Latest / Spooky Season Podcasts 🎃 / Stuff You Missed in History Class: SYMHC Classics: The History of Halloween Candy

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Stuff You Missed in History Class: SYMHC Classics: The History of Halloween Candy · Spooky Season Podcasts 🎃

0:02
Speaker 1: Happy Saturday, everybody, and happy Halloween. We know a lot
0:05
Speaker 1: of folks are missing out on trigger treating this year
0:08
Speaker 1: because of the pandemic. The CDC has listed traditional trick
0:11
Speaker 1: or treating as a higher risk activity, and a lot
0:14
Speaker 1: of communities have canceled or modified their usual Halloween celebrations.
0:19
Speaker 1: So we thought we would close out October this year
0:22
Speaker 1: with our previous episode on the history of Halloween candy,
0:27
Speaker 1: since if you can't trick or treat, you can, we
0:29
Speaker 1: hope at least have the treat part, whether it is
0:32
Speaker 1: candy or some other thing that you love many so
0:36
Speaker 1: much candy corn. Uh. This episode does conclude with a
0:40
Speaker 1: discussion of poisoned candy tragedies, So if you are not
0:43
Speaker 1: up for that today, uh, that discussion picks up after
0:46
Speaker 1: the second ad break and you just skip it. Yeah,
0:48
Speaker 1: And this originally came out on October Welcome to Stuff
0:56
Speaker 1: You Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello,
1:06
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm
1:09
Speaker 1: Tray Phoebe Wilson. So I know, uh, as we've been
1:14
Speaker 1: leading into Halloween, we've been doing some thematic things, and
1:17
Speaker 1: I know the episode on the Valiska acts murders. It
1:20
Speaker 1: was pretty grim, so I apologized that was a little
1:22
Speaker 1: too dark for anybody. So I thought to close out
1:25
Speaker 1: our Halloween episodes, it would be fun to sweeten things
1:27
Speaker 1: up a bit and instead of talking about another grizzly
1:30
Speaker 1: thing this year, as we kind of edge up on
1:32
Speaker 1: the day itself, we could talk about the history of
1:35
Speaker 1: Halloween candy uh. There was an episode a couple of
1:38
Speaker 1: years back that Sarah was on and Kristen Conger guest
1:42
Speaker 1: hosted from Stuff Mom Never Told You, and they talked
1:44
Speaker 1: a little bit about candy UH in their history of
1:47
Speaker 1: trick or treating, but they focused more on sort of
1:50
Speaker 1: a lot of the other cultural aspects of trick or treating.
1:53
Speaker 1: So we're gonna dig a little deeper and skip talking
1:55
Speaker 1: about the costumes and the other trappings of Halloween night
1:58
Speaker 1: and just focus on the sweet show gree stuff. Also,
2:02
Speaker 1: in the interest of expectations management, we are pretty much
2:05
Speaker 1: talking about modern trick or treating UH and how it
2:07
Speaker 1: has existed in the twentieth century. We're not really going
2:10
Speaker 1: to talk too much, although we'll touch on it briefly,
2:12
Speaker 1: about the older historical rituals associated with the holiday. Or
2:15
Speaker 1: the time of year that are sometimes discussed as sort
2:18
Speaker 1: of the precursors of the trick or treating tradition. So
2:22
Speaker 1: we will cover a little bit about how candy kind
2:24
Speaker 1: of became the star of the show, and then we'll
2:27
Speaker 1: talk about the history of a candy considered to be
2:30
Speaker 1: a Halloween classic, even though it is apparently not all
2:32
Speaker 1: that popular, And because I can't resist a little bit
2:36
Speaker 1: of ghoulishness, we'll also talk briefly about the various scares
2:39
Speaker 1: that have happened in the media, uh and in sort
2:42
Speaker 1: of the urban legend arena about purposely tainted or booby
2:46
Speaker 1: trapped candy. So to start it off, though, we're gonna
2:50
Speaker 1: actually talk about a different day than Halloween, near Halloween
2:55
Speaker 1: that was also about candy. Yeah, before Halloween became the
2:59
Speaker 1: candy hall to day. I mean, there's lots of candy
3:01
Speaker 1: associated with lots of other holidays, but candy Halloween is
3:05
Speaker 1: the big name. So confectioners tried to launch a candy
3:09
Speaker 1: specific holiday and they called it, in a huge amount
3:12
Speaker 1: of creativity, Candy Day. Yeah. Candy Day was first launched
3:17
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixteen, and it would fall on the second
3:20
Speaker 1: Saturday of October, and it was pitched to the public
3:23
Speaker 1: as a way to sort of encourage a spirit of
3:25
Speaker 1: giving and friendship. A lot of the ad campaigns around
3:28
Speaker 1: it were about take a break and make sure someone
3:30
Speaker 1: you know is getting candy today. Uh. They also were
3:34
Speaker 1: trying to allegedly recognize the food value of candy. In
3:38
Speaker 1: the earlyies, it was even marketed with a campaign to
3:43
Speaker 1: give candy away to the elderly and orphans, so people
3:45
Speaker 1: who were candy needy, but really it was a manufactured
3:50
Speaker 1: holiday to boost profits for candy companies. Candy Day was
3:55
Speaker 1: even renamed to Sweetest Day to encourage this association with
3:59
Speaker 1: kindness and generosity, and it continued to be celebrated on
4:03
Speaker 1: the second Saturday of October right into the fifties and beyond.
