September 18, 2004:
Gotta love these mixed bags of fun-sized Nestle candy bars. Actually, I'm not a fan of a single one of the many included varieties; I rarely if ever deviated from my Holy Chocolate Trilogy of Twix, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Snickers. Kit-Kat bars were sort of an unspoken fourth member of the club. I hated most every other candy bar and still do, and Nestle seems to have known that there were so many of us unwilling to accept Crunch bars as something worth getting fat over. They knew they were fighting an uphill battle, so they busted out the coolest packaging ever given to Halloween candy. Featuring triple old school eerie fonts and awesome classic horror images, these were the kind of candy bags that made you stand silent and still in Aisle 4 for a good ten minutes, your mind trying to process the newly delivered fact that the coolest thing you'd ever seen was the packaging for a pile of Nestle candy bars. This new fact doesn't make you feel proud. It does, for whatever reason, really put you in the mood for scampi.
There's two (well, at least two) different assortments; "Classic Scream" contains such iconic moviegoing fare as Raisinettes, "Ultimate Scream" packing the stadiums with enough Butterfinger bars to make people think you'd pass any kind of Simpsons Butterfinger commercial trivia quiz they could throw at you. The candy inside is unsuited for the ghoulish black bags, a downside easily rectifiable by emptying the candy into another containing and filling the bag with...
Human. Body. Parts.
In Universal Studios Golden Age style, Dracula and Frankenstein host the two assortments with style and grace and death. The bags are pretty expensive, each retailing for more than double what most candy bar bags cost. I'm not giving you a number because I want it to be a surprise. From a purely placebo psychosomatic something or other standpoint, I must consider the "Ultimate Scream" the more appealing of the two. You see it sitting there next to a beautiful bag of "Classic Scream" candies, so you figure that the "ultimate" version has to be like the best bag of Halloween candy a person can ever find. It's an unfair way to judge, but kid, life isn't fair.
So much candy. You're really providing a service if you buy both bags and dish out the classic ultimate variety platter when trick-or-treaters arrive. I always hated houses who'd only offer you one candy, let's say a Baby Ruth, never once considering the very easily guessed upon fact that not everyone in the neighborhood likes Baby Ruth. It's standard practice to keep at least two different kinds of candy in stock on Halloween, but honestly...that's the bare minimum. The best houses were the ones who gave you more options than you could inspect in the ten seconds you spent on their porches. Halloween is supposed to let beggars be choosers. It's the only time the old saying doesn't apply. You fill those hand-shit-out plastic pumpkins with eight different kids of candy, and your car's one of the few on the block granted complete immunity from the Midnight Eggings. They're a band from Detroit. A sucky one.
That's right -- eight kinds of candy. Nothing too fall-down fantastic, but it's fairly impressive to get such varied resources from two bags of candy. Now I completely understand why Nestle demands 35 bucks a bag. I felt it my duty to single out and review each of these bastards, a mission I will spend 2.5 minutes on while watching television simultaneously.
Believe it or not, I never knew Goobers were chocolate-covered peanuts until I got these bags. Always assumed they were a less cherished version of Raisinettes, a candy I hate with the fire of sixteen suns all sixteen sizes bigger than the sun we call our own. Goobers aren't exactly gourmet treats, but at least they're not insinuating that chocolate and raisins belong together. I know my opinion isn't popular; it's not my fault you people are all freaks. In the great battle between Goobers and Raisinettes, the rabbit turds of Snack Village, my money's on the former. Peanuts > Raisins. That little ">" thing is a knife. The peanuts are killing the raisins.
I just read something about how Babe Ruth's daughter spent most of her life not collecting royalties for shit named after her father, but now she's a millionaire from doing just that. Does "Baby Ruth" get a pass because of the one-letter change? I hope not. It's interesting to envision Babe Ruth's daughter making ka-ching sounds every time a store orders more Baby Ruth bars. And that's what I think about the candy.
The Nestle's Crunch bars are the smallest of the lot. It's like they're trying to say, "Crunch bars are so much better than everything else we put out, we can get away with giving you 1/3rd of the standard amount." The reality is, Crunch bars aren't that good, and 10:1, that's all you'll find in the leftovers pile after the last trick-or-treater gets ganked inside by Mad Dad for staying out too late. And you'll probably keep them till Easter.
After all of the Simpsons commercials, I really, really, really wanted to get into Butterfinger bars. They'd become chic and outrageous. Sadly, I could never accomplish this goal, always gagging at the first sense that I'd just bitten into a combination of dried sandworm and general lumber. Oily to the core and always crumbling, I've never admitted my inner hatred for Butterfinger bars until this very moment. Now I feel so free; I can breathe again.
Oh Henry! O Henry, you look like the kid of the fake shit candy bar from Caddyshack. Your father did awesome work.
Those 100 Grand bars taste great, but they look like a cross between a swarm of beetles and Stripe's back after he jumps into the pool in Gremlins. And the candy's name reminds me of Payday bars, which is almost totally nuts.
I'm still gonna go with 100 Grand as my personal favorite of the eight, with Raisinettes and Nestle's Crunch tied for last. Everything else is on soulless middle ground. Thumbs up to the Classic Scream and Ultimate Scream candy assortments, doing Halloween justice and making me pray for red and yellow leaves in the morning. Good show.
- Matt (9/18/04)
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