Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
Speaker 1: there's Chuck, and Jerry's here too, and dates here in spirit,
Speaker 1: which is appropriate because this is the kind of a
Speaker 1: Halloween themed episode of short Stuff. Is it not, Chuck?
Speaker 2: It's spoopy?
Speaker 1: Spoopy spoopy? Is that what you said? For real?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Are you gonna do this bit every year?
Speaker 1: I don't remember you saying it, so yes, as long
Speaker 1: as I forget the next day, Yes, every year I'm
Speaker 1: going to do.
Speaker 2: This spooky sboo b y is a lighthearted spooky Okay?
Speaker 1: Is that your own trademark slogan? No?
Speaker 2: Look it up?
Speaker 1: Okay, I will look it up. Actually, I'll forget all
Speaker 1: about it and won't look it up, and then next
Speaker 1: year I'll agree to look it up again.
Speaker 2: We should all pause. Let you look it up? Okay,
Speaker 2: since this is short Stuff, we'll just let the tape
Speaker 2: roll right.
Speaker 1: Oh, look there it is. Yep, you're right spoopy.
Speaker 2: No, I didn't make it up. It's a thing.
Speaker 1: Okay. You know what else is the thing? Chuck?
Speaker 2: Candy corn?
Speaker 1: Candy corn. That's right, it is a thing. It's one
Speaker 1: of the most divisive candies. It's probably the most divisive
Speaker 1: holiday candy of all time.
Speaker 2: Where do you land?
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't like it at all.
Speaker 2: Okay, do you like it? I mean there's a bit
Speaker 2: of a nostalgia play. I don't. I definitely can't say that.
Speaker 2: I think it's like, oh boy, this tastes great. I
Speaker 2: can't wait to eat it. But like if someone throws
Speaker 2: a candy corn in my mouth and I happen to
Speaker 2: be chewing, I'll be like, oh, that old, that old memory.
Speaker 2: But I don't go puh puh.
Speaker 1: I got you. We need to get one of those
Speaker 1: house divided license plates, right, sure. So candy corn is
Speaker 1: actually super old. We know it's at least coming up
Speaker 1: on one hundred and fifty years old. They think it
Speaker 1: came out in the eighteen eighties. And by the way,
Speaker 1: thanks big time to history dot com, Better Homes and Gardens,
Speaker 1: Always a Treat dot com, mb Henry dot com and
Speaker 1: candystore dot com. A lot of dot coms in there.
Speaker 1: But the one of the things about candycorn is its
Speaker 1: origins are murky. So people just generally say, yeah, this
Speaker 1: guy's the inventor.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, I mean, are we going to that guy?
Speaker 1: Sh No, let's talk about where it came from. Originally,
Speaker 1: we think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because previous to the actual corn, they were making
Speaker 2: these kinds of candies. And that's not to say the
Speaker 2: ones that were shaped that way, in color that way,
Speaker 2: but we're talking about mellow cream.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You know those candy pumpkins. Yeah, that's mellow cream,
Speaker 1: right exactly. That to me is quintessential mellow cream, even
Speaker 1: more than candycorn. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And apparently they used to make all sorts of phony
Speaker 2: vegetables made out of that junk because Americans were still
Speaker 2: farming and they could you know, if you had a
Speaker 2: little seven year old, you could be like, you got
Speaker 2: to work in the field all day. When you come home,
Speaker 2: you're going to get this mellow cream asparagus tip.
Speaker 1: Or mellow cream back choi.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh boy.
Speaker 1: You would think these little kids who were being forced
Speaker 1: into child labor, the last thing they would want to
Speaker 1: see in their candy were agricultural products. But apparently that's
Speaker 1: all they had to choose from. Now. The other thing
Speaker 1: to know about this this context that candy corn emerge
Speaker 1: from is that these candies were available year round, and
Speaker 1: the thing that made candy corns stand out among its
Speaker 1: peers is that it had three colors, technically two colors
Speaker 1: and the presence of all color.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I like that. I like the way you put it.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the guy who actually is credited
Speaker 1: with inventing this. Probably is who cares at this point.
