Size Vs. Enjoyability Graph
(click to enlarge)
With Halloween fast approaching, I’ve begun seeing those big bags full of tiny candy bars. Quite often, they’re called “mini” or “fun size.” This has gotten me pondering something I’ve thought about every year around this time. What, exactly, is so fun about tiny versions of what are normally enjoyable candies?
Let’s look at a Three Musketeers bar. This bar consists of a frothy, lightly chocolate interior coated with a milk chocolate outside. With a normal size, you have a variety of ways to eat and enjoy everything it offers. You can take a regular bite, or perhaps eat the chocolate off the outside and eat the interior on its own. You could freeze half and run a microwave experiment on the remainder. What isn’t to love?
Now we come to the “fun” size. What, precisely, can be done with this puny showing? One thing only - one bite, a few chews, and down the gullet. How is that more fun than being able to experiment and savor the flavor? They should call them “so small you can just barely get a hint of flavor before it’s gone” size. Man, I hated getting these in my halloween bag, especially when I ended up getting just one of a particularly good kind.
Even worse than the fun size are the bite size candies. Those are so heinous I can’t even bring myself to speak of them. Give me a full-size candy bar over the “fun” size anyday.
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Those bite sized candy bars aren’t even bite sized! I remember as a kid there was a family who used to give out normal sized candy bars for halloween…now that was a treat! They were the most popular house on the street.
September 8th, 2006 at 6:07 ami’d prefer a handful of fun size/mini’s to a big bar any day. i LOVE variety. that red box with the variety of dove, milky way’s (dark and regular), etc…. [forget the name of the box at the moment] is pure BLISS. i can pick out exactly what i want and don’t get overwhelmed by having to eat an entire bar of the same flavor/consistency, etc. anyways to each their own… love love love the graph lol
excel!
September 8th, 2006 at 12:03 pmThe graph is great! I agree, the fun size is not fun. My take on it is that they are ‘fun’ because you can easily toss one in your pocket and then go out and have some REAL fun.
September 8th, 2006 at 12:19 pmWhat is fun is being able to eat an entire bag of candy under the illusion that you are eating less candy but actually by the time you get home from the store you have eaten over a pound or so.
September 8th, 2006 at 1:14 pmBut seriously, in some cases the changed proportions in my opinion improve the overall texture and flavor experience of the candy. I prefer a handful of bitesized Snickers to a regular Snickers bar, frozen or otherwise.
Oh also, I’d rather have a regular Kit Kat, or smaller than the Big Kat. The proportions and textures are all wrong IMO.
September 8th, 2006 at 1:16 pmHmm…I’ve gotta agree with some of these comments. I think having a good variety of little bites is fun, though I must admit I’m quite the nibbler. With fun sized, you could freeze one piece and microwave another. Plus, unwrapped they look like fancy little candies. This title and graph had me cracking up, though.
September 8th, 2006 at 5:56 pmI guess I can put up with them once a year. Just don’t go stuffing them in my Christmas stocking
September 8th, 2006 at 9:15 pmThere’s a reason you don’t see these in April.
Personally, I do buy these for Halloween, but I always give at least two to each ghost and/or goblin.
September 9th, 2006 at 9:54 pmYeah, see, I was really thinking of the fun size and bite size as individual examples. For instance, if at Halloween I only received one little Three Musketeers, I was just so annoyed. It was barely enough to even bother eating. Ugh. However, I have no problem with folks who give more than one, and I can understand that they’re certainly more economical than giving full sized versions to every trick-or-treater. Also, I do have issues with the tiniest ones, the bite size. Those are just too small to speak about. Barely get any flavor with them at all, and you end up wanting to eat the entire bag to get a good taste, and by then you’ve eaten the equivalent of about 6 full size bars! Ok, I didn’t actually do any comparison to reach that number, but it’s a wild guess. And this has recently come back to haunt me, as somebody gave me half a bag of those evil bite size milky ways, and naturally I ended up finishing the whole darn thing without even realizing it.
September 25th, 2006 at 10:17 pmI think this is to make us eat more to get enjoyment.
June 18th, 2007 at 11:22 pmWhen I was a kid, there was one house I used to trick-or- treat at where this retired couple gave out not bite size candy bars, not fun size candy bars, not even regular size candy bars, but KING SIZE candy bars! They were definitely the most popular house on the block. Although Three Musketeers are so good that I’ll take them in any form, I agree that they are best as full size bars. I like to eat the chocolate off the outside and then eat the nougat in the middle. The only exception I’ll make for fun size candy bars is in the case of 100 Grand bars, which are already fun size anyway. Those are great as is.
October 16th, 2007 at 1:05 amHave you noticed that the “fun size” have gotten smaller? I mean, like half the size of when I was a kid. What a rip. Not only are the fun size shorter, they are not as thick.
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:44 amomg. okay. i have a friend that is “fun size”,
August 18th, 2008 at 2:07 pmAnd yeah, her name says it all. she is toal SMALL FRI