There’s no doubt that trick-or-treating was one of your most memorable childhood pastimes. For one night out of the entire year, you got to go around town and bang on strangers’ doors demanding candy. By the end of the night you’d have a bucket full of treasures that you would eat from every day until it was all gone. Though most of the goodies you received were mouthwateringly delicious, there were always those few that you were less than thrilled about. Here are the worst “treats” that you probably ended up trading off with someone else or just tossing out.
1. Good & Plenty
This pretty-looking candy was quite deceiving. On the outside, they looked cute and bright, but once you popped one in your mouth, you realized this “candy” was the devil (unless black licorice was your thing—but is it anyone’s thing, really?). Why would you fool an innocent child into thinking this was a sweet, tasty confection? It might as well be called Bad & No Thank You.
2. Pretzels
Every neighborhood had a few very health-conscious mothers who took their passion to the next level by giving out pretzel packets. You might’ve put on a smile and said thanks to be polite, but you definitely grimaced the second you left and told your friends to skip that house. Pretzels aren’t bad, but you could eat them any day for a snack, so what’s special about having them on the one night you could go sugar crazy?
3. Raisins
There’s something about raisins that made you die a little inside whenever you arrived at a house that was giving them out. Unlike Halloween-themed pretzels, these “treats” didn’t even try to disguise themselves as being tasty. Their normal packaging basically said, “I’m not candy, but enjoy!” Nothing was worse than receiving this wrinkly dried fruit on the one night it should have stayed home with the rest of its lunch-box friends.
4. Dubble Bubble
Unless you weren’t allowed to chew gum as a kid, there wasn’t anything too momentous about receiving bubble gum. Not only did those Dubble Bubble pieces lose their flavor before you even got the chance to blow a substantial bubble, but they also turned rock solid in a matter of minutes.
5. Fruit Snacks
Part of the fun of Halloween candy was sneaking around your parents to snag a candy bar just before dinner or right after breakfast. With fruit snacks, there was no need for sneaking around because, well, they were good-old, harmless fruit snacks.
6. Dots
Dots are just weird. They come in bright colors, so you expected pops of flavor, but no, you just got a weird plastic-y vibe that only slightly resembled the fruit they’re supposed to represent. Even fruit snacks tasted better. What’s worse is that these suckers stuck to your teeth so badly that even you were crying for your dentist’s sake.
7. Heath Bar
It’s not that Heath bars tasted bad, they just didn’t seem to cut it. With so many other better chocolate bars to compete with, somehow this was the one that got picked last to be eaten, kind of like when you get picked last for dodgeball. Also, the word “Heath” so closely resembles the word “health,” and the wrapper looks like it could be a protein bar, so maybe that’s why we saved it for last (or for never).
8. Necco Wafers
Necco Wafers were never a hit. Maybe it was the fact that their shape and packaging resembled a roll of quarters, or maybe it was that they tasted like flavored chalk. The choice of flavors didn’t really help either. You had your normal ones like orange and lemon, but then you also had clove? Just… no.