4:06
Speaker 1: I remember calendars when I was a kid having Sweetest
4:09
Speaker 1: Day on them and be very confused about what that was. Yeah. Uh.
4:14
Speaker 1: Some US cities still celebrate it, though, and if you
4:18
Speaker 1: ask most people what they were planning for it, you
4:20
Speaker 1: would probably be met with a blank stare, which I
4:23
Speaker 1: think is what happened when I said what is Sweetest Day?
4:25
Speaker 1: It says it here. I'm a calendar. Yeah, I'm trying
4:28
Speaker 1: to remember which I know Detroit allegedly still celebrates it,
4:32
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to remember a couple of the other
4:34
Speaker 1: cities that I saw. So if you're from any of those,
4:36
Speaker 1: write us and let us know if they actually are
4:39
Speaker 1: celebrated or if it's kind of just a holiday that's
4:42
Speaker 1: on the books, but no one really does anything for
4:44
Speaker 1: The idea though, of going door to door for treats
4:47
Speaker 1: on Halloween is believed to have started somewhere in the
4:51
Speaker 1: early part of the twentieth century, so that is different
4:54
Speaker 1: from Sweetest Day, although the exact starting point of when
4:57
Speaker 1: trigger treating really took off is a little bit fuzzy.
5:00
Speaker 1: But we're talking about somewhere between nineteen hundred and nineteen
5:04
Speaker 1: teens as the window of when people think it it
5:06
Speaker 1: was first uh started. Yea that the how and the
5:10
Speaker 1: why are kind of blurry. Also, there's some speculation that
5:15
Speaker 1: is Halloween became a night for pranks and vandalism early
5:19
Speaker 1: in the twentieth century, more organized trick or treating outings
5:22
Speaker 1: were sort of arranged by communities as a way to
5:24
Speaker 1: distract people from egging houses and whatnot. This isn't certain, though,
5:30
Speaker 1: and Sugar rash ing after World War Two broke out
5:33
Speaker 1: may have gummed up that plan anyway. And despite the
5:38
Speaker 1: haze of trick or treatings origins, we do know that
5:40
Speaker 1: by the late nineteen forties and early nineteen fifties it
5:43
Speaker 1: was pretty established culturally as a tradition. Uh. You know,
5:47
Speaker 1: most people will say it kind of ebbed and flowed
5:49
Speaker 1: in terms of popularity, but there is evidence of its
5:53
Speaker 1: popularity at this point from the world really of entertainment.
5:55
Speaker 1: So Jack Benny actually made jokes about the practice in
5:58
Speaker 1: his radio show as early as nineteen forty eight, and
6:01
Speaker 1: tricker treating appeared in Peanuts comics as early as nineteen
6:04
Speaker 1: fifty one. In ninety two, there was a Disney cartoon
6:07
Speaker 1: about Donald Duck's nephew's Huey Dewey and Louie going trick
6:11
Speaker 1: or treating, So we know at that point tricker treating
6:14
Speaker 1: was firmly established. So in terms of there being an
6:19
Speaker 1: actual recognized practice of trick or treating, it's actually really recent.
6:23
Speaker 1: We're looking back at, you know, seventy years ago. Uh,
6:27
Speaker 1: And why is candy part of the deal. This is
6:30
Speaker 1: actually an interesting um sort of sociological, anthropological approach to it.
6:36
Speaker 1: According to candy historian Beth Kimberly, sugar and this desire
6:41
Speaker 1: for sugar is an almost instinctive part of preparation for winter.
6:45
Speaker 1: So even going back to Celtic festivals of fall, I
6:47
Speaker 1: know we said we were going to talk about those much,
6:49
Speaker 1: but this is just a brief one. Uh. You know,
6:51
Speaker 1: part of the activity was that they were using sugar
6:53
Speaker 1: and then sometimes honey to preserve foods to get through winter.