Speaker 1: He's been credited for so long it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And he's from Philadelphia, and they like to take
Speaker 2: credit for everything. So we're talking about George Renninger is
Speaker 2: how I would pronounce it, or Renninger maybe, And he
Speaker 2: worked at the Wonderly Candy Company in Philly, the Brotherly
Speaker 2: Love City. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the reason why he's credited is that he was
Speaker 1: an employee there and they are known to be the
Speaker 1: first company to start producing these, and I guess he
Speaker 1: was a candy designer there. So Wonderly Candy Company was
Speaker 1: the first to put these out. They were out for
Speaker 1: a little while, and you could, like I said, they
Speaker 1: were available year round. All of these things were, and
Speaker 1: they weren't associated with Halloween. You could find them at
Speaker 1: just about any celebration where they had candy treats. But
Speaker 1: the thing to know about them is they were so
Speaker 1: you know, like candy cigarettes or little candy people that
Speaker 1: you eat are candy things that look like other stuff.
Speaker 1: That's what candy corn was originally meant to be. And
Speaker 1: of course candy corn it's in the name, but we
Speaker 1: think of it today as like little kernels of corn
Speaker 1: that you would like eat. It was originally marketed as
Speaker 1: candy corn in the sense that corn was chicken feed.
Speaker 1: So this was basically candy chicken feed. Is how candy
Speaker 1: corn started out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because apparently, and this is something that I didn't know.
Speaker 2: This to me is the fact of the show is
Speaker 2: that including a little bit after World War One, but
Speaker 2: previous to that, in a few years after apparently corn
Speaker 2: was kind of like a like a it's not a
Speaker 2: vegetable to start right, Yes, it was a garbage starch
Speaker 2: like people. It wasn't on the plates of most Americans,
Speaker 2: and you had to have been really hard up for
Speaker 2: food apparently to eat corn as a human.
Speaker 1: It was just for chickens exactly. So this is what
Speaker 1: kids were eating. They would go to the store and
Speaker 1: get a box of chicken feed from the Golitz candy company.
Speaker 1: So this is the company that really exposed candy corn
Speaker 1: to the world.
Speaker 2: Which is I love corn. Do you like corn?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I like corn on the cob for some reason,
Speaker 1: once you take it off the cob, I think it's disgusting.
Speaker 2: Oh, even in like a dish like a Lotte or
Speaker 2: like a salad or something.
Speaker 1: It depends. It really depends on the dish. But like
Speaker 1: if it's canned, I mean, oh god, I can barely
Speaker 1: like talk about it.
Speaker 2: You know the old story of when I was missing
Speaker 2: that front tooth and I would eat corn, and that
Speaker 2: would be little rows of uneaten corn every like two inches.
Speaker 1: That was a Mad magazine cover too. I think it
Speaker 1: was so candy corns out there, the genies out of
Speaker 1: the bottle, as they say, kids are eating this candy
Speaker 1: chicken feed. But then by like the mid twentieth century,
Speaker 1: people ate corn normally, and by the mid twentieth century,
Speaker 1: Halloween was very much associated with candy. I think around
Speaker 1: this time is when candy corn really became linked to Halloween.
