Monday, February 23, 2015

TOOTSIE CO.'s NIK-L-NIP's

TOOTSIE NIK L NIP
As Cameron Diaz said in Bad Teacher (Sony,2011):
"Seriously? SERIOUSLY? SERIOSLY?"
That could apply to any sane person's reaction to wax...wax..WAX BOTTLES?
Since around the 1930s at least, the Tootsie People have marketed this retro collection of wax bottles guaranteed to quench your thirst..
and cure your hunger but fast (and take out your teeth, too, pretty much in the process), with soda, made of, of, SUGAR WATER??
Huh?? What gives. Serious....this is just easily done by spending money on a soft drink (or even better drnking from a drinking fountain)
And what's with the idea of thinking that children love or even LIKE eating wax.
They do not.
Generally speaking I disagree that a lot of candies are something that I myself would not like (as are a number of the ones on this blog), as I like the ones you'll see,
but Nik-L-Nips don't even have anything much besides WAX!!!!!! Why don't they just put out more wax lips. I'm SURE that THEY"ll gross (pun) a lot of money with that
(AS IN...Gross the presidents and ben Franklin right off the dollar bill.).
Just another reason to say "Bye, Bye, Tootsie Goodbye".

Monday, February 16, 2015

The very first TOOTSIE POP ad (1970)

As much as, as you'll see in future posts, we like to pick on Tootsie Roll, the pops are excellent..but this is a link anyway, to the iconic and perennial "Mr.Owl" ad back when it was the longer "Hey Mister Cow".

Jodie Foster's brother Buddy Foster is said to be the voice of the little boy you see walking around..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6rHeD5x2tI
the always hilarious veteran Frank "Yessss!"Nelson supplies the voice of Mr.Cow, Paul Frees a la Peter Lorre as the owl, and according to what's been posted about, "Mork and Mindy" "Ork" Ralph James as the Turtle, Paul Winchell (it does sound like him vaguely) as Mr.Owl, and "Starkist' Herschel Bernardi as the narrator at the end.

Endorsements and criticisms of Circus Peanuts!

Besides the reviews of specific Candies, I like to SOMETIMES just REFER to outside opinions,..,

like these from Urban Dictionary.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Circus+Peanuts

Choward's Violet Mints

CHOWARD's VIOLET
One of the sweetings that ANYONE can have is smelling the candy that they eat (hey, it helps the taste buds, bud!).
In 1930 C.Howard of New York State came up with an unqique idea, a rather chalky, soap, yummy, VIOLET---that's right,
you heard me right-----VIOLET candy and combined (in a "Brunch""Muppet","Bennifer""J-Lo" like pormanteau) his initial
and last name into a new "name":Chowards, scented it with his workers, and marketed it as "Choward's Violet".
The idea caught on, so fast the spearmint, lemon, and other variants, even a modenr day guava was done.
Eating the candy, one gets a rather crispy taste, like Necco wafers, but with a plesant aroma. The violet specific
flavor soon wasn't restricted to just Choward's...Mexico based Canel gum has for years been successful at using
violet flavoring,for isntance.
Speaking of gum, Chowards also immediately marketed (again, primarily in violet) chewing Gum. I saw both today
at the "retro candy store" It's Candy at Universal Studios Hollywood Citywalk, by the AMC Movie theatre (It's Candy
has other stores including one in the Les Vegas Venetian where I spied a holy Necco Grail--the famed chocolate wafers).
Haven't used the gum as I don't (normally) chew gum anymore.
But I enjoy the candy..

CANDY CIGARETTES! LET'S SMOKE 'EM IF YOU GOTTEM!

CANDY CIGARETTES
Smoke, smoke. Smoke cigarettes, ten packs (to avoid lawsuits from 1940s country composer Tex Williams's estate). Smoke ten.
One time in the 19th century, before anyone knew any better, it was decided:
mother:"Hey, Gilbert".
father:"Yes, Catherine?"
mother:"Smoking is something that only us adults get to do...I mean, why? Let kids join in ON.....THE.....FUN"
Father:  "Yeah!"
So the head of (fill in confectioner) agrees.
Thus from many companies, same reason I guess as with Circus Peanuts and Candy Corn, predating US copyright, sprang those delicious, decadent
things called..

CANDY CIGARETTES!
White. Red tipped. Necco Wafer/Altoids Mint like, e.g., chalky. AND POSITIVELY DEDACADENTLY ADDICTIVE.