6:57
Speaker 1: So to some degree there could be a little bit
7:00
Speaker 1: of sort of ancient instinct factoring into your craving for
7:03
Speaker 1: caramel in autumn. You're also adding a little padding to
7:07
Speaker 1: your person to get through the cold period when fresh
7:10
Speaker 1: food might not be readily available, or at least you
7:13
Speaker 1: would be if we needed it, and if we were
7:15
Speaker 1: in an age, you know, in the modern era where
7:17
Speaker 1: everything can be preserved and shipped worldwide. We're fortunate enough
7:20
Speaker 1: in most places that would probably be hearing this to
7:24
Speaker 1: have access to fresh food pretty much year round. This
7:27
Speaker 1: is kind of an aside, but last week I went
7:30
Speaker 1: to a thing called bo Fest, which is the festival
7:33
Speaker 1: of bad ad hoc hypotheses and basically people make up
7:37
Speaker 1: these are really off the wall hypotheses that are weirdly
7:42
Speaker 1: supported by data but are made to be ridiculous, And
7:46
Speaker 1: this whole candy hypothesis in the wintertime might have had
7:49
Speaker 1: a good place at that festival. Yeah, it's It's one
7:53
Speaker 1: of those that's interesting to think about, and I can
7:55
Speaker 1: see the logic of it. I don't know if I
7:57
Speaker 1: buy into it, but it's to talk about it is
8:01
Speaker 1: and by fest is fun and they say, we hope
8:03
Speaker 1: you learn nothing, because everything they're saying is uh So. Anyway,
8:09
Speaker 1: once candy companies realized that trick or treating was a
8:12
Speaker 1: for real tradition, it wasn't long before they started coming
8:15
Speaker 1: up with waste to capitalize on it by making sweet
8:18
Speaker 1: treats that had a specifically holiday focus, and initial efforts
8:23
Speaker 1: on the parts of most of these confectioners were really
8:26
Speaker 1: focused around not marketing directly to consumers with like special
8:30
Speaker 1: holiday wraps and Halloween themed candy like we'd see today,
8:34
Speaker 1: but more to shopkeepers. Uh So, they were pretty much
8:37
Speaker 1: selling the same normal candy, but they were parceling them,
8:42
Speaker 1: you know, in their palates and their big shipping cases
8:44
Speaker 1: as ottumnan Halloween specific in an effort to get those
8:48
Speaker 1: shopkeepers to promote candy as Halloween drew near, and this
8:53
Speaker 1: is actually important since at the time candy wasn't the
8:56
Speaker 1: only giveaway that you might reasonably expect as a Halloween
9:00
Speaker 1: hand out. Both kool Aid and Kellogg's were marketing their
9:03
Speaker 1: products it's perfect items to hand out to trick or
9:06
Speaker 1: treaters in the nineteen fifties, and candy also competed with nuts, fruit,
9:11
Speaker 1: small toys, and homemade treats. Yeah, if you know Kelloggs
9:17
Speaker 1: had one, we might all be getting cereal on Halloween,
9:19
Speaker 1: which is not a bad thing, but it would be
9:22
Speaker 1: very different holiday. Uh Brocks, which is a company that's
9:26
Speaker 1: still around and churning out caramels and candy corn, among
9:28
Speaker 1: other suits, was one of the first companies to market
9:31
Speaker 1: special Halloween candy directly to the consumer. In nineteen sixty two,
9:36
Speaker 1: they started putting images of jack O lanterns on their
9:38
Speaker 1: candy boxes, and this was actually way ahead of most
9:41
Speaker 1: other candy companies. As we got into the nineteen seventies,
9:45
Speaker 1: candy makers really started to step up their game, and
9:48
Speaker 1: this is when marshmallow peeps first started to appear in
9:51
Speaker 1: special Halloween additions like cats and pumpkins. Um. Those were
9:56
Speaker 1: originally marketed as witch mellows, and I will just say
10:01
Speaker 1: to this day the peeps um chocolate moose kiddies are
10:05
Speaker 1: one of my very favorite Halloween treats. I love them. Uh.
10:09
Speaker 1: Candy an individual small rapper started to be standard. Companies
10:13
Speaker 1: were starting to make value add candies as well, so
10:16
Speaker 1: that you could give those out to ghosts and ghouls
10:18
Speaker 1: who might arrive on your doorstep demanding sugar. So this
10:21
Speaker 1: is when candy packs came with rappers that would like
10:24
Speaker 1: turn into puppets, and boxes would have little punch out
10:28
Speaker 1: windows so that they could kind of become little temporary
10:32
Speaker 1: haunted house play set kind of activities. I loved all
10:35
Speaker 1: that stuff when I was a kid, to like give
10:36
Speaker 1: me a candy plus an activity to do once I
10:38
Speaker 1: was full of sugar and I was the happiest child around. Uh.
