Reese's Peanut Butter Whoppers

I wasn't aware Whoppers were actually intended for consumption. I'd assumed they were produced and sold solely for the purpose of covertly flinging at people in movie theaters. I'm pretty sure you couldn't even purchase them outside of movie theaters until the last couple of years.

So, while I will admit to a slight anti-Whopper bias, I think we can all take my word for it when I say that these are a terrible, pointless waste of everyone's time. If I needed a malted peanut butter ball, I would wad up a slice of toast and dip it in Skippy. Also, if peanut butter milk balls was in any way a good idea, they wouldn't need to co-brand with Reese's, because that is a brand name that conjures up waxy brown flakes, at best.

Staring into a box full of off-tan circles is enough to convince the few stubborn minded folks. And you know that It doesn't taste like peanut butter, exactly. I guess it's a cheap imitation or maybe weird bootleg peanut butter or something.

Also, my feeling is, when the box art can't even make a product look appealing, there is pretty much no chance of the food inside being tasty. And the balls themselves are a grody tan, with inexplicable brown specs. Not exactly inspiring. They have this weird flavor curve too. The 1st is revolting, then the next 5 or so are kind of addicting, then they abruptly go back to being nauseating, but somehow not disgusting enough to make you stop eating them. Weird.

Pringles Restaurant Cravers

I like it, this flavor laziness. It's one step closer to food in Jetson's-style capsules. Hey, fatass! Want the great taste of a hamburger, but you're too lazy to drag your ass all the way down the street to the BK? Well have we got the chip for you! Just like a juicy thick burger, but hard and flat and sad. Enjoy!

Cheeseburger
This is my favorite, because it's at once the most ambitious and most ridic. If there is anyone out there who honestly believes that a stack of pringles are truly going to taste like a thick cut of beef with all the fixin's, then I do not want to meet them. Or have them in any way involved in preparing my food.

Pringles pretty much got away with repackaging dill pickle chips here, because really, how the fuck else are you gonna play this one? Add to that the dearth of dill flavored crap in the U.S. (outside of actual pickles) and who the hell is going to dispute you on this. Personally, I think they could have been cheesier, which is always a good plan for your chips. Instead they unfortunately went with a weird somehow wet-tasting ketchup flavor that especially does not belong on anything crunchy.


Mozzarella Sticks & Marinara
Unnerving. They do kind of have a weird watery marinara flavor, and they are surprisingly fried-tasting , but again not very cheesy. Which really, there's no excuse for here.

Even though they're not bad, I couldn't eat more than a few of these, just because a food item calling itself 'Mozzarella Sticks' really shouldn't be allowed to not be cheesy. It'd be like Duran Duran only having one Duran. I guess they'd probably be ok with some sort of cheese dip, but what kind of sad, misguided person dips a Pringle?




Onion BlossomThese Pringles had only one job, to be onion-y, and they fucked it up. They have a dash of onion, an unnecessary amount of horseradish, and that's it. This is not what I need from a chip. Horseradish is appropriate on Arby's food only. And there's really no excuse for not making something oniony enough, considering onion flakes cost roughly twelve and a half cents per silo. After maybe six of these things, I totally forgot what flavor I was even eating. Thanks for wasting my time, Pringles.

Skittles Crazy Cores

Skittles are the latest in the long line of formerly delicious candies gone completely batshit insane. Well, probably not the latest, but definitely one of the most enthusiastic. I think I see a new kind of Skittle every other month or so, and always flavors that I would have never ever thought of, nor asked for. In no universe do Skittles need to be mint or choclatey. The ones I'm looking at today, however, are unique in that they are shockingly non-disgusting.

This is doubly impressive considering what a terrible idea they are on paper. Approximating any one flavor in candy form is difficult enough-combining two is just asking for disaster. Plus, the two-in-one thing is only cool when doled out sparingly. Take watermelon Jelly Bellies, for example. They're an enjoyable little bit of visual spice in an otherwise normal assortment of beans. But try buying a bag of just the watermelon ones sometime and see how long it takes for you to stop marveling at the cute little red centers and start stuffing them in your face by the handful. Novelty wears off, is the point these Skittles seem to be missing. But on to the flavors:

STRAWBERRY WATERMELON
These sucessfully recreate the flavor of strawberry Runts. I know I shouldn't even count that, since it's a single flavor, but in the race to the bottom that candy's become lately, I say congrats.

BLUE RASPBERRY LEMON
Very Curaco Lemonade, served in a glass that was washed, but not rinsed. Or maybe the secret ingredient is Lemon Dawn. Hard to say.