Gum too,. Wrapped in those nice little old white gum---I mean, ciggy wrappers.
Controversial as well by 1950.
In that era, it was really decided that smoking wasn't just a "sophisticated adult' thing..it was a DANGEROUS sophisticated adult thing (cigarettes, not cigars or pipes here).
So more and more bans on ciggies..CANDY cigarettes and in television commercials, finally, doctors taking a very serious look at ANYONE using finally, any type of cigarettes.
Personally, I don't smoke (especially as a clay horse!) but candy cigarettes seem...yunmy./.
These are on sale for ANYONE who wants them in many candy stores...but candy cigarette smoking could be hazardous to...well, whatever.
Stalling (yeah! my FAVORITE..must be the genus or specifies)
Mold Gold (hmmm.. where do ya supposed that they got THAT name from, HMM?)

FLICKS (The original)

FLICKS
(Note:This particular candy has been revived but at the size of double size chocolate chips, or mini non pareils. This review ONLY and ONLY pertains to the
Ghiradeli version sold since 1904 which had little silent movie guys on the tube.).
Flicks are a longtime personal favorite of mine, sold in the different mult (Technicolor(r) or Eastmancolor(r) tunesm, given the movie connections? :)) icolored
canisters,a tradition continued now with the inferioir revival. For generations, they'd be either lying around in movie theatres or in stores. Maybe if word gets out
to the current maker, the original will return (hey, Necco changed then reversed the change on their wafers). Some how, they were all the VERY same chocolate flavor.
But us kids didn't minds. Many ate them at the movies..or..flicks (by 1980, "Airplane!" was pretty much the last then current movie I saw till the late 80s or so).
I always HOPED for darki, mint whatever keyed to the canister color. Well, the new revival DOES have the same idea, just not all the details.

ATKINSON'S CHICK-O-STICKtm

CHICK O STICK.'
It's like a core of a well ripened carrot. It's orange. Coconut on the outside. Peanut Butter on the inside. And it's made out of Chicken. Just kidding.
But a Chicken USED to be on every wrapper of every offering of this candy, Lufkin, Texas-based Atkinson's (est.1932) much beloved (and I gotta say, very good) Chick-O-Stick
the rare food, roi candy, that anyone from meat eaters to vegans can eat (that's right...NO CHICKEN PRODUCTS!!). As with such candies as Annabelle's Rocky Road, this did not
even appear until the 1950s, but since then has been hugely beloved.
Another major has done for years the similiar Zagnut...but the ORIGINAL is best!
However, it can be like a Clark or Butterfinger on your fillings (if you have loose ones, so if you have loose ones, careful if at all).

Candy Corn

CANDY CORN
Another often debated, and "public domain" candy since 1880s like Circus Peanuts, the Candy Corn has been made by the same manyy companies..
The corn is very describale like follows:
Corn or tooth shaped (yeah, haters gonna hate as Taylor Swift might say), waxy texture, sugar and honey based, and usually (as I've head both regular and caramel in a Las Vegas Planet Hollywood candy shop new
2014-2015 New Years Eeve/Day) red on top, with an orange "body" (like that of a bee!) and white on bottom. Like freshly harvested corn kernels that an Indian--okay, Native American :)-just took from
the stalk (like in that old Gumby short "The Kachinas", keeping a link to my parent blog").
Recently, R-rated comic Louie Black said that all of the candy corn ever made was made about a hundred years ago (like circus peanuts!)
Candy Corn rates high on the lowest of expected treats on associated holiday, Hallowe'en, though I;'ve pretty much enjoyed it (in small does I gotta admit..I have mixed it with yogurt..:rolleyes":)
Look up candy corn on YouTube and it will rank as high as any on the most hated or most loved.
Whatever, it's been around in one of the longest spells, with here a known person tsaking credit, a confectioner named George Benniger. Also, it seems to that Brachs makes the most..especially with the'
Farley-Sathers merger.

Relaterd topic, Circus Peanuts.(As if you didn't know!).

Sunday, February 15, 2015

NECCO WAFERS

NECCO WAFERS
They're the size and the shape of a quarter.
In assorted, sometimes mismatched flavors and colors.
Black=Licorice
Brown=Chocolate
White=Cinnamon
Green=Lime
Violet=Clove
Orange=Orange
Yellow=Lemon
Pink=Wintergeen
They have a crispy texture. Made in New England by the N[ew]E[ngland]C[onfectionery]CO[mpany] since 1847.
They are the original candy wafer, the Necco wafers.

Often derided on many Halloween and other candy polls, including Internet ones (right down to blogs and YouTube),
these often over maligned wafers have a long and very interesting history: started by an English confectioner named
Oliver Chase in 1847 as Chase and Co., and immediate sucess in God only knows which original flavor, then in 1901
as New England Confectionery Company as Necco, and in 1912 the above variety ALWAYS, ALWAYS in a roll in those
neat, waxed little candy rolls, and in every war possible, both in servicemen as well more recently in online candy wars,
and in many stores even today, they're there. ALong with the Circus Peanuts. And Kit Kats. And others.

