The official halfway point to Halloween has come and gone, so as far as I’m concerned, I’m counting down now. I don’t know about you, but I can’t get online or turn on the TV anymore without yelling, “Oh, come on. THIS now!?” So let’s just take a break from the hellscape outside and hold on to some optimism that October will bring us something a little more fun. I’ll even do you one better. Let’s dip into that spirit right now. I think we could all use it.
I scored these suckers last Halloween and have had squirreled them away until now. It’s R.I.P. Candy (or Rest in Pieces of Candy if you really want to stretch it) from ZomBee. The packaging promises “CANDY BONES INSIDE TOMBSTONES.” My assumption is that they’re an updated take on one of my childhood favorites, the legendary Mr. Bones. That’s my hope anyway, and you and I are about to find out together.
In the rare event that you’re reading this and actually don’t know what Mr. Bones is, I’ve wanted an excuse to write about them for the last 20 years, so it’s a win-win for all of us. Mr. Bones arrived every Halloween season in small plastic coffins and afforded kids the chance to construct skeletons out of sugary pieces of chalk. I like to think that every coffin came with enough pieces to construct a full skeleton, but it was just as likely that your ulna to skull ratio robbed you of that. I do remember pieces frequently being broken, but who cares? Anything that allowed me to mix and match candy bones into my own undead Modulok was worth a few compound fractures. Plus, the leftover coffin made the perfect spot to stash whatever tiny things a ten-year-old needed to hide from their older siblings.
Before we pry our way into whatever secrets lie inside, I’ve given each tombstone a shake, heard their rattle, and I’m going to assume that all three contain the exact same assortment. However, how cool would it be if the corpses of Ima Ghoul, Dr. Acula, and Yule B. Next yield totally different flavored bones? I convinced myself back in the day that the different colors of Mr. Bones represented different flavors, but I wouldn’t put too much stock in everything I believed in the 6th grade. I was also convinced that Air Jordans made me jump higher.
Time for the reveal. I’m going to give it to you straight. They’re all the same on the inside. They come with a little plastic bag of these waxy little things. 17 in total. Yes, I counted, because I’m out of work, and so are you, and it’s that’s just what we do now. I’m afraid that our dreams of reliving our Mr. Bones glory days are officially dashed. But on the upside, if your Ray Peterson action figure was one accessory away from re-enacting the “femur bone” scene a whole bunch of times, you’re in so much luck.
I may not have a full skeleton on my hands, but I’m still squeezing some Halloween fun out of this. I did a thing. We’ll call him Punky. Punky the Punkin.
Oh, I almost forgot. The taste test.
Yeah, honestly, they’re just a bunch of nothing. They have the same mouth feel as an Ibuprofen, with half the flavor. But if I’m level with myself, I was never really in it for the taste. It was worth it for the rad new tombstones and the excuse to drag those candle holders out for a photo shoot. Who am I kidding? There was no dragging involved. They were already displayed in my living room, and now the tombstones are hanging out with them. Did I mention I live alone? Did I even have to? Happy Halloween!
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