10:42
Speaker 1: This is also the time in the seventies when one
10:44
Speaker 1: of my very favorites UH known as Mr Bones debut
10:48
Speaker 1: and Mr Bones was a candy skeleton that came in
10:51
Speaker 1: a little black coffin, so it was basically like bones
10:54
Speaker 1: and a skull and little pieces. And I would always
10:57
Speaker 1: spend way too much time putting him together, like I
11:00
Speaker 1: would make sure that all my bones were laid out
11:02
Speaker 1: as properly as could be given the candy molds that
11:05
Speaker 1: they used to create them, and then I would eat
11:07
Speaker 1: him from the feet up. And I remember I was
11:09
Speaker 1: getting really dismayed if I had not gotten enough of
11:12
Speaker 1: the proper parts to make the full skeleton. But I
11:15
Speaker 1: loved Mr Bones. But before we get to another rather
11:20
Speaker 1: ghoulish candy trend, do you want to have a quick
11:22
Speaker 1: word from a sponsor, I sure do so. Gross out
11:35
Speaker 1: candy first appeared in the nineteen eighties. There was just
11:38
Speaker 1: a whole trend of disgusting things. I never liked it,
11:42
Speaker 1: but boy it sure was popular. Yeah, thanks to garbage
11:44
Speaker 1: candy and garbage pale kids, this completely gross out candy
11:48
Speaker 1: was now on the scene. And that's when edible eyeballs
11:51
Speaker 1: and chocolate covered brains first hit the market and there's
11:55
Speaker 1: just really been no end to the grossness since then.
11:58
Speaker 1: This turned into a trend and it quickly grew in popularity,
12:01
Speaker 1: so a lot of companies started offering this gross candy
12:05
Speaker 1: year round instead of just a Halloween and the year
12:09
Speaker 1: round trend is something that's sort of ironically is affecting
12:13
Speaker 1: the way in which candy is now being offered. So
12:16
Speaker 1: Halloween candy got so popular that people started offering it
12:19
Speaker 1: year round, But now many candy companies are trying to
12:23
Speaker 1: find new ways to take the focus off of exclusive
12:27
Speaker 1: Halloween pushes, so a lot of them are offering treats
12:30
Speaker 1: that are more sort of autumn focused instead of just
12:33
Speaker 1: doing Halloween specific packaging. So that way, while the Halloween
12:37
Speaker 1: uh that's very clearly marked Halloween candy gets marked down
12:41
Speaker 1: like half off or more on November one, all of
12:44
Speaker 1: those yummy treats that have more general autumn colored wrappers
12:47
Speaker 1: and flavors can still be offered at regular price. So
12:50
Speaker 1: if you think about your local retail store, you probably
12:53
Speaker 1: can quickly envision Reese's Cups and Hershey's Kisses and other
12:59
Speaker 1: chocolates and candys that are now sort of wrapped in
13:01
Speaker 1: like gold russet and copper foil wrappers. And that's part
13:05
Speaker 1: of why that transition happened. Instead of marketing for one day,
13:08
Speaker 1: their marketing for a season. Well. This is also reminding
13:11
Speaker 1: me of like the rebranding of other holidays candies as
13:16
Speaker 1: Halloween candy, like the advent of Cadbury scream eggs, which
13:20
Speaker 1: I might need to go find some as soon as
13:22
Speaker 1: we're done recording. Yeah, that's I have an unhealthy relationship
13:26
Speaker 1: with the Cadbury Cream and Cadbury Scream mix. So with
13:31
Speaker 1: all of this, they're hoping that candy consumption will go
13:33
Speaker 1: right on through Thanksgiving before you transition into the winter
13:37
Speaker 1: holiday candy. And this makes business sense. Instead of marketing
13:41
Speaker 1: this one day holiday like Halloween, they can market to
13:44
Speaker 1: this whole season of candy consumption. Yeah, because candy uh
13:49
Speaker 1: for Halloween comes out so early now, I mean that's
13:52
Speaker 1: almost a full half year of just solid candy marketing
13:56
Speaker 1: by the time you factor in fall and the winter holidays.
14:00
Speaker 1: In eleven, it was estimated that Halloween candy sales made
14:03
Speaker 1: up for two point three billion dollars of the six
14:07
Speaker 1: billion dollars associated with Americans spending around the Halloween holiday.
14:12
Speaker 1: So while costumes and decor are gobbling up an ever
14:15
Speaker 1: bigger chunk of the Halloween spending numbers, candy still holds
14:18
Speaker 1: a strong position. They pull in more than a third
14:21
Speaker 1: of the consumer dollars that are spent on this holiday.
14:25
Speaker 1: According to the California Milk Processors Board, The average candy
14:29
Speaker 1: toting Halloween Jack O Lanard holds two fifty pieces of
14:33
Speaker 1: candy and that's about nine thousand calories and three pounds
14:38
Speaker 1: of sugar, which if you are a longtime listener of
14:41
Speaker 1: the podcast, you know my mother would disapprove of. Yeah,
14:48
Speaker 1: we kind of had a free for all in our house.
