The Worst Halloween Candy, And The Best Too
By Ben George
These are the WORST Halloween candies, updated for 2019. Emphasis on WORST is important because people, frankly, get pretty heated about this. With Halloween just around the corner, the strong opinions come out full force. It’s been written about and voted on, but never to this level. Here are THE worst Halloween candies. …and the best ones too.
The Definitive Ranking of Worst and Best Halloween Candies
With so many lists out there, it’s tough to compete. So we take some age-old advice. Since we can’t beat ’em, we’re going to join ’em. And by join ’em, we mean we’re taking 12 lists of best and worst candies published on reputable websites, add in our own CandyStore.com customer survey data (over 30,000 surveyed!) and mash them all together into the ultimate list.
Here’s how we did it. First, we looked at the following lists of best and worst Halloween candies.
Next, we surveyed over 30,000 of our own customers. Then, we put the best and worst candies into a spreadsheet. In Column A we had a number value. We weighted each list, so a candy that got listed as the worst gets 10 points, while one that ranks 10th worst gets one point. The same idea goes for the best list. We then tallied up the points and created our list.
Without further ado:
Source: CandyStore.com
5. Necco Wafers
They’re like Smarties, but bigger, not as sweet, and more chalky. So yeah. These took the top spot on one list, and I’m surprised they weren’t on every list. When I started this project, I was sure that they’d be the hands-down worst candy. But then again, they have been off the market for a while since the Great Necco Wafer Panic. So maybe people aren’t as likely to kick a candy when it’s down.
4. Wax Coke Bottles
The novelty of these is great. The first time you get one. When you’re five years old. Then the realization sets in: you’re biting through wax to get not even a mouthful of sugar water. By age eight you toss them in the trash without even bothering.
3. Peanut Butter Kisses
Jumping all the way to #3 from the #5 spot, these are neither Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups nor Hershey’s Kisses. I’ve seen them referred to as Mary Janes, which makes enough sense. You know these because they have a plain orange or black wrapper. My advice is to leave them in that wrapper and move onto the next candy.
2. Circus Peanuts, last year’s #1
I’d completely forgotten about these! Or, more accurately, I’d blocked them out. There is no way to describe the vileness that is Circus Peanuts. How could there possibly be a worse Halloween Candy? I have to believe that they weren’t rated as the #1 worst on everyone’s list because they, too, blocked these inedible monstrosities from their memories.
1. Candy Corn, the New Worst Halloween Candy in 2019
Candy corn slid up into the #1 spot this year. Knocking circus peanuts off the throne. Which is really saying something. Man. Hang in there, candy corn.
I’m actually shocked. Look, if you don’t like candy corn, you can just give it to me. Yes, it’s just sugar. Isn’t that the point? Candy corn is nothing special. There are absolutely better candies out there. But if you can’t enjoy stuffing handfuls of candy corn into your pie hole, well, I don’t even know what to tell you. But clearly, I’m well in the minority.
The 5 Best Halloween Candies
Now we get to the fun part. You can probably guess most of the candies on this list. They’re popular for a reason. But in case you wanted to know how your tastes stack up, here is the weighted list of the best Halloween candies of all time.
5. M&Ms
One list had pretzel M&Ms, which is oddly specific. They weren’t around when I trick-or-treated (it was plain and peanut back then), so I don’t even know that people hand out the fun sized bags of them. In any case, M&Ms are great. You know our opinions about them.
4. Kit Kat
On the surface, the Kit Kat is pretty plain. It’s just chocolate and wafer. Yet it works so so well. And it works very well on Halloween since you’re getting essential half of a full-sized bar. That’s way more than you can say for most of the fun-sized versions of our favorite Halloween candies.
3. Twix
If I’m getting a full-sized candy bar on Halloween, make it a Twix, please. There’s just something about them that makes them irresistible. On Halloween, you can count on three versions: the aforementioned full-sized version, the one-stick half-sized version, and the fun-sized version. We hope you and your kids don’t get the fun-sized version, given the alternatives.
2. Snickers
There is no surprise here. I always preferred Milky Way, but people prefer more heartiness in a candy bar, apparently. Again, it would be so easy for people to go out of their ways and get full-sized versions. They’re not that big. But the fun-sized version is so small, so sad.
1. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
This was the blowout of the century. Of the seven lists we ranked, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups ranked #1 on six of them and ranked #3 on the other. And that list had six candies that didn’t appear on any of the other six lists, so yeah, this was just a candy massacre. Do we have to extol the virtues of the Peanut Butter Cup? My siblings and I used to separate them out and hide them, lest they get stolen. Many a tear was shed when someone picked a poor hiding spot.
To see the full list of the 10 worst and best Halloween candies, check out the full report here.
