getting.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I thought the Star Wars universe has bad candy made
from that blue milk. Perhaps, well, the Tutsi role everybody
in the West recognizes it. When it started it solved
to problems. It didn't melt, and it was individually wrapped.
And this was a huge, huge deal because if you
(11:32):
are a Wonka esque or Charlie and the chocolate factory
esque candy man shout out to the candyman, can would
you would try to sell a lot of candy, and
a lot of your candy was very temperature sensitive. So
a hot summer, when most people are going to be
out perhaps impulsively buying candy a hot summer can be
(11:56):
dangerous for things like marshmallows, which are also trash. Chocolate
also has a problem just chemically. In very hot weather,
it can turn into a sticky mass, the texture can change.
So Samira Kawash, who also authored a history of candy,
(12:17):
puts it this way. The genius of Tutsi roll was
to create a summer candy that was a flavor never
before seen in summer candies, the flavor of chocolate, because
you just couldn't get it at that time. Yeah, I
guess that's sort of chocolate, the way like diet coke
tastes like coke. I mean, it doesn't taste like diety.
It's definitely sweet, but it's I don't know, I wouldn't
(12:40):
describe it as being particularly accurate in its chocolate flavor.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
A third advantage is that it was really affordable, right,
This is kind of like penny candy.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
That's right. And then enter let's combine two things that
people apparently love at the time, which is this this
sutsy role and a lollipop. Boom bang bam, you got
yourself a Tutsi pop? How many licks does it take
to get to the center? The world may never know?
Ask mister Awl. You guys remember that classic ad. They
played it well into the nineties. This is the same one,
(13:16):
which I really respect, you know, because again they're playing
on the nostalgia and they know their brand.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Yeah, how many licks does it take to get to
the center of a Tutsi pop? A question that I
think there was actually a one or two scientific endeavors
to find the answer, which we're not going to quote today,
but let us know how many licks it takes you.
(13:43):
This is where the war comes in that Max teased
Sue Astuteley. So the Tutsi pop comes along in the
nineteen thirties. It is a It's one of the candies
that succeeds during the Great Depression, and when the US
goes to World War Two, the Tutsi role goes along
(14:04):
as well. I want to shout out our earlier episode
on chocolate science in war, which was pretty much banger.
So the Tutsi role is associated with wartime rationing and
the depression in some form and after the war. Now
as veterans are returning to the US, it becomes even
(14:28):
more popular because now it is hitting that nostalgia switch.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Have you guys seen the Japanese anime film Grave of
the Fireflies. Yes, it's a very harrowing tale, as you
guys know, anyone out there the audience who hasn't seen it,
very harrowing World War two tail told from the perspective
of a young boy and his sister who are kind
of traversing the nuclear decimated wasteland of Japan. And there
(14:58):
is a candy tie in. It's basically a ration type candy.
They're called Sakuma drops, and it's a really tragic thing
where they end up starving and all they have are
these little kind of hard candy drops. And you can
still buy these if you go to a grocery like
a Japanese or Asian market and they're branded with Grave
(15:19):
of the Firefly's imagery, which I think is the weirdest
branding tie in because it is a plot point in
the movie that will break your heart and it comes
in this like ten you know, And I actually have
one that I just keep on my mantle as like
a little curio or whatever. But I just thought that
was such an odd choice to tie in such a
depressing film to your brand.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Nostalgia is I guess that drug? Yeah, yeah, that's true.
And right now again, according to that awesome article, Tutsi
Rules were WW two energy bars from Kat Eshner. According
to that article, which is pretty recent from twenty seventeen,
right now, thirteen point eight percent of Americans hate Tutsi roles,
(16:02):
or I should say they did in twenty seventeen. So
is the candy still popular?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I would say yes, Ben weren't there at the time.
Maybe I'm misremembering, but like some of those ration kind
of mre situations, didn't they sometimes include a little Tutsi role.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Yeah, because they stayed fresh.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
They stayed fresh, and they're calorically dense, like we were
talking on our other show, stuff that I want you
to know about. Or maybe it wasn't on the show,
but it was a conversation we were having with a
co host, Matt that in a apocalyptic or you know
what's the word kind of bunker type situation, peanut butter
is really great to have because of its caloric density.
So the same deal with this stuff. And it also
(16:42):
keeps packs a lot of punch colorically into a little
tiny wax paper package.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah, and if you go on the tutsi roll website today,
according to mashed dot com, you will find that there
are sixty four million tiny little tutsi rolls reduced every
single day. They also walk through some pretty interesting statistics, right,
so let's.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Break down the math. The company produced sixty four million
candies a day, which averages to forty four four hundred
and forty every minute, seven hundred and forty every second.
Kind of mind boggling. I'd love to see how it's
made about the tutsi roll process because, like, you know,
just how how did they get each one wrapped so perfectly?
(17:28):
They must have a machine that twists the ends like that.
I'd love to see that assembly line in action. Massive scale.
