N Candy AA II: Round of 64, Flight 1
by Sarah D. Bunting
Updated bracket is here. Confused? Click here. Polls for Flight 1 close 11:59 PM ET on Thursday.
1 Pez vs. 16 root beer barrels. The root beer barrel is that rare candy that actually tastes like the “real food” it’s named for or designed after. …Well, barrels taste more like Dr Pepper to me, actually, but that’s still closer than most. It’s a solid entry for a hard candy, seldom my favorite genre, but Pez will trounce it, because the barrel does not have a clever dispenser with myriad varieties. Pez candy itself is meh — except the lemony ones, and those are only meh-plus — but the taste doesn’t matter.
1 Pez vs. 16 root beer barrels
- Pez (59%, 552 Votes)
- root beer barrels (41%, 388 Votes)
Total Voters: 940
Loading ...8 Sugar Daddy/Babies; Slo-Poke vs. 9 Mike & Ike. According to Wikipedia, Mike & Ike “is a brand of fruit-flavored jelly beans.” In a million years, I would not have used the term “jelly beans” to describe them, because traditionally, the human jaw is able to make a dent in a jelly bean in under 20 minutes. This is not the case for either Mike or Ike, usually one of the last candies left in the trick-or-treat bag, and once chewed, the flavor doesn’t make the effort worthwhile. The Sugar family is just as perilous to your dental health, but much more delicious. The creepy mail-order-bride branding is problematic (and the Slo-Poke looks like baby poo on a stick…and is named “Slo-Poke,” hew), but if you like your Milk Duds sans chocolate coating, the Sugar Baby fills a necessary hole. (Hew.) We may have ranked the rhyming candy too high; it won’t win.
8 Sugar Daddy/Babies; Slo-Poke vs. 9 Mike & Ike
- Sugar Daddy/Babies; Slo-Poke (65%, 578 Votes)
- Mike & Ike (35%, 307 Votes)
Total Voters: 885
Loading ...5 Pixy Stix vs. 12 Starlight Mints. You have to admire the efficiency of the Pixy Stick. It doesn’t pretend it’s a fruit; it doesn’t have a shape of any kind. It’s just a tube of solid sugar, sometimes with dye thrown in. The Starlight Mint, meanwhile, has a classic shape and color scheme; it looks crisp and refreshing. And at times, it is, if you get one that hasn’t been sitting on a shelf in a forgotten Woolworth’s (or in a dust-rimed dish in your elderly aunt’s parlor…same diff, really) since the Truman presidency. [“Which might also be the last time anyone ever described a room in their house as being ‘the parlor.'” — Keckler] The rest of the time, it’s…a mint, better than some but adequate at best. Pixy Stix ain’t that great either, but 1) they get the job done faster, and 2) Ally Sheedy assured their immortality in The Breakfast Club. Stix FTW.
5 Pixy Stix vs. 12 Starlight Mints
- Pixy Stix (70%, 636 Votes)
- Starlight Mints (30%, 276 Votes)
Total Voters: 912
Loading ...4 Pop Rocks vs. 13 Boston Baked Beans. Everyone remembers, and delights in the frisson of danger surrounding, the urban legend about Mikey from the Life commercials eating Pop Rocks and then he drank a Coke and died OMG. No one remembers what they taste like. I snagged a grape pack from the deli to refresh my memory, and you know, once the sizzling dies down, it’s a decent candy — densely flavored, but not too fake-tasting. I kind of want to try it as an ice-cream topping. Not that anyone cares about the taste; the Pop Rock is a cultural icon. The Boston Baked Bean is much more anonymous (did you remember that it’s basically a peanut M&M, but with no chocolate layer? me neither), which is too bad, because I’d use those as an ice-cream topping, too. But without the mythologized death of a child actor to hitch its wagon too, BBB’s star probably burns out in the first round. [“Also, who in their right mind names a candy after something that sounds like a pot of overcooked vegetables and expects kids to buy it with their limited pocket money?” — Keckler] [“Maybe they’re hoping to coast on the association with poots?” — SDB]
4 Pop Rocks vs. 13 Boston Baked Beans
- Pop Rocks (84%, 760 Votes)
- Boston Baked Beans (16%, 143 Votes)
Total Voters: 903
Loading ...6 candy jewelry vs. 11 “pillow” mints. We apologize for the catch-all-ness of the candy jewelry entry, but we didn’t think each individual candy accessory could do well on its own — the bracelets and necklaces are basically Smarties, and while the Ring Pop does a nice little side business as a whimsical marriage-proposal prop, it’s a just a lollipop, a plasticky-tasting one that gets your knuckle all mungy to boot. Together, though, they make a formidable foe…although just about any foe could probably beat pillow mints, the perfectly textured after-dinner confections found at diner cash registers. The pillow mint is delicious and…well, pillowy; it has also become the hotel bedspread of candies, notorious for carrying all the germs diner patrons fail to wash off their hands in the bathroom. [“I loved how pillow mints — or, as we called them, ‘after dinner mints’ — melted in your mouth to milky nothingness, which sounds so so hew, but was so so good. In fact, they were so beloved that we turned a blind eye to what could have possibly made a candy dish full of the mints melt into a solid mass at my grandparents’ house and instead kept hacking away at Mt. Pillow Mint, happy with whatever soft, chalky shards we chipped off.” — Keckler] Pillow mints do come pre-wrapped, though, allowing you to enjoy a cushiony snack without fear of infection — and the sound of candy-necklace “beads” getting crunched is pretty gross. I’m calling it for the six seed, but I’m not sure I like it.
