Pez v. Sugar Daddy/Babies and Slo-Poke
One thing I’ve learned from the N Candy AA is that just about everyone has categories of candy that they have absolutely no interest in. Not hate so much as complete and utter disinterest.
We’ve entered my disinterest zone with this pairing.
THE SUGAR FAMILY
I have no time for candy that gets stuck in my teeth and plays dentist, trying to yank out a filling or drill a cavity right in there.
The Sugar family should be awesome. They have several points in their favor:
1. A single dad is raising this brood. How often do you see that in pop culture? Single dads deserve more representation.
2. A big slab of caramel? Awesome! And food on a stick?! Super-awesome!
3. I thought I could come up with a third, but it turns out that I can’t.
But then the cons explode all over the page.
1. Of course, this stuff is never marketed as a nuclear family. They stand alone, parentless babies running wild in my molars and a sticky guy making babies all over town and then not taking responsibility for any of them. Also: the whole concept of a sugar daddy is creepy and weird.
2. The Sugar Daddy itself is kind of fun to suck on if I don’t think of the name while I am sucking on it, which immediately loses it ALL ITS POINTS. ALL THE POINTS IN THE WHOLE WORLD.
3. The Babies are much firmer than a caramel candy should be; the chocolate is fake and gummy like the coating on a Raisinet, and the stuff inside is stale and hard. Eating candy should not be work.
4. I just think point #2 deserves to have some extra weight here. Reread point #2 and then go wash your brain out with bleach. You’ll need to.
5. They used to have bacon in them – albeit only a slight amount – but lost the bacony goodness forever, according to Wikipedia, “when the Welch brands were sold to Warner-Lambert in 1988″. Boo, loss of bacon. (They WOULD get points for being kosher with the loss of bacon, except they’re still not kosher. You throw out the pork and don’t bother to go the rest of the way? Pffffffft.)
Well, I thought we were in my disinterest zone. But when I really look at these candies, I guess I do enter the land of active disgust.
I don’t know what a Slo-Poke is. But I am impressed that they managed to keep the subtly, disturbingly sexual subtext even without the Sugar Daddy name.
PEZ
Pez look like tiny bricks you could use to build a pastel house, if you wanted your house to melt in the rain. They are distinct from all other candies in that plastic cartoon character figurines will feed you them FROM THE GAPING GASHES IN THEIR NECKS.
You yank the figurine’s head back, and a Pez pops out of its throat. You then suck it out with your mouth. You have become a vampire, jonesing for sweet life-giving candy, uncaring about the tiny lifeless figures all around you.
It’s still less disturbing than a Sugar Daddy.
According to Candy Addict, the tiny bricks come in “11 flavors: strawberry, grape, lemon, orange, cola, sour watermelon, sour pineapple, sour grape, sour apple, cherry and raspberry.” Could have fooled me; all I ever see are the first four. By contrast, there have been more than 1,500 Pez dispensers. You can see where they put their energy.
I’ll give them some bonus points for their fascinating array of retired flavors:
* Apple
* Chlorophyll Mint
* Coffee
* Flower
* Lime
* Menthol/Eucalyptus
* Yogurt
Flower?
I saw mint yogurt at Trader Joe’s last night, so… you… It’s obviously Pez’ fault. I just haven’t figured out how yet.
But the taste! When I was little, we had Flintstones vitamins. We were force-fed them once a day; my mother frequently found mine under the sofa cushions and behind the piano. Pez taste like those, but less so. They have a low-key but nasty chalky texture, and too little flavor for a piece of candy. I know that I’m not supposed to eat just one; they’re hoping I’ll practically mainline them, for the fun of getting them out of Hello Kitty’s jugular and the desire for more than five seconds’ worth of sweetness.
Good luck to them.
If Pez vs. Sugar Daddy were a basketball game, it would be called off because the court had exploded into a raging firestorm.
