Getting older sucks. You have to start worrying about things like working, paying bills and dying and shit like that. But the thing that sucks the most is that you can no longer get free candy for half-assedly dressing like a character from whatever children’s show is popular at the time. You could go from Halloween well into December living on nothing but candy.

We here at Phroth look back fondly on the times where you could go trick-or-treating without having to register as a sex offender the next day by rating the best and worst candy given out on Halloween.

If king sized, add two points to the score. If fun sized, subtract two. Nothing’s fun about candy that’s gone after one bite.

King Sized Reeses Peanut Butter Cups- Easily the best Halloween candy. Somebody actually likes kids and has money to spring for King Size. Be wary though, there’s a 50% chance there’s razor blades in the candy.

Beer – Sure, it’s probably your creepy, registered sex offender neighbor trying to get you drunk or that middle-aged mom trying to regain her lost youth by acting “hip”, but no matter what the reason there’s nothing quite like the house that gives fourteen-year-olds free alcohol.

Lemonheads- What ever happened to these candies? I used to get them all the time at the movie theater as they were the only candy worth paying the $4 for, but now I can’t find them. Or at least the old-fashioned kind. I found some at CVS the other day, but they were chewier than I remember, and mixed in with lesser flavors like grapes and apples.

Pop Rocks - What’s more fun than eating candy that pops while inside your mouth? The answer is nothing, these are awesome.

Pixy Sticks- Pixy Sticks are the cocaine of candy. You take a quick shot of it and feel really really good for a few minutes, then your sugar high goes away and you need some more. The night is really fun for a while until you realize that you are out of them and start offering head to person at the next door for some more of them. Trick or treat indeed.

Airheads- Airheads are solid. All of them taste good and there is always the fun of trying to determine what the white one tastes like. But as far as Halloween candy is concerned, this is nothing to get excited about.

Milk Duds- These balls of pure chocolate covered caramel deliciousness get a ten for taste, but lose five points for ripping out your molars.

Take 5 (no relation to the Dave Brubeck song) – Combining chocolate, caramel, peanut butter, pretzels, and ham, this odd-tasting candy is proof that more isn’t necessarily better.

Candy Corn- Candy corn is simply wax that has been accidentally dropped into a vat of high frutosce corn syrup. And I like candy corn. The roaring twenties are over. Give us candy that doesn’t taste like we’ve been shipwrecked for three weeks and are only a couple of candles away from cannibalism.

Candy Hearts- WTF? This isn’t Valentine’s Day. Halloween is about good candy, not these tart pieces of shit with corny sayings on them. On the plus side, you can take solace knowing that whoever gave them to you lives a lonely, lonely existence.

Pretzels- Getting pretzels for Halloween is the equivalent of getting socks for Christmas, or for our Jewish readers, Hanukkah in general.

Smarties- Most of them dissolve in the air before they can reach your mouth, and they cost like two cents a roll. What more needs to be said? Oh, they taste like sweetened chalk. That too.

Necco Candy Wafers- I don’t know who the hell thinks it’s okay to give out these glorified Alka-Seltzer tablets, but the only people they could possibly bring joy to are nineteenth-century street urchins. Dispose of these multicolored monstrosities immediately, unless you enjoy the taste of chalk dust and wood shavings.

Raisins- This little red box of disappointment is a yearly inevitability, given out by that douchebag dentist or the widowed ninety-year-old with dementia on your block. Your only hope is the slim possibility that they come in the form of Raisinets, but even then the chocolate does little to mask the fact you’re eating dried grapes.

Bible Tracts- Usually given out by religious neighbors who object to the occult themes of Halloween (unlike Christmas, which has no connection to Pagan festivities whatsoever), these pieces of paper are complete buzzkills. They taste surprisingly good, though.

Quarters- Look here funny guy. The American economy sucks, and it won’t give me instant gratification while causing type two diabetes in five years. Shame on you.

————–

By Rebecca Eisenberg, Andrew Cass, Matt Woodward, Matt Powers and Jeremy Popkin