6 candy jewelry vs. 11 "pillow" mints
- pillow mints (61%, 554 Votes)
- candy jewelry (39%, 357 Votes)
Total Voters: 911
Loading ...3 Tic-Tacs vs. 14 Chick-o-Stick/Zagnut. Or, as I like to think of it, “the design triumph vs. the brand-confusion disaster.” I recently spent ten full minutes trying to convince 6-year-old J. Rock that a Chick-o-Stick does not have chicken in it; Atkinson’s, which makes Chick-o-Sticks, unhelpfully produces a bite-sized version they call a “nugget,” a fact that only seemed to bolster J. Rock’s case despite the packaging of recent years no longer featuring the cowboy-hat-wearing rooster (…right?). The Zagnut doesn’t have the poultry issue, but they’re both basically a peanut stick with a candy coating, topped with coconut, and it’s one of those polarizing confections that some people adore.
But it’s no Tic-Tac. The Tic-Tac is crafted brilliantly: teeny; looks like a pill, which children like because it lets them feel grown up; starts out candy-flavored, then morphs into a potent mint; comes with a clever carrying case (see also: Sucrets); contains one and one half calories, a neat number deftly exploited by the Tic-Tac marketing team (I like to think they called themselves “Tac-Tac.” You know — “tactical”? No? I’ll let myself out).
You can use them as stocking-stuffers. You can play poker with them. And the orange ones still rule. Tic-Tacs by a mile.
3 Tic-Tacs vs. 14 Chick-o-Stick/Zagnut
- Tic-Tacs (84%, 764 Votes)
- Chick-o-Stick/Zagnut (16%, 150 Votes)
Total Voters: 914
Loading ...7 candy cigarettes vs. 10 Nerds. I kind of can’t believe anyone still makes candy cigarettes. Doesn’t it seem like some parental council would have driven these out of existence for “glamorizing” smoking by now? Never mind that they taste like powdered Hai Karate. (The gum version is just as bad; baseball-card gum is Jacques Torres by comparison.) Still, the childhood associations they carry for some of us may carry them to victory over Nerds, though Nerds offer superior taste in non-fizzy-Pop-Rock form and also come in a nifty two-fer box that lets you mix flavors.
7 candy cigarettes vs. 10 Nerds
- Nerds (87%, 796 Votes)
- candy cigarettes (13%, 124 Votes)
Total Voters: 920
Loading ...2 Mary Janes vs. 15 Bottle Caps. My friend Gunz gave me a handful of Bottle Caps the other day, and the cola flavor in particular is better than I’d remembered. That isn’t saying much, however, and I LOVE Mary Janes. The peanut-butter taste isn’t very peanut-buttery, really, and not many candies combine a weird glassy surface, an even weirder cakey texture, and a near-unparalleled ability to coax out the most reluctant fillings. The Mary Jane is another one of those polarizing candies; I’m betting enough people dwell on the same pole I do that it gets through to the next round, but we’ll see.
2 Mary Janes vs. 15 Bottle Caps
- Bottle Caps (65%, 519 Votes)
- Mary Janes (35%, 277 Votes)
Total Voters: 796
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Tags: food Keckler N Candy AA
Get it, pillow mints!
OMG Sucrets!
Buying and then snarfing down Nerds at the poolside concession may have been the highlight of my middle-school summers.
Nerds, FTW!
Go pillow mints!
Also: I voted for Chick-O-Zagnut, which I have never heard of, in protest. I maintain that Tic-Tacs are not candy!