CHERRY LEMONADE
Little cough dropy, but definitely cherry. Actually, I think they just stole a vat of the Luden's Cherry Throat Drop syrup and called it a flavor. I'm not sure what sets the lemonade flavor of this apart from the lemon in the blue raspberry Skittle, but I didn't taste soap on this one, so maybe it's that.

MANGO PEACH
Look, I know mangoes are very exotic and decadant and all but can we just stop? Actual mangoes are disgusting and the recent onslaught of mango flavored shit is ruining things I would otherwise eat. None of it tastes like actual mango, anyway. It's always the same vaguely tropical, little bit coconutty/little bit dollar store perfumey melange, and nobody needs that in their cereal.

MELON BERRY
Yes, very good, but which melon? There is a big difference between honeydew, watermelon, and cantaloupe, for openers. And that's to say nothing of all the weird melon subspecies floating around Green River, Utah, which is apparently the Melon Capitol of the World. Although not the fun kind. I imagine that would be somewhere in Brazil. Not that any of this matters, anyway, because this Skittle is just fruity and nondescript. In case you're interested, Green River holds an annual Melon Festival, where they crown a Melon Queen, although again, not the fun kind.

Despite my earlier praise, when eaten individually, these aren't any great treat. But when scarfed down in big fruity handfuls, they're actually pretty enjoyable. In a plastic-y sort of way. Basically, they taste more or less like a regular bag of Skittles, so I don't know that that's actually anything for the marketing team break out the champagne over.

Willy Wonka's Tinglerz

Once again Willy Wonka brings to us creepy candy that no one has ever, or would ever ask for. What I don't understand is how someone who is essentially the personification of innovative and wonderful candy has somehow failed to come up with an edible candy in like, 15 years.

I enjoy a good Gobstopper as much as anyone. Runts are great too; little candies that're fresh from the Barbie farmers' market Mmm-mmm. In fact, most of the old Wonka candy is solid. SweeTarts, Nerds, Bottlecaps, this is all classic shit. In fact, even some of the things that seem like bad ideas are actually good, such as Fun Dip. Bags of colored sugar and weird medicine-flavored sticks doesn't sound like a winning combo, but in my grade school days that was the equivalent of high grade cocaine. Anyone on the playground could get trailer trash Pixie Stix, but if you rolled in with a bag of Fun Dip, it was a going to be a special day.

So, that bit of history out of the way, back around to my original candy. The major problem with the Tinglerz is that in our universe, ol' Wonka has somehow never been able to make chocolate happen. Yes, the candy that defined his empire, propelled him to the heights of candydom, and was supposedly his magnum opus is also the last thing you ever want to take home a lifetime supply of. It's absurdly sweet, and barely tastes chocolatey at all.

This has actually been bothering me for years, come to think of it. Why is it that even third world Easter bunny manufacturers can produce a more convincing chocolate flavor than this? Not to mention that Wonka is owned by Nestle, and I would imagine there's gotta be somebody on that factory floor who can explain to the suits why everything they makes tastes like it came out of a My Little Pony's ass. Chocolate is a confection that has been around for centuries, it shouldn't be that hard. I'm not asking you to figure out the secret ingredients of Coke after all, the Mayans were sipping hot chocolate in 460 A.D., using nothing but cacao seeds and blood sacrifice.

Also, and most important of all, it looks like a bag of chocolate coated herpes. Really. Maybe that's why the name sounds like something that would make more sense on a vibrator package.

So chocolate-coated pop rocks is not an appealing idea visually. But this candy has other problems, too. Firstly, one does not chew Pop Rocks. They all explode at once, totally negating the entire point, which is to enjoy finding them hiding in your teeth hours later when you're going down on your significant other and she runs screaming from the room, trailing little popping noises from her nether regions. No, Pop Rocks must be savored, like a fine, tingly wine.

But you can't keep the Tinglerz in your mouth for more than 30 seconds, because no one needs to taste cheap chocolatish failure for that long, and you end up with a mouthful of brown goo. Individually, these texture issues wouldn't be a problem, but when you combine foods that aren't meant to coexist, guess what, it is. I don't know what the hell to do with these. I ended up kind of keeping them in my mouth for a few seconds before chewing, thereby giving me the worst of both worlds: crappy chocolate coated teeth, and unpleasantly poppy food.

Honestly, I see these candies as a cry to let the chocolate go from the Wonka empire once and for all. They're the confectioner's equivalent of the senile ramblings from the old guy who's always wandering around the park in slippers and a plaid vest. It's time we put this franchise out of its misery, because god only knows what STD based candy they'll make next.