Certainly too often maligned and derided yet these powdery candies have had a v ery long and interesting history.
In 2009-2011 a (very THANKFULLY) unsuccessful attempt to naturalise them, dropping lime with no way to replicate the color
faithfull, occrued, before the old-school type prevailed (though I've as of this year, 2015, came across the failed variety in a store..)
Necco itself has had a longtime affiliation with at least two other Massachusetts candy brands, both taffys, the Squirrell nut co.(guess which candy
and 1920s/40s/90s type swing band IT'S responsible for?) and C.Miller, responsible for Mary Janes, in 1988 buying out the MJ's and in 2004 the
SNZ.
They have also made at least some other products, including the Sky bar candy bar starting in 1938, so candy bars also come from them
(likewise comments like "Necco makes candy bars to rival Hershey, nestle, Buncha Crunh, Kit Kat and M&M such as Sky Bar but why do they
make such terrible **** like their wafers"(and the next mentioned) from among many others commentators on this blog's predeccesors), and
the wafer-based Valentine's hearts, since 1866, even trying in the last five years with a "hip" variant on such, "Twilight team"(Personally for
such hearts, I;'m Team Necco, others Team Brachs).
Surprsingly no Candy Corn or Circus Peanuts (what would those be like-same flavor/color match up as in the wafers or as already existing in the
candy itself, orange color/banana flavor?)

Friday, February 13, 2015

CIRCUS PEANUTS REVIEW




CIRCUS PEANUTS
One of the oldest, most controversial, most sweetest, and most mysterious candies ever has to be the non-copyrighted, multiple-company
produced, inconsistent flavor/shape/taste Circus Peanut, which first showed up (as a Christmas type or years end candy) in the early 1800s,
maybe even before Necco (then Chase and Co.) Candy Wafers showed up in 1847, eventually by the 1940s winding up as an all year round bagged candy.
They're peanut shell in shape.
Orange in color.
Banana in Flavor.
Made by multiple companies.
And like dirty comic Louis Black might say as he did of candy corn, it's been recycled since 1910.

Even sold by THOSE VERY SAME COMPANIES to other packagers to MANY stores (ergo, Type A, Type X, etc. will be commonly and naively associated by us
average shopper as additional makers of Circus peanuts, yet one of the longest makers in the 20th century still making them, Spanglers, since 1941, has
their name on the candies, literally..I saw those in the Queen City brand in Big Lots(nee Pic and Save) stores. MIXED with some other brand.
The "peanuts", containing pig skin gelatin, corn syrup, natural or artificial flavor, color, are also made by Melster which also, like Spangler (best known for their
own trademakred lollipops, Dum-Dums), also has a working deal with store and indie brands that outsource them from Melster, as well as Farley and Sathers, and
Brach's, and no doubt they also have "peanuts" winding up repackaged. Kind of like, much like, Candy Corn, and in fact, comic Louis C.K.Black has said that all
candy corn was made in 1914, which some wags might just also say of Circus Peanuts.

Here's what a typical CIRCUS PEANUTS package might look like:


(OKAY, OKAY, if *I* made the candy.:))

Spangler, for one, has done Peppermint white Circus Peanuts and other flavors in addition to the orange color/banana flavor (maybe even Finger Nail Polish Remover flavor!:)) that
we would naturally normally associate with Circus Peanuts normally.

The strane delights can be found in everything from small bags to bulky ones...

Basic RECIPE
Sugar
Gelatin
Corn Syrup
Flavor
Color
(last two of choices)

SWEETEST SPOT ON THE WEB

With my two cartoon blogs, YOUR PONY PAL POKEY TOO & TOONSNOOT, here finally is my third, and this one on a totally different beloved topic, candy.
I've loved many different kinds of candies...and that INCLUDES 19th century typees that many might be surprised by....

Abba Zabba
Bit O'Honey
Chowards
Cookis and Cream Hershey
Flicks (both the superioir (IMHO) Ghiradelli original and rather inferioir current post-Ghiradeli incarnation)
Hershey Kit Kats
Hersey Regular classic Bars
Necco Wafers and Sweethearts
Nestle Buncha Crunch and Regular Crunch
Reese Peanut Butter Cups
Rocky Road
Circus Peanuts (any brand)
Candy Corn (again, any brand)
And many others..


Recommended
www.candyblog.net

So, hope you enjoy this as much as I "enjoyed it" writing this.Cheers..Toodles (as Sally Field might say as Gidget).