Image from Anthemic Tangle
Ok, yeah, I know: Halloween was so yesterday and we’re looking forward to Thanksgiving already. But I just grabbed my last bag of Halloween-themed sale candy. I couldn’t resist: it’s a big bag of Willy Wonka goodness AND it was on sale. Plus, there’s extra Halloween-themed silliness involved. What’s a Candy Addict to do but dive right in?

Image from Anthemic Tangle
First up, Willy Wonka Laffy Taffy Ear Wax. Maybe all the Harry Potter ear-wax-flavored jelly bean references are to blame, but for some reason I had to try these first. Fortunately, these do not look or taste like ear wax. This cheery yellow Laffy Taffy tastes like banana. Granted, it’s that fake, candy banana taste, but it’s mellow enough that I enjoyed it. These were surprisingly sweet, but in a good way. And, as I chewed, I got that nice, underlying taffy flavor. The texture was good, too – nice and chewy, but it didn’t stick to my teeth. Between the fun, gross out factor and the taffy goodness, I’d have these again.

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Candy is serious business. Well maybe not exactly, but it’s generally thought to be a bad idea to muck with things that people are personally invested in. No matter what it is, someone out there loves it and they’re going to be angry when it changes.

Case in point: Willy Wonka substituted cherry and lime with pineapple and mango in its popular Runts candy this past year with less than stellar response. Mango is a highly unusual flavor to see as far as candy goes, although I found the Runts version to be adequately pleasing. Pineapple, while usually popular enough, is executed horribly for Runts. Both the shape and the flavor are crude representations of actual fruit and it is not very pleasing to the eye or the tongue.

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