But this is Halloween (or was). On Halloween the tables are turned, black is white and - as I remember it at least, if you don’t come up with the ‘treats’ you have only yourself to blame for what happens next.
What used to happen – if you didn’t treat the tricksters well, was that your house might be ‘TPd’ (toilet papered), or your car egged, or some other relatively harmless but clearly punitive measures taken.
So what are we going to do with the folks who give out pretzels – you know who you are! I am sure you rationalize that you have the dental health of the children in mind – but that’s no excuse.
And what to do with those who dispense obviously dated, stale, job lot candy? These are certainly tough economic times, but there are other options available: inexpensive hard candies, homemade treats (popcorn balls).
Use your imagination!
And what about the folks that just close down early for the night: shut off the lights, skulk around their homes, pretending they’ve gone out?
Or just as evil – in my book, those that can’t be bothered to greet the ghouls: leaving an unattended basket of candy with a note (Help Yourself).
What fate awaits these unsavory souls? It’s become a strangely popular, strangely tame holiday, hasn’t it? The numbers are up, but the fun is fading fast.
It’s become an industrial holiday of sorts – like all the others: a holiday that has lost its roots. I guess it just can’t compare with Hollywood’s horrific realism, or even with the Nightly News. We hear of so many horrors these days – in such gruesome detail, that I suppose that Halloween just can’t compete.
Certainly the little candy companies can’t compete – with the big boys that is.
My annual candy count confirms that Halloween has become a kind of clearance sale for the big three confection companies: Hershey’s, Nestles, and Mars.
Unless you’re earning a few billion a year, the other candy companies can’t afford to cut their prices low enough to match the mass marketed confections of these three global sweeties.
So – though most of the old brands are available online for their diehard fans, the wide variety of unique confections that used to be handed out on All Hallow’s Eve, has dwindled down to a handful of mass-marketed mouthfuls.
Off the top of my head (while my hands sift through the bootie collected by my son) I can think of dozens of spook night staples that in recent years have – dramatic pause, disappeared!
- Sugar Daddy – and his kids the Sugar Babies, have melted away.
- Clark Bar and his cartoon co-star Zagnut have had their series cancelled.
- Boston Baked Beans (that lovely burnt flavor), Chuckles, Walnettos, and Rolo are not part of the food pyramid in these parts anymore.
- Mr. Goodbar, Milky Way, Mallo Cup, and Moon Pie are missing in action.
- Atomic Fireballs, Charleston Chews, Mary Janes and.. what were they called: oh yeah, Whatchamacallits, have dropped out of sight.
- Wax Lips, York, and Zotz are missing from the end of the all-sugar alphabet. And taking the place of all these unusual and unique candy creations is a remarkably homogenous and limited selection.
In the bloody butcher’s bag this year there were at least ten pieces of ten specific brands of candy, including 24 Hershey’s Chocolate bars, 10 Hershey’s Malted Milk Balls, 13 Hershey’s Kit Kats, and 15 Hershey’s Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
Here are this years’ unrefined numbers:
- Trickster: Patrick ‘Too Cool to Ghoul’ Mand
- Treat Area Covered: From Bay Farm Drive, to Sandra Way, Dorothy Drive, Maureen Drive, and down Justine Avenue.
- Costume: Deli Counter Butcher with Bloody Cleaver
- Elapsed Time: 3 Hours, 11 Minutes, 43 seconds
- Pounds of Candy Collected: 7.01
- Total Pieces: 216
- Residences Visited: 78
- Average Piece per Residence: 2.99
- Brand Leader: Hershey’s Chocolate Bar (24)
- Top Mfr: Hershey’s (73)
The total elapsed time – went up by a few minutes, but all of the other numbers were at record levels.
Average piece per residence visited went up dramatically- though a dear friend who dumped an entire basket of candy into our collectors’ bag may have been responsible for at least part of that increase.
The clearest trend was again, the move toward total corporate consolidation of the candy industry.
o 83% of collected candy (178/216 pieces) came from either Hershey’s (73), Nestles (71), or Mars (34).
A distant fourth again this year was Tootsie Roll, Inc., whose 9 pieces were comprised completely of the famous Tootsie Roll. Absent this year however, was that company’s ‘cool and refreshing’ Junior Mints.
Cadbury, the English confection giant – contributed only three items out of 216 – and not any of their famous milk chocolates (just two bags of Swedish Fish, and one of Sour Patch Kids).
The famous regional confection company now based in Revere – NECCO (New England Confection Company), was spotted only once: a half-opened half-roll of its historic wafers in such bad shape (soggy wafers) that they had to be immediately jettisoned.
There was again this year – as I noted earlier, one lonely bag of Utz Halloween Pretzels.
The Ohio-based confection company Spangler, was represented by a few Dum Dums.
And there were also two small rolls of Smarties – manufactured in Canada for the Ce De candy company of Union, New Jersey.
The only truly unusual treats that were discovered in Patrick’s bag this past Saturday night were: a box of “Monopoly” candy, and a ghoulish, edible necklace and charms from the Oriental Trading Company.
The necklace looked to be a tooth cracker, so we did not allow our trick or treater to try his luck on it. Still we were impressed with its purple and blue hard candy charms in the shape of a skull, a pumpkin, and a bat. Low marks for flavor – high marks for novelty.
And we were pleasantly perplexed at the existence and oddity of Monopoly candy – a small box which when opened turned out to contain a clear bag holding ten tiny race cars in blue, and ten tiny terriers in pink: allegedly edible versions of the Monopoly tokens used to mark your place on the game board.
Were we really supposed to eat these ‘tokens’? It was hard to tell. The box prominently declared that Hasbro had the copyright, that the candy itself was made in China, and that the Frankford Candy and Chocolate Company of Philadelphia was responsible for distributing this promotional confection. That was just more info than we could chew at one time, so these tokens too went into the trash.
That’s the 2009 Candy Count (and Commentary).
The numbers are up, the quality down – and the competition almost non-existent.
Beggars aren’t supposed to be choosers but remember – especially on Halloween, revenge is sweet!
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