Richard's Online Journal
[10/05/08] The Chocolate Grudge
I don’t want you to get the idea that I hold grudges, but the day Marathon bars became Snickers still burns deep in the core of my soul. I spit on your Snickers, then apologise and buy you a Mars bar instead. There’s a candy with integrity. Honour. Caramel. If you didn’t live through those cold times, you cannot understand the pain. Every comedian doing the exact same joke about underpants. Every sweet shop a tribute to the cultural invasion descending on our sceptred isle.
They changed the name in 1990. Thatcher resigned in 1990.
Coincidence? You decide.
But we recovered. Oh, yes, we recovered. They could rename our snacks, but they could never take from us the knowledge that American chocolate tastes like vomit aftertaste. We chewed on our renamed candy and plotted our revenge. Soon, the tapes of Are You Being Served would arrive on PBS’ doorstop, condemning millions of heathens and heretics to a decade of hilarious cat jokes. Our agents set to work, taking everything in our culture that they loved and perverting it like a chicken in a joke shop.
Then they renamed Opal Fruits ‘Starburst’, and oh, it was on!
Only last month, I continued the fight with a stirring, sardonic reference to this newly accursed candy (at least, if 10 years still counts as new). It was signed off, sealed, and delivered to the printer glowing with patriotic zeal. Then, what did my eyes fall on?
Opal Fruits return to British playgrounds
Yes. No sooner had I fired the word cannon, those candy-crunching foreigners struck back harder than the Empire. Their spy network is greater than we ever imagined. Already, a full-blown witchhunt is taking place, with the guilty party destined to be strapped down and force-fed sherbert until his (or her!) stomach explodes, or not, in which case they’re a witch and we burn them.
But wait! What’s this?
Mars, the manufacturers, is bringing back the sweets for a limited period in conjunction with the supermarket chain ASDA.
A… a limited period? Damn you! That means for the next few weeks, one might even say a number scientifically designed to be long enough to strip every last shred of topicality from my 1998-vintage joke, Grudge #453 has to be suspended! What are we going to do with the US rights to My Family now? All those years weaponising Not Funny, wasted. Damn the Geneva Convention. We should have deployed My Hero while we had the chance, not sat around twiddling our Coco Krispies until it was too late.
You win this round, America. Very clever.
Don’t think you’ve heard the last of this.
Comments on this story
I always like “New Recipe”
Great! So if I liked it before, you’ve changed it! If I thought it was crap, I’m probably not giving it a second chance, because the basic concept is still the same, and I’ve already rejected its whole existence!
With the exception of Cadbury’s Creme Eggs (originally Adolf Hitler’s Snot and Bacon Surprise Eggs*), I can’t think of a single product I’ve tried the new recipe for and immediately gone “Mmmm!” like one of those overexcited women in the shampoo adverts. If it’s healthier, I don’t care. I officially accept that eating chocolate and crisps officially prohibits me from whining about their ingredients and lack of nutritional value. Unleash the sugar! Release the MSG! If it tastes good, to hell with it!
(* The surprise was that there wasn’t really any bacon in there)
Posted by Richard on Sunday 11th May
I heartily agree.. oh, thanks for baking some of the nice taste out of my minichedders! Now it’s 10% less fat AND taste.
Or the whole pre-bagged Lions sweets fiasco Maynards claim they haven’t changed the recipe apart from the black ones - I have since proved this a lie to myself by buying a 2KG sweetshop box of original midget gems and taste testing! AH HA!
Posted by Nick on Sunday 11th May
“Opal Fruits, made to make your mouth water,
Fresh with the tang of citrus
Four refreshing fruit flavours ...”
That I can still remember the jingle after all these years speaks volumes. I used to love Opal Fruits - orange, lemon, lime and strawberry flavours - but I don’t think I’ve ever bought a packet of Starburst.
Posted by Scylla on Sunday 11th May
I used to eat Opal Fruits without unwrapping them first. In retrospect, this may have been the nascent sign of mental illness.
Posted by Iain on Monday 12th May
Yeah… Pretty sure they’re not meant to be that chewy.
Posted by Richard on Monday 12th May
Twix was called Raider in Italy until 1990. And it tasted better.
Posted by Marianna on Monday 12th May
The weirdest sweet situation I can think of was a game called Darkened Skye, which I reviewed for PC Gamer. It was an awful platformer with a fun sense of humour (a lot of fourth-wall breaking and self-mocking), which used a magic system based around mystical items called ‘Skittles’.
Hehe, I remember thinking. Skittles. Like the sweeties.
And then I saw one. And not only was it the sweeties, it was a glorified advert for the damn things based on the then-ancient Taste The Rainbow campaign, which none of the press materials had felt any desire to mention. Still, it was refreshingly honest about the fact that it was flat-out corporate whoring, especially when you have to retrieve one from the guts of a sea monster and get the (paraphrased) line:
“A Skittle! In surprisingly good condition for having spent hundreds of years being digested in that thing’s stomach. See, Marketing didn’t want us showing one all gunked up and icky, so.. er… I’ll shut up now.”
Maybe not much, but better than Zool.
Posted by Richard on Monday 12th May
I seem to remember there being Penguin bars in James Pond as well
Posted by Xenon on Wednesday 14th May
Sweets are all but ruined since this whole “Remove the artifical stuff!” burst out from its evil shell into life. Now all the sweets either don’t taste the same, or are basically plain. I miss the good ol’ days of artificial colours and hyperactivity.
Back then, blue smarties actually meant something!
Posted by William Main on Wednesday 14th May
At least they don’t taste of sick, like American chocolate.
Some of the marketing is pretty funny these days. For instance, large Dairy Milk bars no longer seem to include the calorie count for the full bar, just 100g or so, and the ‘per chunk’ amount. Gosh, I wonder why…
Posted by Richard on Wednesday 14th May
I wish they’d just make a healthy OPTION and not force it on the rest of us who might just have a little self control or be ok with eating lots and lots of fatty goodness.
That and no one ever thinks of the poor people with fast metabolisms =(
Discrimination I call it.
Posted by Nick on Wednesday 14th May
People with fast metabolisms will be first against the wall when the revolution comes.
Then eaten.
Posted by Richard on Wednesday 14th May
We can’t help it! We can just eat and eat and not get fat.
I’m making it worse aren’t I? Ok, it’s hard not to be dangerously underweight as well, so it evens out.
Posted by Nick on Wednesday 14th May
At least that one’s socially acceptable.
Posted by Richard on Wednesday 14th May
True, though it shouldn’t be encouraged like it seems to be.
Society is a mess.
Posted by Nick on Wednesday 14th May
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I’ve never gotten over how they destroyed Fruit Gums.
Not the name, but far worse.
Insidious and no doubt caused by the same people, somehow.
Posted by Nick on Sunday 11th May