Speaker 1: It would be weird to see candy corn at Easter,
Speaker 1: but that's how it used to be. Friends.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but now it's linked starting in the mid twentieth century,
Speaker 2: like you said, to Halloween, and we will take a break, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: and we'll talk about how you make this stuff right
Speaker 2: after this all right. You went to that website alwaysatreat
Speaker 2: dot com and they had a pretty good story there
Speaker 2: about how they used to manufacture this, and it's not
Speaker 2: a whole lot different than they do it today. Obviously
Speaker 2: it's automated today, but back then, you would get a
Speaker 2: bunch of dudes and they would get sugar in corn
Speaker 2: syrup and some other you know, magical ingredients, and they
Speaker 2: would cook it and these big kettles and boil it
Speaker 2: all up. They would ad a little marshmallow, maybe a
Speaker 2: little fond it to smooth it out a little bit,
Speaker 2: and forty five pounds at a time they would make
Speaker 2: this warm slurry and they would pour it into buckets
Speaker 2: called runners, and then these guys called stringers would walk
Speaker 2: backwards down a line and pour this candy into these
Speaker 2: little little molds, these little trays in that classic iconic
Speaker 2: kernel shape.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the trays were made of corn starch, and
Speaker 1: it would take three passes. For some reason, I don't
Speaker 1: understand why the stringers, the guys pouring the candy corn
Speaker 1: slurry into the mold, would walk backwards, do you.
Speaker 2: No, I don't know. I was trying to think it
Speaker 2: might be easier to pour I mean it was probably
Speaker 2: had something to do with the setup.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could understand if you're left handed you're
Speaker 1: walking backwards, but or if you're right handed, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think right handed you'd be walking backwards if the thing
Speaker 1: was on your left. There's no explanation I can find
Speaker 1: for why they would walk backwards.
Speaker 2: Well, they are from Philly, so maybe they were just
Speaker 2: like we're candy corn stringers, we walk backwards.
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably that's the answer is as good as any.
Speaker 1: But the whole thing is that we would take three
Speaker 1: passes because they would put the white in, then the yellow,
Speaker 1: and then the orange. And that's how it was originally made.
Speaker 1: And basically nothing has changed except, like you said, it's
Speaker 1: become automated. They use essentially the same ingredients, which are
Speaker 1: you ready for this? It's like you said, made with sugar.
Speaker 1: It's made with fondon, which is sugar water and corn syrup.
Speaker 1: It's made with corn syrup, which is a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of different sugars, mostly glucose, vanilla flavoring, and marshmallow cream
Speaker 1: which is made from corn syrup, sugar water and eggs.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of sugar in these things, and they
Speaker 1: alt them into a slurry, all those ingredients and they
Speaker 1: pour them into corn cornstarch molds just like they did
Speaker 1: one hundred something years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Boom, boom boom. They just layer up the colors
Speaker 2: just like that. More than and this is according to
Speaker 2: the National Confectioners Association. The NCAA says thirty five million
Speaker 2: pounds of this stuff, which amounts to nine billion pieces
Speaker 2: of candy corn, are produced annually in modern times.
Speaker 1: Yes, and even in keeping in tradition, they make the
Speaker 1: machines work backward for some reason when they're pouring the slurry.
Speaker 2: That's right, And are we done? Of course not, because
Speaker 2: somehow you found actual survey statistics on how popular this
Speaker 2: stuff was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because there's a thing. It's been around for almost
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty years for a reason, and the
Speaker 1: reason is there's some people out there who actually like
Speaker 1: candy corn.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I know, it's weird. It's a weird thing to say,
Speaker 1: but it's true. So much so that the National Retail
Speaker 1: Iteration a font of statistics that have to do with shopping,
Speaker 1: purchasing and consumerism in general, so that in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: ninety five percent of people who shopped for Halloween stuff
Speaker 1: bought candy corn one of them. I wasn't either. We're
Speaker 1: in that weird five percent, but I can't believe it.
Speaker 1: The thing is is, I don't think all those people
Speaker 1: are eating candy corn necessarily. No.
Speaker 2: And it turns out if you go on to crafty websites,
Speaker 2: there are all kinds of fun little crafts you can
Speaker 2: do with candy corn because it is a you know,
Speaker 2: the color itself lends itself to sort of fall feelings
Speaker 2: and fall crafts, so you can do all kinds of stuff. Basically,
Speaker 2: you can hot glue it on whatever you want to.