14:49
Speaker 1: That's one of those statistics that I read, and it
14:52
Speaker 1: was startling because I know how many times I devoured
14:54
Speaker 1: a solid half of my bucket or I mean, not
14:58
Speaker 1: all kids only stick to the Jack galanern. We had
15:00
Speaker 1: pillowcases some years, just like I remember the trick or
15:04
Speaker 1: tre getting with pillowcases that we definitely took in more
15:07
Speaker 1: than three pounds of sugar at a time sometimes. But
15:11
Speaker 1: now we're gonna shift. Now that we've kind of talked
15:13
Speaker 1: about how candy and Halloween got married, we're going to
15:17
Speaker 1: talk about candy corn. And for full disclosure, I love
15:22
Speaker 1: candy corn so much. This is my one of my
15:25
Speaker 1: very favorites. I know that's not the case for everyone,
15:28
Speaker 1: but I love it all caps love It's At the
15:33
Speaker 1: same time, well, a lot of people really hate it.
15:36
Speaker 1: I am not one of those people, but a lot
15:37
Speaker 1: of people hate it, and that is the word they use.
15:40
Speaker 1: But somehow candy corn remains a standard part of the
15:43
Speaker 1: Halloween candy repertoire. There are thirty five million pounds of
15:48
Speaker 1: candy corn made every year, which is nine billion pieces. Yeah,
15:52
Speaker 1: I read one statistic. Uh, I believe it was at
15:55
Speaker 1: the National Confectioners Association UM and it They had done
16:00
Speaker 1: a survey and it was basically like, most people hate
16:06
Speaker 1: more people hate dislike candy corn than like it. But
16:08
Speaker 1: those same people say that it's still like a required
16:11
Speaker 1: part of the holiday, Like it's such a an iconic
16:15
Speaker 1: element of Halloween candy that they're like, well, you can't
16:17
Speaker 1: have Halloween without candy corn. Oh, I hate it. But
16:21
Speaker 1: it's like the people who eat the cranberry sauce from
16:24
Speaker 1: a can and they don't really know why they do
16:27
Speaker 1: it at Thanksgiving, but they do because I feel like
16:29
Speaker 1: they have to. Yeah, it's a pity. They should try
16:32
Speaker 1: some homemade cranberry song and as an aside. In another
16:37
Speaker 1: survey that was conducted by the National Confectioners Association, in
16:42
Speaker 1: they surveyed one thirty five adults about the proper way
16:46
Speaker 1: to consume candy corn or dy, six point eight percent
16:50
Speaker 1: felt that you should just pop the whole piece in
16:52
Speaker 1: your mouth at once. However, very close behind forty two
16:57
Speaker 1: point seven think that you should start with the narrow end,
17:00
Speaker 1: which is usually white, but when you get into specially
17:02
Speaker 1: specialty flavors is different, and ten points six percent things,
17:05
Speaker 1: starting with the wide end is the way to go.
17:08
Speaker 1: But I also have to wonder, given what we were
17:10
Speaker 1: just saying about how many people dislike it, how many
17:12
Speaker 1: of those respondents said you should throw it out before
17:15
Speaker 1: actually giving their eating preference. Regardless of how you feel
17:19
Speaker 1: about it and the reason that we're talking about it today,
17:22
Speaker 1: it's been around for a long time. Yeah. The invention
17:26
Speaker 1: of this ubiquitous candy is normally credited to a candy
17:29
Speaker 1: maker named George Renninger, and he was working at the
17:32
Speaker 1: Wonderlely Candy Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the eighteen eighties
17:36
Speaker 1: when he is said to have first made it. And
17:39
Speaker 1: there were other convectioners that were making candies with very
17:41
Speaker 1: similar texture. Uh, and that's sort of just general sugar
17:45
Speaker 1: flavor that were molded into foliage like you know, leaves
17:49
Speaker 1: and other nature shapes acorns, etcetera. But Rehninger was the
17:53
Speaker 1: first to create this multicolored stripe design. It was the
17:57
Speaker 1: striping that really drew people's attention, and it also made
18:00
Speaker 1: candy corn a real challenge to make. Kettles of boiling
18:05
Speaker 1: sugar slurry were mixed with marshmallow and fondent, and this
18:08
Speaker 1: resulting concoction was poured into buckets. Stringers were men tasked
18:13
Speaker 1: with walking and pouring out these pound buckets into the
18:18
Speaker 1: candy molds. Because of the striping, they had to make
18:21
Speaker 1: three passes to make every batch of candy corn. And
18:24
Speaker 1: as I was researching this and how they did it,
18:27
Speaker 1: my first thought was, like, they've never mentioned it, but
18:30
Speaker 1: that seems like a really dangerous job to me. If
18:32
Speaker 1: any of our listeners have ever made candy and come
18:35
Speaker 1: in contact with boiling sugar, it's terrible. That's like an instant,
18:40
Speaker 1: horrifying burn on your skin. Uh, and it sticks because
18:44
Speaker 1: it's sugar, so it's really hard to get off, and
18:46
Speaker 1: the burn gets deeper and worse, like while you're trying
18:48
Speaker 1: to clean it um. And they didn't talk about that,
18:51
Speaker 1: but I feel like carrying forty five pound buckets of
18:54
Speaker 1: this hot sugar mixture seemed had to be like a
18:58
Speaker 1: high risk of injury or at the very least scalding.