Can only imagine.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yeah, seven hundred and forty separate individually wrapped tutsi rolls
every second. I guess it takes the longer to wrap them.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
It must ben, do you think, And I guess you
know what, I bet. I bet they're created as giant
logs that are then cut chopped, you know, like by
some massive machine, like all at the same time. But
do you think that it's tutsi rolls that are kind
of responsible for the individually packaged candy craze? Because there
are some individually packaged candies that are so small, like egregious,
(18:04):
you know, like gummies. You can find now that each
little tiny gummy has its own little plastic packaging.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
You know, I would kind of like to do an
episode about packaging. It's just such a it's a fascinating thing.
It may be its own podcast, sure, but tutsi roles,
at least in the West, were pretty early into the
individually packaged concept, you know. And now there's what a
estimated twenty three billion tutsi rolls made a year individually packaged.
(18:37):
Is pretty wild, and you know, interesting news for the
slightly less than fourteen percent of Americans who don't care
for tutsi roles. Other people like them very positive about it.
I'm one of those people, you know, if I don't know, man,
candy is so weird, like we have.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Can I make something?
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:58):
I actually like tutsi rolls. I'll put them in here first.
One on the write up.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I like it's nostalgia though, because you know, if you
grow up in like a public school environment, toutsi rolls
often end up being something you get on like Valentine's Day,
teachers give them his treats and so on.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
I really like Bito Honey, which has a very similar
texture to tutsi rolls, but a lovely honey nut kind
of flavor. So to me, it's not the texture that
Touzzy rolls that throws me off. It's just the kind
of faux chocolate flavor of it, but love a Bido honey.
Also there's another what was it called like something Jane
Mary Jane's. That's another like nostalgia candy that's very similar
(19:38):
to Bito Honey.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
There was one I still remember. Oh. It was like,
oh gosh, it's going to come back to me at
the weirdest moment. It's not a butterfinger, but it was
like it came on a stick and it was like
a little chocolatey caramel e.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Turd I was talking about. It was something daddy, sugar daddy,
sugar daddy, because then there's sugar babies and that was related.
But the sugar daddy comes on a stick.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
What's your opinion on candy corn, you guys.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Oh god, I hope we're aligned on this. I just
think it's the devil's candy.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
You're probably familiar with candy corn folks. It's the thing
that looks like little loose.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Teeth get of sugar, exactly, a little loose vampire fangs,
kind of with a orange and red and white. Maybe
not red, but there's three colors. Maybe it goes orange, white, orange,
but definitely got a repeating pattern and of course a
fun way to make variations. Because there are some festive
looking candy corns. I put them in the same category
(20:50):
as those weird little pumpkin things. They just taste like
sugary wax to me and just get stuck in your teeth.
Once again. I think they're cute for decoration, though, you know,
to fill out perhaps a bit of a Halloween cornucopia spread,
or to the point made here in the research document,
Thanksgiving cornucopia spread of candy, although we don't really associate
(21:14):
Thanksgiving with candy as much as we do with like
gluttony and pies.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
And it's actually it's tough to it's tough to find
the providence where the ultimate origin story of candy corn.
But from what we know it came around sometime in
the eighteen seventies eighteen eighties. The technology to make this
kind of stuff, I would argue, was already sort of
descending from things like marzipan, right where you use an
(21:43):
almond paste to create different shapes. Companies at this time
were all about taking conventional, easily accessible agricultural products and
using them as a flavor. I wouldn't even say a
flavor base, a flavor inspiration for different things. They would
(22:06):
they would shape like chestnut candy is still pretty popular
in different.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Nuts to the worst nut candy. Oh, yeah, you know what,
maybe I have seen we were talking earlier about the
various varieties of Japanese kit cat. I want to say
I've seen a chestnut flavored kit cat, you know, at
Super h Mart before.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
But I could probably you've probably seen it. Yeah, chestnut
flavor for different things is pretty popular in East Asia?
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Got it? And I gotta say, just putting it out there,
I'm a big Marzapan fan, but for me, that's its
own kind of nostalgia because, as you all know, I
was once a small German boy and Marzapan is huge
in Germany. There was a candy that my parents would
give me for Christmas in my stocking every year called
Mozart Cougod and their chocolated in case balls of Marsupan
(22:55):
with kind of like a liquor y kind of chocolate filling.
I guess they cook it off, but I remember them
tasting quite boozy. But it was sort of a tradition
that I would get Mozart Coogan in my stocking every year.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
And Becky Little, writing for history dot Com with the
article who Invented Candycorn dives into this strange, somewhat obscure
origin story. She posits that a guy named George Renneger
worked at a place called the Vnderlay Candy Company, and
(23:29):
he is generally going to be cited as the creator
of candycorn because while he was working at this company,
Thunderley became the first outfit to sell this stuff. And
just to be clear, everybody, candy corn is mainly sugar
and corn syrup. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
You know, it's interesting. I was just looking at Yes,
I was just looking to go back a little further,
wondering like, what was the first documented suite and it
actually zembles a lot of the kinds of candies we're
talking about today. It was, of course the ancient Egyptians
as well as folks in the Middle East and in China,
where they combined fruits and nuts, often caramelizing them inside honey.