Speaker 1: Basically. Yeah, I saw a cute one. I can't remember where,
Speaker 1: but if you spike a pumpkin, you can make a
Speaker 1: little candy corn pumpkin hedgehog. Ah. That's cute, that's adorable. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I found some more stats too, all.
Speaker 2: Right, let's hear it, like, oh, I don't know where's
Speaker 2: it popular?
Speaker 1: Yeah, candystore dot Com looked over sixteen years of their
Speaker 1: shipping data. That's amazing to identify the top three favorite
Speaker 1: candies for each state, and candy corn was in the
Speaker 1: top three. It was not the first for any state,
Speaker 1: but it was in the top three for a bunch
Speaker 1: of different states, from South Carolina to Maine to North
Speaker 1: Dakota to Michigan to New York, and then nationwide it
Speaker 1: was number eight.
Speaker 2: That's amazing, and we should thank Leslie, the temp at
Speaker 2: candystore dot Com that month, who they tasked with doing this.
Speaker 1: You're right for sure? Or Leslie?
Speaker 2: Yeah, poor Leslie, that's a right. Probably wouldn't a bad job,
Speaker 2: all right. They also did a poll, and I think
Speaker 2: Leslie was in charge of this too, because did they
Speaker 2: pull three thousand people.
Speaker 1: Thirty two hundred and forty seven they pour?
Speaker 2: Did they pull thirty five hundred?
Speaker 1: Nope?
Speaker 2: I guess they pulled everyone that they had their email
Speaker 2: contact for, which was like you said, three two hundred
Speaker 2: and four, and they said that do you like it?
Speaker 2: Do you hate it? Why? And nostalgia, which is what
Speaker 2: I mentioned that was one of the big reasons why
Speaker 2: people get this stuff. It's something they had when they
Speaker 2: were a kid that they might have liked the taste
Speaker 2: of when they were a kid, and then as adults
Speaker 2: they'll say, well, you know, I gotta I gotta be
Speaker 2: in that fall spirit and let's let's grab a bag.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then sweetness was another one for people who
Speaker 1: like candy corn, and then conversely, sweetness was a big
Speaker 1: reason people don't like candy corn.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the respondents that it was like biting into
Speaker 1: a sugar cube, and that's pretty close to accurate. There's
Speaker 1: also the waxy texture that puts some people off, including me.
Speaker 2: I actually don't mind that part. Yeah, I'll tell you
Speaker 2: what though, I haven't had one in years, but it's
Speaker 2: an unforgettable flavor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have had it. I can bring that flavor
Speaker 1: to mine too, I just I don't want it again.
Speaker 2: Essentially, Yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker 1: And overall though, out of that thirty two and forty
Speaker 1: seven Americans, they pulled fifty six percent we're fans and
Speaker 1: forty four percent were not. So that there are more people,
Speaker 1: at least according to that pole, who like candy corn
Speaker 1: than don't.
Speaker 2: That's right. And if you thought it couldn't get any
Speaker 2: better everybody, Leslie drilled down even further and found out
Speaker 2: how people how people eat them. Fifty one percent just
Speaker 2: pop it in their mouth and crunch it like it's
Speaker 2: a piece of popcorn. Normal sixteen percent start with the
Speaker 2: widest bit, which is the yellow bit, and then thirty
Speaker 2: three percent conversely flip it over and start at that little,
Speaker 2: smaller white end, Which is amazing to me that someone
Speaker 2: actually takes that tiny of a bite of something that small.
Speaker 1: Yeah, some people like that tiny, little white as if
Speaker 1: it tastes any different, right, it definitely does not. It
Speaker 1: should know. If it does, you might want to take
Speaker 1: it back to the store because there's something wrong with.
Speaker 2: The che corn. Yeah, this white part tastes good.
Speaker 1: You got anything else?
Speaker 2: I got nothing else.
Speaker 1: Well, we're getting close to Halloween, everybody, which means short
Speaker 1: stuff is out.
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