19:02
Speaker 1: Um not the scalding isn't an injury, but you know
19:04
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like it just seems rough, extremely bad,
19:09
Speaker 1: seems like a really dangerous job to me. The process
19:13
Speaker 1: has really not changed that much today, except that now
19:15
Speaker 1: it is mechanized, so there is not risk to human skin, uh,
19:19
Speaker 1: and it's not as time consuming or backbreaking. But other
19:22
Speaker 1: than that, it's pretty close to the original process. Even
19:26
Speaker 1: though it's now really closely linked with Halloween. This wasn't
19:29
Speaker 1: always the case. In the nineteen fifties, there were ad
19:31
Speaker 1: campaigns promoting candy corn, which had also gone by the
19:36
Speaker 1: name chicken feed and early incarnations as a summertime street
19:40
Speaker 1: or something for year round. As with other sweet makers,
19:45
Speaker 1: the companies that made candy corn really started to focus
19:48
Speaker 1: their energies on Halloween marketing in the nineteen fifties. So
19:52
Speaker 1: the fall and Halloween colors of the candy which it
19:55
Speaker 1: had originally made it a very natural fit for the holiday.
19:59
Speaker 1: So it's sort of made a home there as it were.
20:02
Speaker 1: But in recent years candy corn has been made over
20:05
Speaker 1: as well, just as we talked about other candies taking
20:07
Speaker 1: on sort of a more seasonal approach, uh, so that
20:11
Speaker 1: it could, um you know, kind of spread across the calendar.
20:15
Speaker 1: So Bronx and Jellybelly, which are the two main candy
20:18
Speaker 1: corn manufacturers today, are trying to keep it relevant year round.
20:22
Speaker 1: You can get spring colored bunny corn for Easter baskets.
20:25
Speaker 1: They make pink and red cupid corn for Valentine's Day.
20:29
Speaker 1: There is red and green reindeer corn at Christmas time.
20:33
Speaker 1: I think one year, and I'm not sure if this
20:35
Speaker 1: is a consistent thing that they still offer, but I
20:37
Speaker 1: remember seeing a fourth of July red, white, and blue
20:40
Speaker 1: candy corn one year. I don't remember what manufacturer made it.
20:43
Speaker 1: But they're also innumerable specialty flavors of candy corn available
20:48
Speaker 1: today in addition to the classic sort of general sugar flavor.
20:52
Speaker 1: And if you do like candy corn like I do,
20:56
Speaker 1: um Brox caramel Machiatto flavor this year is my absolute favorite.
21:01
Speaker 1: I have eaten an absolutely unconscionable amount in the last week. Um.
21:07
Speaker 1: You can celebrate National Candy Corn Day on October, so
21:10
Speaker 1: we're right there at it. Go run out and buy
21:12
Speaker 1: a bag if you want. And if you're not in
21:14
Speaker 1: the US, you can still celebrate, even though that's one
21:16
Speaker 1: of our national holidays. Uh. But now that we have
21:20
Speaker 1: had my candy corn fangirl situation, we're going to talk
21:23
Speaker 1: about some of the scarier aspects of Halloween candy. But
21:26
Speaker 1: before that, do you want to take a word from
21:28
Speaker 1: a sponsor. I do. There's a huge irony to Halloween's
21:41
Speaker 1: candy collecting tradition. Unlike the rest of the year, when
21:44
Speaker 1: kids are not supposed to take candy from strangers. On
21:48
Speaker 1: October one, unless your mother's like my mother and you
21:51
Speaker 1: only trick or treated at the homes of people you
21:54
Speaker 1: knew personally and extensively, you're encouraged to do exactly that. Yeah,
21:59
Speaker 1: the risk inherent in doing so has, of course given
22:02
Speaker 1: rise to all manner of stories and myths and third
22:05
Speaker 1: and fourth hand accounts of horrible things that people will
22:08
Speaker 1: allege really happen to their cousin, sisters, best friends. And
22:12
Speaker 1: it's completely natural to be fearful of the unknown. There's
22:15
Speaker 1: certainly enough real life horrors that are reported on the
22:17
Speaker 1: news all the time to feed the fear of a wicked,
22:20
Speaker 1: cruel person poisoning candy to pass out to kids on Halloween. Well,
22:25
Speaker 1: and even with us so many communities having like a
22:27
Speaker 1: safe trick or treating event. I was always like that
22:30
Speaker 1: just seems like you could hurt more kids at once. Um, yeah,
22:35
Speaker 1: I don't know. If we're paranoid. I have very similar thoughts. Yeah,
22:39
Speaker 1: I'm glad I'm not a parent, because I would be
22:41
