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The 5 Crappiest and Greatest Halloween Treats


candycorn.jpgBy Brian Heiler

Halloween is beyond screwed up. Basically, it’s a night every year where we send children to strangers’ houses, where they are allowed to demand candy. And these strangers, rather than lock these children in their basements, actually give it to them! (Mostly.) Of course, children don’t worry about the dangers of sexual predators or their inevitable type 2 diabetes; instead, they only worry about what kind of candy will pour out of their sack after their night’s work is done. What did they get? How many candy bars? How much crap? Is their younger sister still stupid enough to trade her Smarties for their Bit-O-Honeys?

Yes, the Halloween trick or treat bag is filled with delicious highs and disgusting, mean-spirited lows each season. And whether you were trick-or-treating last year or several decades ago, the list of the candy that rocked and the candy that sucked has stayed remarkably the same. Today, we discuss both.

THE WORST:

5) Suckers
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There really isn?t anything wrong with a sucker, but there’s also nothing particularly right. It’s just generic hard candy on a stick?there’s a reason you get suckers at the doctor’s, when you get a haircut, when your mom goes to the bank, or any time an adult who isn’t your parent or guardian needs you to shut up and stop crying. You can’t possibly be excited by suckers at Halloween after receiving so many for so long. You only eat the suckers from your Halloween swag in late November, when your candy supply has dwindled to ?Donner Party? levels.

4) Candy Corn
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For reasons unknown, candy corn is one of the staples of Halloween, despite it tasting like stale wax with a slight sugar coating. It looks like the diseased teeth of a dragon that eats children. It is only given out to kids by the very elderly, who are still trying to tune into FDR’s fireside chats, or by twisted sadists who obviously hate children, because candy corn is fucking disgusting. Like magic?dark, evil magic?there has never been a piece of candy corn that tasted like it was made in the same decade it was consumed.

3) Pennies
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There was a time when getting a penny meant something. This was when a child could go on down to the general store and get eighteen Jimmies, a pack of Lucky Strikes and a fine pair of sock garters. However, times have changed, women can vote, socks just magically stay up and pennies are now just a copper burden on all of society. By giving them to children, you are simply telling them that you are too cheap to buy candy and wish to humiliate them by giving them the contents of your couch cushions. The sole item a child can buy with pennies is a package of matches, which hopefully they will use to start a fire on your property.

2) Apples
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Thanks to urban legends about our nation’s plethora of razor blades and psychos, nature?s candy has gotten a bum rap that will have most parents tossing out the most nutritious thing received on Halloween night. Of course, you?re a moron to give out apples in the first place; even the Amish know that they ?re bad hoodoo. Children likely started many of the rumors about razor blades, because nobody wants a friggin’ apple on Halloween.

1) Toothbrush
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There is nothing more passive-aggressive than giving out a freaking toothbrush on Halloween. If you?ve ever done it or are planning to, please punch yourself in the groin. The people who give out such things are also the same folks who bring you ?socks at Christmas? and the co-favorite ?school supplies on your fucking birthday.” Give these out, and know that the universe will eventually repay you?in the form of children egging and/or toilet-papering your house, hopefully.

The best is yet to come! Seriously, it’s on the next page.

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THE BEST:

5) McDonalds Gift Certificates
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What’s better than candy? Fast food. McDonalds gift certificates were more common in the past, when we used to blame fat children on their parents instead of society as a whole, but they’re still pretty sweet. Sure, you aren’t that thrilled when someone drops a few in your bag, but a few weeks later, when you’re able to get a Happy Meal and a Hot Apple Pie at the same time, you going to thank that dude in your bedtime prayers. These things are like junk food savings bonds.

4) Bags of Chips
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Nothing cleanses the pallet after having devoured several dozen mini-Snickers and Three Musketeers better than some greasy potato chips. Those tiny bags just give you the right amount of salt and delicious trans-fat to stop you from slipping in a diabetic coma…which in turn allows you to continue to eat more candy. Awesome! And there hasn’t been a psycho yet who bothered to put a razor blade in a bag of chips.

3) Tootsie Roll Pops and Blow Pops (tie)
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Now these suckers meant something. Both were huge?big enough to seriously hurt your younger sibling if you hurled it at them?so they were high on the quantity scale; and thanks to their second candies inside, high on the quality scale as well. Sure, Blow Pops had the traditionally better flavors?cherry, sour apple, blue raspberry?to go with gum, but for many kids, that switch from a fruit-flavored sucker to the chocolate center of a Tootsie Roll Pop was like a gourmet experience. Hard orange candy and chocolate Tootsie roll? The textures, the flavors?they blend so well!

2) Reese?s Cups
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Small. Single. Multi-pack. Big. Mini. All Reese’s Cups are all awesome, all the time. There’s reason why people say things go together “like peanut butter and chocolate,” and that’s because peanut butter and chocolate is awesome. There was also a decent chance you could actually sell the Reese’s Cups to your parents and make a nice little profit.

1) Full-Sized Candy Bars
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Most Halloween candy is made up of small versions of traditional candy bars?the 2 1/2-inch ones?or the minis, which are just an inch. Both are fine. More than adequate, really. But sometimes, when you’re out walking on Halloween night, you see a few kids run past you to a house up ahead. Then a few more. And then you run, because you know?you know?that there is great shit being given out at that house. And ithere, an upper-middle-class couple with no kids and no real concept of Halloween is handing out full-sized candy bars.

This is like winning the Halloween lottery. You grab one, and run off to a few more houses, then run back. You try to figure out a way to make your costume look different?maybe you switch masks with your buddy. The couple looks confused, but doesn’t ask why Dracula is wearing a Batman mask, because they aren’t sure if it’s a new show they haven’t heard of, and you grab another candy bar. Ten minutes later, and you’re back, waiting in line with countless other kids who figured out the gold rush was here. The couple tells you that this is the last one, and you mumble agreement as you grab it. It is indeed the last one, because these people have run out of all of their candy in 30 minutes. They won’t repeat there mistake ever again. and you’ve probably disturbed them greatly, by revealing that greed is endemic to humanity, even at its most innocent. But you have three whole candy bars. So whatever.