To me, the best thing about Ring Pops is that when you need a break, you don’t have to hunt up the wrapper and set it down. You just keep it on your finger and go about your business.
I voted for every single one that’s winning! Sadly, I’m sure it won’t last, but if only I could do this in March…
Hey Sars… it looks like my hometown newspaper is lacking in originality:
http://citizen-times.upickem.net/upickem/registration/login.asp?contestid=22575
Oh, and Starlight Mints are going all the way.
I love the pillow mints that have that jelly-like substance in the middle too – lemon is my favorite!
Oh, are we allowed to bet on the results of this for donations to the Fall Classic? I can’t for this flight, now that I’ve seen how things are going (Nerds are crushing faux cancer sticks!), but for the next flight I am totally placing some bets! Candy + gambling + used baseball gloves = awesome sauce!
Argh! I can’t belive you put candy cigarettes up against Nerds! I’m having a Sophie’s Choice moment here, trying to pick which one to vote for. (Nerds have a superior flavor, no doubt about that, but I was absolutely devoted to candy cigarettes as a kid and my inner 6 year old is valuing nostaglia over taste.)
@Wehaf: YES. DO EEEEET.
Aren’t Mary Janes the loserest of all loser Halloween candy? Like, you couldn’t even trade them for the toothbrush the mean lady in the neighborhood always gave away. I remember being so bitter about those every Halloween.
I’ve never heard of Mary Janes and I consider myself a candy pro, what are they like?
Pixy Sticks are crack for children. The coffee shop at the library I work at used to sell the giant ones, and a pre-teen on one of those is like a thermonuclear device.
The director actually had to ask the coffee shop to quit selling them, we had so many behavior problems directly attributable to the powdered stuff.
(I now give them away as prizes, because I’m subversive like that)
OKay! Folks, I’m going to need some company!
I lived in Singapore during fifth and sixth grade, and at my school there was a thriving underground trade in Nerds and Jolly Ranchers, brought back by anyone who had flown back to the States for a vacation. I still remember the discussions about how much a palmfull of Nerds should cost, and whether or not that automatically entitled you to some of both flavors, or if you had to pick just one.
I’m not a big Pop Rocks fan, but I don’t think I’ve ever tasted a Boston Baked Bean simply due to the name. Who buys that? I decided to throw a vote for the Bean though because peanut M&Ms are probably still good even without the chocolate.
One summer I worked in a candy store which was next to an ice cream store, and the ice cream store carried a flavor of ice cream called Firecracker, which was strawberry ice cream that had Pop Rocks mixed into it – the Pop Rocks had thin red and blue candy coating on them (prevented premature popping, probably), and it was DEEEE-lightful stuff when it crackled in your mouth.
Hated candy cigarettes – looked fun, tasted like chalk dipped in Scope. Nerds ALL the way.
Oh, Bottlecaps – they get my nostalgia vote. I remember when they came in those flat green paper packages, and I would drop dollar bills on those, and Dino-Sour Eggs (jawbreakers) and those delightful long, flat Jolly Rancher sticks. All were a dime (a DIME!!) apiece. Sigh.
Sucrets! EWWWWWWW!
@mspaul, I always got everyone else’s Mary Janes, no trade necessary. Which made me love them even more.
@Sharon: But the boxes had their uses, I’m sure you’ll recall. (SPY USES.)
Pixy Stix are awesome! But I digress.
Vis-a-vis the “pillow mints”, I’ve never been able to touch a dish of them in a public place since a former co-worker referred to them in 1999 as “excre-mints” because of how germy and nasty they are. I actually like pillow mints, but only when I buy them myself and can monitor who’s touched them.
I’ll never forget Nerds – I think they may have been a new product when I was in middle school (82-83ish) but then again, maybe they had been around for years and I felt the discovery was so awesome they MUST be new. I would have them in my school uniform shirt pocket and sneak them when the teacher’s back was turned. Needless to say, the floor was hilariously covered in Nerds thanks to me and other kids like me…
I am sad that Chick-O-Stix are getting hammered. I love them so, and it’s a candy I can rarely find anymore. (Along with those little squares of melty chocolate goodness, Ice Cubes – formerly a staple of every 7-11 everywhere.) They took a while to eat, and the remnants would stick in your teeth in a satisfying way. Love.
Sucrets were my most favourite winter “candy” – well, that and the Luden’s hard candy that was cherry flavoured. Both just seemed to have a certain “numb-y tang” not available in other candies. heh heh. As for candy cigarettes I have fond memories there too. Mom used to give me a dollar and wait in the station wagon while I ran into the store and bought her a pack of L&M menthols and myself a pack of candy cigs. On the drive home we would both rest our smoking arm on the open car window. I could smoke a candy cig in the cool kind of way Don Draper only dreams about. Thanks for the dysfunctional candy trip down the memory lane of my suburban childhood.
