It is the day before Halloween. Halloween, like April Fool's Day and Christmas, has its roots in pagan holidays. As Homer Simpson would say, God bless those pagans.
This is the 303rd day of 2018. Depending on what time you are reading this, you have been allotted 435,000 minutes...or 26,100,000 seconds...to accomplish great things, rest, work, relax, sleep, or any other number of things you may have spent your time doing.
Americans spend almost 4 billion dollars on candy every Halloween. The average trick-or-treater receives about 250 pieces of candy during the evening. The average parent eats about 240 pieces after the child goes to sleep. Trick or treating has changed a lot over the years.
Starting in Medieval times all the way up to the 1930's (according to Wannaska historian J. McD) children would go door to door on Halloween offering to pray for residents of a house in exchange for rice or soul cakes. This tradition was brought to America by settlers. Much like how they ruined rugby by creating American football, they destroyed Halloween in the 1930's and 40's by changing it from a prayer for food holiday into a treat payment to avoid a trick. According to our historian, when he was a child in the 1930's, if there was no treat (such as cookies, cake, nuts, coins, small toys, fruit, or Iron Maiden tickets) given, they would do a trick on the residents of the house. This trick could range from soaping windows all the way up to the heinous act of signing the non-treat supplying resident up for unwanted magazine subscriptions.
Around 1950 many people started getting lazy. Making homemade treats for Halloween once a year was a merciless chore, and thankfully candy manufactures began to market affordable treats that could be handed out for the woefully sugar deprived children. For several decades there was a good mixture of homemade and store bought treats available.
In the early 1970's (likely as a result of listening to disco music) there were instances of contaminated treats that were well publicized. Due to this, parents became worried that their children (and mostly themselves, after the children fell asleep) were at risk from eating tainted homemade treats. There were never any deaths attributed to eating homemade goods received on Halloween, but parents began to be suspicious of goodies that were not store-bought. Generally only store bought items are handed out anymore.
Some of the most famous candies handed out on Halloween include:
Hershey's Bars and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups: Hershey bars were invented in the early 1900's by Milton Hershey. One day he bumped into one of his employees, a man named Harry Burnett Reese. Reese was eating a jar of peanut butter while Hershey was eating one of his delicious Hershey bars. The two treats got all over each other. Reese said, "Hey, you got your chocolate in my peanut butter!" Hershey said, "You got your peanut butter on my chocolate!" The men died later that day in bloody pistol duel. Luckily Wannaska Grumpy old man Jerry S found the peanut butter chocolate fusion that had caused the deadly duel and declared, "Two great tastes that taste great together!" The rest is history.
Candy Corn: This was invented in the 1880's. It was perfected by George Renninger, a local dentist who tried to drum up business by mixing up every sugary and syrupy item he could get his hands on. He then marketed it as a healthy corn for children, who rapidly became his patients.
And that is all I know. I hope that you found this discussion enlightening. If you wish for a retraction on any of the above "facts", send either one peanut butter cup or five tooth defiling candy corns to ffefreekshow@hotmail.com for a completely fraudulent disavowal.
This is the 303rd day of 2018. Depending on what time you are reading this, you have been allotted 435,000 minutes...or 26,100,000 seconds...to accomplish great things, rest, work, relax, sleep, or any other number of things you may have spent your time doing.
Americans spend almost 4 billion dollars on candy every Halloween. The average trick-or-treater receives about 250 pieces of candy during the evening. The average parent eats about 240 pieces after the child goes to sleep. Trick or treating has changed a lot over the years.
Starting in Medieval times all the way up to the 1930's (according to Wannaska historian J. McD) children would go door to door on Halloween offering to pray for residents of a house in exchange for rice or soul cakes. This tradition was brought to America by settlers. Much like how they ruined rugby by creating American football, they destroyed Halloween in the 1930's and 40's by changing it from a prayer for food holiday into a treat payment to avoid a trick. According to our historian, when he was a child in the 1930's, if there was no treat (such as cookies, cake, nuts, coins, small toys, fruit, or Iron Maiden tickets) given, they would do a trick on the residents of the house. This trick could range from soaping windows all the way up to the heinous act of signing the non-treat supplying resident up for unwanted magazine subscriptions.
Around 1950 many people started getting lazy. Making homemade treats for Halloween once a year was a merciless chore, and thankfully candy manufactures began to market affordable treats that could be handed out for the woefully sugar deprived children. For several decades there was a good mixture of homemade and store bought treats available.
In the early 1970's (likely as a result of listening to disco music) there were instances of contaminated treats that were well publicized. Due to this, parents became worried that their children (and mostly themselves, after the children fell asleep) were at risk from eating tainted homemade treats. There were never any deaths attributed to eating homemade goods received on Halloween, but parents began to be suspicious of goodies that were not store-bought. Generally only store bought items are handed out anymore.
Some of the most famous candies handed out on Halloween include:
Hershey's Bars and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups: Hershey bars were invented in the early 1900's by Milton Hershey. One day he bumped into one of his employees, a man named Harry Burnett Reese. Reese was eating a jar of peanut butter while Hershey was eating one of his delicious Hershey bars. The two treats got all over each other. Reese said, "Hey, you got your chocolate in my peanut butter!" Hershey said, "You got your peanut butter on my chocolate!" The men died later that day in bloody pistol duel. Luckily Wannaska Grumpy old man Jerry S found the peanut butter chocolate fusion that had caused the deadly duel and declared, "Two great tastes that taste great together!" The rest is history.
Candy Corn: This was invented in the 1880's. It was perfected by George Renninger, a local dentist who tried to drum up business by mixing up every sugary and syrupy item he could get his hands on. He then marketed it as a healthy corn for children, who rapidly became his patients.
And that is all I know. I hope that you found this discussion enlightening. If you wish for a retraction on any of the above "facts", send either one peanut butter cup or five tooth defiling candy corns to ffefreekshow@hotmail.com for a completely fraudulent disavowal.
Your "treat" is in the mail.
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