(24:16):
And you know, they also created early versions of licorice
and kind of ginger candies. But we do see things
that are very that kind of almost preserved, you know,
chunky stuff within a kind of you know, medium of
sort of honeyed kind of gooiness. So not not like
(24:36):
candy corn, a little more like the bido honey and
the tussy rolls that we're talking about, or even things
like fruitcake. But I digress. I just wanted to quickly
just take us into the past.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
However, it was the Golitz Candy Company now going by
the name Jelly Belly Candy Company. Ah, they made candy
corn successful. They hit the economy of scale in eighteen
ninety eight. They snagged the recipe and they started selling
these little you know, sugar and corn syrup burst of
(25:10):
a burst of sweet as a candy that they originally
called chicken feed. But it makes sense. It makes sense
at the time because many more people were part of
the agricultural industry. So it's kind of like how you
will sell pretend kitchen goods to children. You know, you're
(25:32):
oshkosh b gosh toast raven and so on.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Easy bake oven and all that. Right, right, So fast
forward a little bit to the early nineteen hundreds when
candy corner really took off because much like the humble Titzzerole,
it was very very cheap to buy and to produce
and was another member of the family we know as
Penny candy. And I don't know if y'all remember, I'm
sure you do, the idea of a penny lick when
(25:58):
we refer when we did a history of ice cream
or frozen treats, that you would like it would be
a kind of a community spoon you'd play, you pay
a penny and you'd get a lick of the spoon,
or it was like a shared popsicle or something. And
I believe it actually spread disease pretty significantly back in
the heyday of the penny lick.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yeah, it was a glass. People had, like a couple
of glasses. So after you were done licking all the
ice cream out of it, Yes, they dunked it in water.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Put you know more, I can give it to somebody.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Else, similar to how lemonade or dairy would be served
from a cup that was reused. There were definitely vectors
for infection. There was a thing that happened that was
very good for candy corn, and it was the evolution
of Halloween the way it's currently celebrated in the United States.
(26:51):
As as candy becomes increasingly associated with Halloween in the
nineteen fifties, candy corn, I would argue, also, tutsi rolls
increasingly become a convenient giveaway candy for Halloween. But it
may be a chicken feed versus the egg.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
A Yes, I like a robin egg that's sort of
like just a multicolored whopper. Really, I go, that doesn't
have chocolate on the outset. It's more of a thin
candy shell. But yeah, According to Samara Kuwash in her
book on the History of Candy, there's a quote here
There was a dramatic spike in October advertising of candy
corn starting in the late nineteen fifties, which began to
(27:34):
really cement the candy as being associated with Halloween. I
don't know. I guess it makes sense because of fall
kind of stuff and like corn mazes and you know,
scarecrows and all of that. So I guess it was
a convenient tie in, even if it wasn't necessarily envisioned
that way in the first place. Right for sure.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Yeah, there's something a tumnul about it. That's always been
an association with candy corn, and go like staying with
little here for a moment, Little notes. The National Confectioners
Association estimates more than thirty five million pounds of this
candy candy corn are sold every year. The sales do
(28:16):
seem to be pretty seasonal. It's most popular in October,
but you can also get candy corn any old time
of the year, even on February twenty ninth, even on
what was that month that got put in and taken
out Mercediusdonia, Mercedonius. Even on Mercedonius, if they bring Mercedonius back,
(28:39):
you can get candy corn.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
That's right then it's still sold in bulk, you know,
giant bulky bags. Max found a fun little article from
Pinterest on the proper way to eat candy corn. It
starts with open bag, pour candy into trash, eat Arese's
peanut butter cup, and I couldn't agree more. And you know,
and to your point better about how this stuff is
still around. There is even a special day designated for
(29:06):
those who love candy corn. It is October thirtieth National
Candy Corn Day. Seem Live is a national day for
just about everything.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Yeah, yeah, but not almond joys. Hold the phote or
hold the Halloween bag. This turned into a two parter
because it turns out, as we said at the top,
Noel Max, we have a lot of opinions about candy.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
It does seem to get people's danders up. Yeah, people
have hot takes on candy and we are right there
with you. So join us for part two coming up
this very week.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Big big thanks to super producer research associate mister Max Williams.
Big thanks to Alex Williams, the composer of this track.
And then who else? How do we want to reference
Jonathan Strickland today?
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Oh geeze what did you say earlier? Max, He's like
the Grimace of the of the Ridiculous Universe. He's a
human taste Bud.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
The circus peanut of our hearts.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Perhaps I don't hate a circus peanut.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
No, no, you know, I mean because it's like a
marshmallow basis.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
It's the little marshmallow. You know what I really like, guys,
my favorite candy of all various gummies, specifically the ones
that have like that are shaped like animals and have
little marshmallowy tummies, like the gummy sharks or gummy frogs.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
I love. I love a good gummy and love it
so much. Fellow Ridiculous Historians that you have tuned in
with us, please join us later this week when we
dive into part two of Strange Halloween Candy. I don't
even want to call it awful, you know, I don't
want to go.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Oh, strange is good. Yeah, and uh, we'll see a
nice time Fox. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or where ever you listen to
your favorite shows.
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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