The Five Worst Candies of All Time

Candy is a magical thing, and when you're a kid, it's your entire world.

Kids are like zombies for candy: they'll stop at nothing to get it, and they won't stop eating it once they find it. Unfortunately, all candies aren't created equal, and there are some candies that burn the mouth and soul with a putrid taste unfit for those doomed to walk the pathways of Hell.

Yeah, I'm really, really serious about this. All candy should be awesome, and the makers of crappy candy need to face strict imprisonment or other penalties, perhaps flogging. How dare they have the gall to ruin a child's happiness by forcing savage confections on him! How dare they ruin that Christlike moment of bliss on Halloween, Easter, and birthdays with their bland, cheap products!

We've all been there, folks, and it needs to stop. First, though, we need a hit list. To aid in the battle against bad sweets, here's my list of the five worst candies of all time.

1. Circus Peanuts. To this day, I have not met a single person that did not get at least one circus peanut in their Halloween bag as a kid. They're pink, large, peanut-shaped marshmallows that look like something out of a Stephen King novel. And also, to this day, I don't know anyone who has tried to eat one. Maybe that's because anyone who was successful was shuffled off of this mortal coil, or just that their lips were glued together by a mixture of heavy corn syrup and saliva. Whatever the case, there's a special place in hell for the makers of the circus peanut.

2. Candy Corn. Candy corn shouldn't be allowed to call itself candy. At best, it's good for three or four pieces, and then it tastes like a baboon's ass. You'll keep eating it, though, despite its blandness and its odd, earwax-like texture. For some reason, it's addictive, even if it's terrible.

3. Black Licorice. Red Licorice's evil cousin. Red licorice is a thing of fantasy, a rope of pure strawberry joy that rarely goes amiss. And you can even bite off both ends and use it as a straw that pleasantly changes the flavor of your movie-theater soda.
Black licorice is a much more sinister confection; not only is it bad, it burns your mouth and you can't get the flavor out. Mouthwash, gum, industrial strength bleach, nothing works. It sucks, and then it's there with you for days. And there's nothing more dangerous than crap candy with staying power.

4. Peeps. A single peep can make an entire village of people diabetic. They have enough sugar packed onto every micro-inch of the damn things to power a major city for a week. Not to mention they're made to look like baby birds, and you bite their heads off.
The worst part of peeps was their disgusting gooeyness, and the fact that if you left the package open for an hour or so they got even more disgustingly hard.
One Easter, I ate an entire box of peeps. I still can't look at the damn things without feeling nauseous.

5. Cow-Tails. Not-quite vanilla stuff wrapped in not-quite chocolate stuff and stretched out for about a foot and a half of pain, these were by far the skankiest candy around when I was young. The kids who ate cow-tails could kill your soul with their cheap sugar-infested eyes. We were warned to stay away.

The way to kill bad candy is simple, folks; stop buying it. If there's no demand, they'll go away, and we'll be left with Snickers, Jolly Ranchers, and other brilliant candies that are undeniably fantastic. And for the love of God, if you have to buy them, don't pass them out at Halloween or on any other sugary holiday. It's practically abuse.