Halloween Candy - Milky Way

Finally, Milky Way candy bars, and the whole bag.

Halloween Candy - Mars Bars Again

Family pack for the holiday.

Halloween Candy - Chiclets

Halloween Candy - Life Savers

A rare 1940's ad for Life Savers as a conversation starter at the masquerade ball. Mini Life Saver rolls were a standard in our Halloween hauls, kind of chum left until the last.

Halloween Candy - Chuckles

One of my favorites, Chuckles. I still get them from vending machines whenever I have a chance.

Halloween Candy - 5th Avenue

I don't know if I've ever had a 5th Avenue bar, probably have and just don't remember. Wasn't a common find in the Halloween bag, that's for sure.

Halloween Candy - Marshmallow Treats

If Post can get into the cereal's for Halloween business, so can Kellogg's. In 1951 they came out with this celebrity endorsement of 9-Minute Marshmallow crispy squares for trick or treaters. Not sure how you're supposed to put those in your bag, but I can say I've never gotten one for Halloween - ever.

Halloween Candy - Post Cereals?

Yeah, I'm trying to imagine the house that handed out corn flakes to trick or treaters. I'm guessing they had a lot of soaped windows and toilet paper in their trees. No wonder they're covering their faces in the ad.

Halloween Candy - Kraft Candy

I never had Kraft Fudgies, but I do remember their caramels. The main thing I remember was that the cellophane used to wrap them was nearly impossible to remove. Never got them for Halloween though, I actually always assumed they were more for cooking.

Halloween Candy - Roxbury Candies

Bargains from the killer clown at Roxbury Candies. Look into my dead lights...

Halloween Candy - Baby Ruth and Butterfinger

1961 Curtis Candy ad for Baby Ruth and Butterfinger, apparently Curtiss was stuck in the fifties with Suzy Homemaker and her wasp-waist. Interesting how we think of eras as defined, well ordered things when they actually bleed into each other.

Halloween Candy - Mounds

Mounds made with real coconut from the Philippines and bitter sweet chocolate. Peter Paul was founded in 1919 and their first candy bar was the Konabar, another combination of chocolate and coconut. Eventually they renamed their bar the Mounds Bar and thus was born the last bar left in my Halloween bag.

Halloween Candy - Chicken Bones

Sometimes you've got to read the margins to get the good stuff. Chicken Bones apparently were invented by Canadian candy maker Frank Sparhawk back in 1885, they are chocolate-filled cinnamon sticks. Apparently back in the fourties, Flavour tried to make inroads in the US market including an ad campaign in Life Magazine. I can't say how it went, just that when I first saw the ad I immediately thought of Chick-o-Sticks.

Halloween Candy - Switzer's Licorice

Switzer is still in business today. I've always had a thing for licorice, not that red vine crap, the real, hard-core, black licorice. The flavor of ouzo and sambuca, not that fake red berry-sugar whatever. Hey, a guy's got to have standards even if they're warped ones.

Halloween Candy - Baby Ruth Again

1942 Baby Ruth ad promoting the wonders of dextrose and complete with a war bond ad. The company's twitchy little mascot, N. R. G., must have gotten the boot sometime during the decade - or maybe he was caught in the draft, Either way, I don't find him showing up in many Curtiss ads.

Halloween Candy - Tootsie Roll

Another of what I like to call "confessional" ads, just you and the kid discussing grown-ups and their desire to steal your chocolatey, luscious tootsie rolls. I don't think a kid's ever uttered those words before. Hey, but they're rich in dextrose food energy!

Halloween Candy - Stacy's Marshmallows

Technically marshmallows aren't a candy, but I couldn't resist the 20's deco ad. O.T. Stacy was part of a marshmallow boom in Rochester NY back in the teens and the company presisted until the Great Depression took the air out of its stocks and its products. I did some digging and the one thing I was able to find on O.T. Stacy as a little lawsuit for violating FDA standards by adulterating their products with silica. Not exactly the kind of trick you want in your treat bag.

Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue

From the 1894 book Cuba Illustrated Ed. with the Biography and Portrait of Christopher Columbus, an image of the three Caravels which brought the explorer to Cuba. My own heritage has left me with mixed feelings about Columbus Day. It's probably the reason I find the song Let that be a Lesson to You by Louis Armstrong so appealing.

Halloween Candy - Limelights and Malted Milk Suckers

A recent renewal of interest in 'vintage' candies has brought the Mary Jane back from the grave, but there was a time when the Chas. N. Miller Company had a full line of candies including the Limelight and the Miller's Malted Milk Sucker. I'm not sure what happened to these two lost gems of the confectioner's world, but it'd be interesting to see them return.

Halloween Candy - The Wilbur Sweet Chocolate Bar

Sometimes all the hours of combing old periodicals pays off in an unexpected way. I present to you, the Wilbur sweet milk chocolate bar. Ah, language, you are a fickle and changeable lady!

In 1927, five years after this ad aired in Confectioner's Journal, the H. O. Wilbur company merged with Suchard Candy to become the Wilbur-Suchard Chocolate Company Inc. Nope, not making it up, I swear.

Though eventually gobbled up by the faceless Cargill conglomeration, Wilbur still is in operation today.