I want candy, bubble gum or taffy...
If you don't give me some candy, I will make the ladies sing! (Mess up the mix.)
No one gets that reference, Dootsie.
Candy feels like an absolutely non-negotiable, essential part of Halloween for us living in the year 2000. But once upon a time, candy was, like, real hard to get ahold of and kinda expensive. So much so that you certainly weren’t going to just hand it out the door to whatever child wandered by. (Much like drugs today. Nobody’s wasting quality edibles on your kid, Deborah.)
In days of yore, people simply baked up treats that were given out on Halloween (or whatever Halloween-like holiday folks were celebrating). Their sweetness would’ve come from dried fruits or honey rather than sugar – if they were sweet at all.
When candy making technology made certain sweets more common in corner stores, they were still kinda not-great. Like, Necco wafers were first produced in 1847 if that gives you any idea of what we’re workin’ with here. Fortunately, closer to the turn of the century, more actually-sweet candies were becoming popular, including caramels.
But the game really changed (at least in the United States) when a fella named Milton established his business in Derry Church, Pennsylvania and took a gamble on mass-producing chocolate. When he introduced the Hershey’s Kiss in 1907, Halloween candy was more or less revolutionized.
Caramel still was very much on-trend, but peanuts really stepped up to the plate (ha) as a snack. So the Baby Ruth bar made the best of chocolate, nougat, caramel and nuts for a treat that truly took off. This trend also led to Butterfingers and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups within the decade.
The Depression may have played a part in the candy trend of the 1930s: two (or three or four)-in-one bars, like the Sky Bar. If you’ve ever eaten one, you know that it tastes like it’s been sitting around since the Depression (it’s a Necco product, so like. Huge shock.) But it gave buyers the illusion of value, giving parents a perfectly valid excuse to divvy one candybar up among the family, thus stretching their money. TBH, this is one trend I hate.
Hershey wasn’t to be outdone; they debuted M&Ms in 1941, which just so happened to be the perfect candy for troops fighting in WWII; they also sent heat-proofed Hershey Bars overseas, cementing the Hershey Company as America’s candy. With the Baby Boom came a sense of nostalgia; people wanted the corner shop penny candy experience, so many of the decade’s most popular sweets were individually wrapped candies. The 1960s brought psychedelic colors (big advances in printing tech, you know) and fairly psychedelic flavors, to boot; this was the decade of ridiculously sweet treats like Pixie Stix (which actually debuted in the 1940s) and the much-maligned Now & Later (1962).
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) gave candy a big boost to sweets with a sense of whimsy, like Pop Rocks (1975), Blow Pops (1973) and Laffy Taffy (1971); of course, Gobstoppers (1976) were out there, too. Many of the candies of the 1980s were very chewy, like Jelly Belly (thanks, Reagan), Big League Chew, Skittles and Sour Patch Kids. The 1990s were something of a free-for-all of sugary candies, like the ultra-sour Warheads, Baby Bottle Pops, Jolly Ranchers.
The 2000s and subsequent decades (I shudder) didn’t bring us many iconic candies. Why? Candy manufacturers got smart; why innovate something totally new when you can iterate something old? And I’m a sucker for the limited seasonal releases of Kisses and M&Ms! Sure, some new candies have been released, and some sneak in as trends (lookin’ at you, Hi-Chew) but for the most part, it’s just new ways of enjoying the same ol’ thing… and honestly, with the state of the world, we all need the balm of nostalgia.
All of this to get to a poll…