Speaker 1: the mom that never let my kid do any of
22:42
Speaker 1: this stuff. Right. However, most of the stories of tainted
22:47
Speaker 1: candy don't really stand up to close their inspection. There
22:50
Speaker 1: are definitely a few which have made headlines over the
22:54
Speaker 1: years and Snopes, which I love. Snopes dot Com visit
22:57
Speaker 1: if you're wondering if something is true or not. They
23:00
Speaker 1: have a long list of these events. We'll cover just
23:03
Speaker 1: a few of them. So in a case where there
23:07
Speaker 1: was actual poison involved, but it seems like not so
23:11
Speaker 1: much evil intent, stick with me. A woman in Green Lawn,
23:15
Speaker 1: New York, made a really terrible decision uh when she
23:19
Speaker 1: decided to teach teams a lesson about being too old
23:22
Speaker 1: a trick or treat in nineteen sixty four. So Helen
23:26
Speaker 1: File prepared the special packages of non treats to hand
23:30
Speaker 1: out to her to hand out to teenagers when they
23:32
Speaker 1: came to her door for trick or treating, and these
23:35
Speaker 1: packages had steel wool pads, dog biscuits and arsenic laced
23:39
Speaker 1: candy buttons, and File told the older kids that she
23:43
Speaker 1: handed them out to that they were a joke and
23:45
Speaker 1: that they were in fact poisonous. They had skull and
23:47
Speaker 1: crossbones on them and poison written on them, and no
23:50
Speaker 1: one ingested any of them. But she was handing out
23:53
Speaker 1: poison to kids. So she was charged with child endangerment.
23:57
Speaker 1: She pled guilty, and she received a suspended sentence. That
24:00
Speaker 1: just seems like maybe she went a little too far
24:02
Speaker 1: trying to make her point. Yeah, it seems like the
24:05
Speaker 1: arsenic laced candy buttons was was one step over the line,
24:10
Speaker 1: maybe more than one step. It was over the line.
24:14
Speaker 1: In Detroit, in v Kevin Tossen, who was five, died
24:19
Speaker 1: after spending four days in a coma following a heroin overdose,
24:24
Speaker 1: and the drug was found in his Halloween candy. So
24:27
Speaker 1: while his death was accidental, the family actually staged a
24:31
Speaker 1: cover up of what had really happened. Kevin had gotten
24:35
Speaker 1: into his uncle's stash and the family had been sprinkled
24:39
Speaker 1: heroin into his tricker treat candy in hoping that a
24:43
Speaker 1: mystery villain would be blamed for it. Yeah, and it
24:47
Speaker 1: was one of those things that even once the truth
24:50
Speaker 1: sort of came out that he had actually gotten into
24:53
Speaker 1: separate from his Halloween candy his uncle's drugs, by that point,
24:57
Speaker 1: like the newspaper headlines had already read everywhere, you know,
25:01
Speaker 1: that this five year old had died from poison Halloween
25:04
Speaker 1: candy or from drug laced Halloween candy. And so that
25:07
Speaker 1: was really the thing that people remembered. And even though
25:10
Speaker 1: there was an explanation, uh, that's sort of the fear
25:14
Speaker 1: was already pretty placed at that point. Um. And then
25:18
Speaker 1: in ninety four and what was really just a horrible
25:21
Speaker 1: and tragic event. Uh, there was what initially appeared to
25:25
Speaker 1: be a legitimate poison candy incident. Uh. There was an
25:28
Speaker 1: eight year old in Deer Park, Texas named Timothy O'Brien,
25:32
Speaker 1: and he died after eating tainted pixie Sticks candy after
25:36
Speaker 1: he went trick or treating on Halloween night. Uh. And
25:39
Speaker 1: the truly horrific turn of events is that the boy
25:41
Speaker 1: had been poisoned, but not by a stranger handing out
25:45
Speaker 1: bad candy. It was in fact the child's father, Ronald Clark, O'Brien,
25:49
Speaker 1: who was found guilty in the murder investigation around the poisoning. Yeah,
25:53
Speaker 1: it turned out that the boy's father had handed out
25:56
Speaker 1: pixie sticks laced with cyanide to his son and daughter
26:00
Speaker 1: and to a friend's children. And his actual target was
26:03
Speaker 1: his son because he had taken out a forty dollar
26:06
Speaker 1: life insurance policy on him. His distribution of the candy
26:09
Speaker 1: to other kids was to support this story that somebody
26:13
Speaker 1: at one of the houses where where they had stopped
26:16
Speaker 1: trick or treating had given out the bad candy instead
26:18
Speaker 1: of him. He was found guilty in the investigation and
26:23
Speaker 1: he was sentenced to death. He was executed by lethal
