Halloween Junkfood - July 2024

There’s only a few constants in life. One being: if someone with facial tattoos makes your iced coffee, it’s going to amazing, the other is that my annual Halloween food in July will inevitably be pushed into August. I take some solace that everything was actually purchased in July, and the drift is less due to negligence but more out of caution that I hadn’t quite waited for all of the proper releases.

Oddly enough, I’ve found that there’s a sweet spot around this time when the offerings on display are about all you’re really going to get. Maybe a special edition will drop closer to Halloween proper, but the yearly alterations to the tried and true candy brands tend flare up and fizzle out before we delve too deep in any actual Fall months.

Despite all this negativity, the first few hit earlier than usual in the first few weeks of July. While I’m of the understanding that all brands are owned by about three major corporations, whatever sub-sub-branding in effect all had a stake in the three I picked up first.

Reeses PB Cups ditch the latter portion of their name around now and start coming in thematic shapes. This does have a pleasant side effect of making them rather soft and pliable all while upping the peanut butter content – or whatever material that they claim is peanut butter. Kit-Kats also have been toying with their flavor formula, so let’s dive in.

Ghost Toast is the new addition, combing forces with the green Witches and white Mummies to form a super group that could very well unseat the cereal monopoly if it – again – weren’t for the existing monopoly of Disney or Google or whomever controls the food market at the moment. But unlike the other offerings, the flavor hits home with a French Toast cinnamon that feels like a perfect morning treat. Hmm, maybe it can take over some of the breakfast real estate after all.

Werewolf Tracks are the follow-up to the Frankenstein edition from the past few years. Same theme is in effect though, but there’s a white cap instead of green. Why white? I don’t know. Maybe it’s an allusion to werewolves growing grey hair once they transform. Perhaps rather than some blood-born puberty allegory, it has something to do with Manopause. That got weird, so onto the next.

Unfortunately, the next one is something I already talked about as an excuse for an intro paragraph. There’s nothing else to say except that the shape is of a bat. A bat that attracts fingerprints, and will surely dox my identity and lead to where the bodies are hidden out back. Well good luck, you’ll never find them.

I’m not about the eat any of this garbage, but felt obligated to buy the lot regardless. So to make some sort of use of the opened packages, I present this abomination: some winged pumpkin stilt man. Wait… that was a bat. I’ve failed. I’m sorry…for this, not the bodies out back. They had it coming.

Fast forward a few weeks, to what I insist is still somewhat in the realm of July, and certainly not dipping into the early days of August. The boatload of the general Halloween candy is on shelves, and for the most part, the box art appears to be the more important draw. PB Cup spiders? Genius! Dislocating your mummy arms so you can pet the kitty all the more easily? We’ve all been there.

Twizzler Ghosts was the only other notable item that caught my eye. I didn’t buy them, since I quickly realized that just taking pictures in the store will serve these articles almost as well as buying them, so I’ve just saved myself a ton of money that I don’t have. I’m not a fast learner, but I do catch on eventually.

Then before I left, I felt the urge to peek over the monolith in the center of the aisle and spotted an unopened box of Halloween Nerds. I tore it open with a foam and vigor of a rabid squirrel and ended up taking a bag home. Scratch that earlier part about learning; I’m obviously a hopeless cause.

I don’t regret it. I mean who would pass up facsimiles of raspberries that make you feel like you’re eating gravel. If it weren’t for the saccharine sweetness, you’d be forgiven for assuming that you dropped a gummi on the floor and gained a generous amount of seasoning and dietary fiber for your gullet. I had a few, and they weren’t bad. I can’t eat too many before Wilford Brimley comes knocking…wait. I’ve made this joke before.

Sigh, moving on.

Late in the game, I finally found the seasonal Fanta. Yeah, I can’t pretend that these were July pickups, since the release date was fairly public, but it’s worth adding here for posterity instead of one of the micro articles that will no unnoticed. Here’s the good news: the flavor is amazing. Believe the hype train. Rather than sour apple, as advertised, it’s more of a caramel apple. Not so much the coated apple you fail to eat on a stick, but the coffee pound cake that adds cinnamon sugar crumbles to the mix. The only downside is the 260 calories of corn syrup that make it difficult to finish, or even get to the third-way mark. I wish I could enjoy the whole thing. My taste buds say yes, but my stomach says no, and then files a Title IX report.

Wait, I made that joke before too.

See you in October. Bye.