Trick, or treat? Northern Utah’s most-hated Halloween candy

Trick, or treat? Northern Utah’s most-hated Halloween candy

You know that candy you’ll be handing out come Oct. 31?

Do you think the little ghosts and goblins in the neighborhood will think it’s actually a treat, or a trick?

The Standard-Examiner recently conducted a totally unscientific poll to determine the most hated candies at Halloween. We asked folks on social media, “What is the one specific candy you or your children/grandchildren absolutely HATE to get in your trick-or-treating bag?”

We received dozens of responses, and — in all — readers came up with 35 different tricky treats.

So here it is. A list of the most-hated Halloween candy in the history of forever …

1. Candy corn — These sad little waxy traffic cones were by far the most-loathed candy in our survey, outpacing the second-place finisher by almost double the votes.

Wrote one reader: “Candy corn, a crime against humanity.” Which prompted a second reader to add: “YES! That stuff should be used to plug those nail holes in walls.”

The thing one respondent hates to see in her trick-or-treat bag? “Bills less than $100,” before later adding: “But candy corn too.”

2. Smarties — These plastic sleeves of tiny, colored hockey pucks finished a surprising second in voting. Apparently, most readers feel that people who give out Smarties aren’t all that smart. Or generous.

“… (T)hey are the cheapest bag of candy out there,” wrote one reader. “Splurge a little people! Halloween is once a year.”

Observed another reader: “Smarties, I just feel like … did you even try?!”

3. Raisins — As several readers crankily pointed out, raisins aren’t candy. But apparently, some people think they are, because they keep insisting on giving them out at Halloween. It could be that such folks were fooled by the California Raisin Advisory Board’s marketing campaign that tried to dub the dried fruit “Nature’s Candy.”

Readers aren’t buying it. Wrote one dissatisfied trick-or-treater: “Raisins — who does that?”

4. Black licorice — Quite a few readers say they are disappointed when they receive black licorice. And a few expand that to include red licorice. If you don’t want your house egged, best to be safe and avoid giving out either.

5. Dum Dums — Folks in the survey were pretty hard on these itty-bitty suckers, and we think it’s for the same reason Smarties fail to impress — they’re just so darned tiny and insignificant.

“They’re so small that it’s hardly worth the effort to unwrap them,” offered one critic.

Said another: “Dum Dums! Just turn your lights off and pretend you’re not home!”

6. Bit-O-Honey — These sickly sweet, sticky candies could quite literally fuse a child’s jaw shut. At least, that’s what some readers believe. And that seems like an awfully dangerous risk for so little reward.

7. Jolly Rancher, or any other hard candy — No one actually explained what it was about hard candies that they don’t like. We just know they’re usually the last thing consumed — or thrown out — from many a trick-or-treat bag.

8. Pixy Stix — We were a little surprised these sugar-filled straws made the list, but one respondent may have hit on why most parents detest this choice, “because they always break and make a mess.”

9. That alleged taffy wrapped in orange and black waxed paper — Do any homeowners actually BUY this stuff? It just seems like the kind of treat you give out when you forgot to buy Halloween candy, and this is the only thing you could find sitting in the junk drawer of your kitchen.

10. (TIE) Bubble gum, Dots, Skittles, a toothbrush — Most Halloween bubble gum is the hardness of diamond, or at the very least corundum. Dots, one reader pointed out, are a fairly worthless candy: “(A)ll they do is stick to your teeth plus they have no taste!!” Skittles taste like medicine.

As for the toothbrush? One voter reports: “My kids got a toothbrush once. They were in the ‘gated’ community, thinking they’d strike it rich. Well folks, dentists live in gated communities.”

Hated honorable mentions — Circus Peanuts, Tootsie Roll, Good & Plenty, Snickers, York Peppermint Pattie, Atomic Fireball Jawbreakers, candy canes from Christmas, Root Beer Barrels, Laffy Taffy, fruit, dark chocolate, Whoppers/malt balls, anything with coconut (Mounds, Almond Joy, etc.).

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