26:25
Speaker 1: injection almost ten years after the murder of his son
26:28
Speaker 1: in four And this is one that is bad enough
26:31
Speaker 1: on its own, But when people retell the story, they
26:35
Speaker 1: often embellish it and they'll say, exactly ten years later
26:38
Speaker 1: on Halloween, but now he was executed at a different
26:41
Speaker 1: time of year. But I've kind of feel like that
26:44
Speaker 1: one is bad enough on its own. You don't need
26:46
Speaker 1: to add, you know, poignant timing details to it. So
26:51
Speaker 1: while there haven't actually been any documented cases of like
26:55
Speaker 1: widespread distribution of tainted candy, to stranger children. These myths persist,
27:03
Speaker 1: and parents are understandably fearful. And you know that taking
27:07
Speaker 1: candy from people you don't know is an inherently risky
27:09
Speaker 1: thing to do. But if there is an upside to
27:13
Speaker 1: all of the fear surrounding potentially tainted candy, it's actually
27:16
Speaker 1: the benefit that it offers candy companies. So parents have
27:20
Speaker 1: become less suspicious of factory sealed candies and individually ramped
27:24
Speaker 1: these little smaller packages, uh than they would be of
27:27
Speaker 1: homemade treats, which used to be a lot more common.
27:29
Speaker 1: I know when I was trick or treating as a kid,
27:31
Speaker 1: we had neighbors that would make like popcorn balls, or
27:34
Speaker 1: we had um one neighbor that would give out. She
27:37
Speaker 1: would do the little chocolate mold candies of her own
27:41
Speaker 1: like that would never fly today unless you were going
27:43
Speaker 1: to like a specific friend's house for a party. You
27:46
Speaker 1: could not go to a stranger's house and get a
27:48
Speaker 1: popcorn ball and probably be allowed to eat it once
27:50
Speaker 1: you got home. Yeah. I remember my mom going through
27:53
Speaker 1: all of the hallowing candy and throwing away anything that
27:56
Speaker 1: was suspicious to her, which was mostly stuff that was homemade. Um,
28:01
Speaker 1: it was even even after only through or treating at
28:03
Speaker 1: the homes of people that we knew, you know, better
28:07
Speaker 1: safe than sorry. I mean I kind of can't faulter
28:09
Speaker 1: for it. I really can't either. You know, she had
28:12
Speaker 1: your best interests in mind. She sure your kids were safe.
28:15
Speaker 1: She also had some pretty strict rules about how much
28:17
Speaker 1: candy we could, Like we are, the Halloween candy at
28:20
Speaker 1: our house usually lasted a really long time because it
28:23
Speaker 1: was sort of rationed and little bit on at our house.
28:27
Speaker 1: It was like a crazy, wild free for all at
28:29
Speaker 1: our house. We were very horrible. U. So, yeah, that's
28:33
Speaker 1: sort of Halloween candy through history. A lot of that's
28:36
Speaker 1: more modern history than we usually cover, but it's one
28:38
Speaker 1: of those things that we don't really get to kind
28:40
Speaker 1: of delve into. And it's the perfect time of year
28:42
Speaker 1: to play around with candy and sweets discussions, which I
28:46
Speaker 1: always love. So even in some cities today, like I know,
28:51
Speaker 1: there are a few local police precincts and stuff that
28:53
Speaker 1: will sometimes do like a candy inspection station on Halloween night,
28:57
Speaker 1: or you can go and have your candy X ray
28:59
Speaker 1: to make sure there's nothing dicey in it of a
29:02
Speaker 1: metal nature or anything. So those are still out there
29:05
Speaker 1: as safeguards, even though, as we said, there haven't been
29:08
Speaker 1: any documented cases. If it makes parents feel better, I
29:10
Speaker 1: think that's great. Uh. And now I just want to
29:13
Speaker 1: go eat three pounds of candy corn, but I'm probably
29:16
Speaker 1: alone in that. Thanks so much for joining us on
29:25
Speaker 1: this Saturday. Since this episode is out of the archive,
29:28
Speaker 1: if you heard an email address or a Facebook U
29:30
Speaker 1: r L or something similar over the course of the show,
29:33
Speaker 1: that could be obsolete. Now. Our current email address is
29:37
Speaker 1: History Podcast at i heart radio dot com. Our old
29:41
Speaker 1: health stuff Works email address no longer works, and you
29:45
Speaker 1: can find us all over social media at missed in History.
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30:00
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