In my mind, Skittles is the first of the “new” candies.
I realize the distinction is completely arbitrary, a product of my age than of any clear dividing line between generations of sweets. But, growing up, it seemed as though the existing candybars had been around forever: Snickers, M&Ms, Mr. Goodbar, Crunch, Almond Joy, and so forth. And then in 1979 came Skittles, a quantum leap forward in candy technology. Rather than trying to find a perfect combination and proportion of chocolate and peanuts and nougat and the six or seven other staple candybar ingredients, the fine folks at Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company figured out that they could just put pure, concentrated balls of sugar in a colorful, candy coating, and the kids of America would (literally) eat them up.
(For the record, here are some other candies I consider to belong to the silver, rather than the golden, age: Twix, Whatchamacallit, Nerds, and the sadly defunct Bonkers.)
In case you missed it, last year Skittles tried to harness the power of Twitter by turning their site into an aggregator for all tweets containing the word “Skittles”. Naturally the cleverati began making jokes ranging from the disgusting to the profane, all of which were reprinted verbatim on the Skittles homepage. Even now, if you search Google for “skittles twitter“, you will get Mike_FTW’s announcement that “Skittles fit perfectly in my cat’s anus! #skittles“.
Rating: Well Skittles, you have succeeded where every product so far has failed: in giving me a stomachache. Gonna have to knock off some points for that. I generally prefer to only taste the rainbow once, on the way down. 60ยข/$1
When she was about 3 my daughter ate about 10 skittles and then went completely bonkers. It was like watching someone on PCP or something. I fear the skittles.
Also, another of the candies that fall into that “new” category: Reese’s Pieces.
When I was in middle school, I’d steal 2 quarters from my dad’s quarter box in his closet every morning so that I could buy a pack of Skittles at lunchtime. None of my friends had such easy access to quarters and so they would always be begging me for some of my Skittles. I only rarely shared. I adored those nasty things.