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1-Inedible

Monday, August 7, 2006

Bonkers

Back in the eighties Nabisco had a candy called Bonkers, which were fruit chews similar to Starbursts ... except they were layered. It was a fruity chew with a fruitier chewier center. If you need a reminder of what they were, watch this commercial from the eighties I found on YouTube.

I didn’t know if they’d stopped making them but that’s what I thought I was buying when I picked these up.

image

First, these are made by Joyco. Second, there are no flavor layers. Third, the flavors are all wrong. Fourth, the label says they’re citrus fruits, but there’s a strawberry in there and last time I checked those don’t even grow on trees. Fifth, the package says there’s real honey in there. Real honey? And egg whites? What the heck are these, nougats? Sixth, well, none of that matters because these were positively awful.

Most of them were very hard, but some were only kind of hard. All were rather unpleasant in a way that I’m not quite able to put my finger on.

Strawberry: slightly floral and slightly putrid tasting. A little tangy but with sort of moldy/mossy note.

Lemon: tastes like a moist and ripe citrus burp.

Orange: tangy but with a rather uneven flavor that alternates between bile and tang.

imageI tried several times to taste these (waiting a couple of weeks in between, thinking it was me). It’s not me. They’re bad. I’ve debated long and hard about what to give these. I sat there with the wads of half chewed Bonkers in their wrappers in front of me and a foul feeling in my stomach and it’s clear I’m gonna have to give these a bad rating. (Believe me, I never set out to buy candy that I’m going to hate.) But I wanted to give them one last opportunity, so I offered them to the neighbors (and Amy always seems game for the worst of the worst but Robin conveniently reminds me when I try to get her to try things like this that she only likes chocolate). Amy spat it out on the sidewalk and then kicked it into the street. She described it as at first tasting like the plastic shelf it must have been sitting on in the store and then most decidedly vomit.

Yes, these get my first 1 out of 10. (Amy asked if there was a 0 rating.)

Name: Bonkers
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Joyco
Place Purchased: Candy Station (Burbank)
Price: $1.00
Size: 2.11 ounces
Calories per ounce: 139
Categories: Chew, United States

POSTED BY Cybele AT 5:52 am    

Page 2 of 2 pages  < 1 2

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