I still love Bottle Caps, but try to avoid them. They come in big boxes now, and eating entire boxes of compressed sugar tablets in one sitting does bad, bad things to me now. Ah, the freedom of youth!
Still, if I ever saw a box of just cola/root beer Bottle Caps, well.. blood sugar be dammed!
Vote Zagnut in honour of Beetlejuice!
@Shanna–apparently we had exactly the same kind of middle school summers.
All this brings back memories of my grandmother’s pool…my uncles and grandfather would throw all the change from their pockets in and let it sink to the bottom, and my cousins and I would have to dive for it.
It seems really condescending now, but then it was really fun, and that’s probably how I learned to swim without holding my nose.
We’d gather up all the change and head straight to the 7-11 on the corner for candy cigarettes and Nerds and that weird wet bubblegum that squeezed out of a tube.
Candy cigarettes are one of my all-time favorites, so I’m sad to see them go down. I buy cartons of them when I go to Five Below. Thank god for candy stores that still carry the old throw-backs from my childhood. I’m also sad that I couldn’t support Ring Pops (which are delicious–another favorite) because they were lumped in with the Smarties-type candy jewelry, which are all pretty gross.
I hate nerds so much, it’s practically a personal vendetta. No idea why though.
Does anyone else remember peach blossoms, or were those unique to my youth? I recall them being peach-colored, pillow-shaped hard candies with a sort of spun glass look to them, filled with a peanut buttery substance. Anyone?
My problem with Nerds is only half of them ever get eaten. The rest fall out of the box, and start breeding until there are piles of nerds all over your car, kitchen, family room, etc.
Sars, I do so fondly remember the usage of the Sucrets box for various covert secret agent assignments! HA!!!
Herrnnerrr, Sarah dwells on a pole.
This is one of the more difficult NCAA to choose, because there’s so much uniqueness; there’s no safe generic flavor (chocolate) that everyone can agree is good. I guess I’d say that it’ll be Peeps, in the end, because everyone will be all “ew, Mike and Ikes? Really? Hey, didn’t someone do Star Wars with peeps? That was kind of funny. I guess I’ll vote for peeps.
Hee, I forgot how offended I get each year on behalf of my beloved flavor/food in these yearly vote-offs. Mike & Ikes, I’ll always be there for you.
@JC Dino-Sour Eggs! I’d forgotten about those. I’m a sucker for anything that uses dinosaurs on the packaging.
Kelly, I’m with you! I love Chick-o-sticks so much! There was a dime store in my home town (Bonneson’s, what up!) that would sell them for 10 cents. They remind me so much of growing up and when aChick-o-stick and a Coke for 50 cents TOTAL was the highlight of my week. My mom (er, I mean, SANTA) still puts them in my stocking for Christmas. I can still find them at my local dollar store.
Agree with your entire assessment on Tic-Tacs, Sars, except for your surprising support of the orange ones. Ew! Those taste like children’s Aspirin. It’s like eating a fever.
Mmm…root beer barrels.
I just thought I’d throw in a note about the impending doom rushing down on us all – heard of the Nixy Stick? Some *cough* genius caffeinated Pixy Sticks, and this horror is the result.
Also POP ROCKS ZOMG LOVE. Still.
I have to say, I am DYING LAUGHING reading these NCAA posts. I don’t know what it is. I usually am not a laugh-out-loud-whilst-reading girl, but damn. Killing. me. Also, for some reason, these posts make me miss Fametracker’s Celebrity vs. Thing. Any chance of revival of this on TN?
I still think about Taye Diggs whenever I use those supermarket check-out dividers.
On topic: Nerds FTW!!
Oh my god, diving for change on the bottom of the pool. My dad used to throw change for us too, but one coin at a time – which gives it more of a fun-contest vibe, and less of a sense of “dive for it, peasants!”
Geeze, I guess I know what a Slo-Poke is now. I’m ever so slightly more horrified about it. I have started blogging about the upcoming battles over at candyrecapper.com, because every damn time you guys have these brackets I think “I should be writing about candy again!!!!!!” and then I drown in a sea of exclamation marks.
I did Pez v. Sugar Daddy (and co.) and learned how horrifying these caramel blobs really are, and I didn’t even know about the creepy imagery on the Slo-Poke.
I am, however, dying to dump a bunch of Pop Rocks on some ice cream and have at it!