Halloween Junkfood - July 2020

Halloween in July, you say! How dare you… Well all I can say is that it's better than Christmas in July. Whoever thought of such craziness? At least I'm just getting a (really) early start, rather than randomly celebrating at the polar opposite end of the calendar year. Anywho, I typically wait until after my Birthday to call off any interest in summer and start digging into the Halloween spirit. At times it seems akin to getting a running start for a long jump by running a half-marathon, but as the season evolves, I feel that new things keep popping up to keep it alive. If all else fails, I'm just fully ready for Christmas come November 1st.

So the local grocery store just put out some Halloween candy, and while much of it was the generic label swapping, there were a few that I had been looking forward to. Any by few, I mean one, and I won't get to that until the end. Actually there were more, but I didn't find them, so we'll have to have another installment later on. First up is Hershey's Monster Kisses. They're pretty much the same thing but with new artwork on the wrappers. It's a common theme with most holiday themed candies, as it's easy to pull off with minimal effort. It doesn't get me too excited, but they do look good in a candy bowl. All have some sort of combo consisting of eyes and teeth. The blue one looks like a Cookie Monster that has just reached the end of his rope. The green one looks like a paranoid alien, and the purple looks like a certain something-something was baked into the chocolate if you know what I mean. Now that I think about it, each looks like a PSA about reactions to various drug uses. Proceed with caution.

The next one I was going to put first, but I finished the images and realized I did them in the wrong order. I wanted the collage layout to alternate left-right-left, but swapping them now would end up then going right-left-left AND ABSOLUTELY DRIVE ME INSANE. So thus it stays. Again, we have more label swapping. The actual chocolate is the same, with milk, dark, crisp, and peanut. The latter whose only fan in the world is me. The artwork is endearing in any case, appearing to mimic paper cutouts. Each is in varying levels of complexity, mirroring the attempts in grade school. Mine would end up like the spider or bat; the classmate with no future would end up making that ghost; and the witch would be the product of the teacher's pet. Enjoy your time in the limelight while you can, Beth. It's only downhill after arts & crafts fame.

Now onto the piece du tour de France, the Vampire Kisses. I like the artistic liberties taken here, suggesting that vampires simply kiss someone rather than use their extended canines to puncture through someone's skin and into their arteries. But I suppose as long as they aren't sparkling in sunlight, we can accept some romanticizing. Filled Hershey's Kisses have been around before, and for all I know there have been bleeding ones in the past. I recall a long time ago, there was a pirate skull chocolate that had a bloody center, but it was just more red chocolate and never really 'bled'. As you see below, these are the real deal and leak in a very satisfying manner. I suppose I shouldn't own up to determining the acceptable level of blood dripping, but a few bites of these, your homicidal tendencies will be just as hard to control.