With the first chill to the Fall air and the changing of leaves comes another Fall hallmark: the takeover of Halloween candy in you local stores. This year has been great for unique Halloween themed goodies so far and I’ve been recruited by the boys to share reviews on some new treats for the Halloween season. With that, I’ll begin with something much less cool than a fun sized Snickers but I wouldn’t scoff at if in my trick or treat bag at the end of the night: Halloween themed fruit snacks!

Halloween Gushers

Any kid born in the past 2 decades can tell you when it comes to fruit snacks, one reigns supreme: the Gusher. It’s a perfect combo of chewy fruit snack and sugary goo center to make any kid welcome early onset type-2 diabetes. We didn’t get these kind of snacks too much in my house but when we did you can bet I was rooting for Gushers (even when my brothers pushed for lame-o Fruit by the Foot) When we saw these hidden in the back to school section at Target, it was in the cart before I knew what I was looking at. These Halloween themed goodies have delightful Halloween packaging and much to my delight came in an extra large box. They promised black and orange Tropical Spooky Fruit flavors to boot. What is a Tropical Spooky Fruit, you ask? Well, it pretty much tasted like strawberry, which is pretty much what any color of Gusher tastes like, but I support the creativity.

Upon tearing into the box my heart sank to find these were not ordinary Gusher packages. No these were, as I later saw hidden on the box, “trick or treat sized portions.” Let me translate- small as hell and more paper than Gusher! I tore into the heartbreakingly sad packet and dumped out 5 mangled, sticky fruit snacks. 5. Are you kidding? If I am rolling up to your house for treats October 31st and you dish out a single packet of fun sized Gushers, I’d take it, but I wouldn’t be happy about it. My dog just found a new lawn to poop on. Yours. Sure the packet is deceivingly not so bad, but this treat falls right where Halloween sized Milk Duds do- a big package for 3 Duds. It’s a letdown.

So how do they look? In the past, Gushers have made tongue-staining varieties and I was just sure the black ones were filled with goo swirled with enough dye to at least make me run around for a minute pretending I was that one zombie in the Thriller video. Alas, the goo color was a letdown. As you can see, it looked like I would expect spit to look on a kid who licked a Sharpie. It was pretty disappointing. But when it came down to it, a Gusher is a Gusher and they still tasted good. Shame it took a good chunk of the box for anyone who tried them to feel they satiated their Gusher-lust.

Next up we have…

Halloween Fruit Roll-Ups

Before the Gusher, there was the Fruit Roll-Up and to this day, these rolls of no so much fruit as candy are pretty mcuh the same. Granted when I was a kid, the shapes I’d meticulously pull apart from them were ALWAYS a variety of fruit. Some more challenging to pull off (I’m looking at you, grapes) than others. The coolest we got was the triple colored ones that still tasted like red. Nowadays, they come in a variety of colors, themes and have many with tongue tattoos printed in edible ink.

While I enjoy running around with a lightning bolt or beach ball blurily transferred to my tongue as much as the next kid, the novelty wore off faster than pulling the fruit shapes out for me ever did.

These Halloween versions I checked before opening, fearing I would be burned like with the Gushers. Sure enough- trick or treat sized. Damn. Upon inspection though, the trick or treat size isn’t that much smaller than the average Fruit Roll-Up. That’s not saying much though. The flavor is listed as Screamin’ Strawberry Tattoos. Not really keeping up with the Gushers in terms of cool name-ability, are you? At least the snacks attempt to print Halloween themed images for the tattoos.

Mine had a variety of bats and sayings such as “Yikes!” and “Happy Halloween.” Here’s the major flaw in their tongue tattoo logic- the words are printed correctly. This means when transferred to your tongue the words are backwards. That “yikes” reads more as “sekiy.” Clearly the designer didn’t make it past the the print it on the snack part of his job. Some designer at Betty Crocker is contributing to child illiteracy in this country. Good job Steve (I named him Steve.) And on top of it, the tattoos don’t even work well (as you can see by my professionally modeled tongue.) If I was to get this in my trick or treat sack, it would win points for being different from the average candy, but it’s no fun sized (insert and kind of chocolate here.)

So the verdict? They’re pretty cool A world better for Halloween than any of you still handing out Smarties or the tiny Tootsie Rolls (seriously, hasn’t enough generations grown up burned by this to phase these 2 out??) These would be great to hide for your kids with their lunch or (not saying we did this,) if you’re a married couple to sit in the dark watching Big Bang Theory and eating the full boxes of both surrounded by their zillion wrappers they leave behind.

Seriously, we didn’t do that.

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I got Candy Corn Dots to talk about too but that review just wasn’t in the cards as we managed to inhale the box before pictures were taken. They tasted like sweet. An indescribable vaguely sweetish flavor. This is common of all Dots but just in different colors and you always proceed to eat the whole box searching for where the flavor is cause it sure as hell ain’t in the dot you just ate. Then your box of Dots is gone.  But let me say this of Dots- the best Dot you ever had is still pretty crappy.

Dots are the ugly stepchild you hide in the basement of candy. They’re not quite as flavorful as fruit snacks and they’re not quite candy. They taste kind of sweet but not sweet enough and taste like a color. Red, orange, green. Like someone watered down a Flav-r-ice and gelled it up. Pass on Dots. Always.