Monday, February 11, 2008

RNT Product Review: Chocolate Mix Skittles Left Me Sterile!

I don’t do product reviews here, mostly because I’m a pretty relaxed (read, lazy) fellow. Plus, my Mom taught me, “if you don’t have anything mice to say, don’t say anything at all.” But I could not let this one go. I can not remain silent and while this confectionary tragedy marches on.

In the spirit of journalistic integrity, you should know that I have not been compensated by the M&M Mars company for this review. On the contrary, I’m investigating where to forward my medical bills.

Deep in the bowels of the M&M/Mars candy factories, they have created a monstrosity so foul, so noxious and so dastardly that either this stuff gained sentience, escaped the labs and is plotting world domination or someone at the M&M/Mars factory is mightily grumpy and released this new product on our unsuspecting world.

Chocolate Mix Skittles

Executive Summary Review: Nasty beyond all that is reasonable and can still be called a “food-product.”

Somewhat More Lengthy Review:

First off, I posit that candy, since it is loaded with sugar and absent any real nutritional value, is a treat. Eat your veggies, have a package of candy. That’s the model I use when eating candy.

(Alternatively, “I had lunch a couple hours ago. I had a salad. I had a cookie after promising myself that I’d go to the gym. Now it’s four in the afternoon. I’m starving. I think I’ll conveniently ignore my vow to limit sugar in my diet and go have a little candy. Fifteen minutes pass and I’ll have eaten an entire 6 pound bag of peanut M&Ms, forgetting that I’m also deathly allergic to peanuts and now have to stab an epi-pen into my thigh or pass out form anaphylactic shock.")

Either way, eating candy is supposed to please your senses, not rape your taste buds and leave them for dead on the side of the road.

Second, the candies are all brown or close to brown colored. The packaging is brown. Brown may work as a color for UPS, but for a candy? No, not so much. Completely unappetizing. They don’t resemble candy so much as they remind you of elk poo. Little brown nuggets of nasty.

Third, they have chosen flavors, though they seem like they should go together pretty well, when you toss a handful in your mouth, go together like stripes and plaid.

See, my general modus operandi when eating normal Skittles, is to take a few and snarf them down. The fruit flavors mix together and the sensation is pleasing to me. So naturally, that’s what I did after opening my package of Chocolate Mix Skittles.

HUGE mistake.

With the Chocolate Mix Skittles, I may as well be shoving a handful of sugary, bile-flavored glop into my craw. It’s unpleasant. Seriously, the CIA should forget water boarding al-Quieda members to get them to talk. Just give them a handful of this candy and I promise, we’ll find bin Laden within the hour.

The new flavors are:

S’mores There is a hint of marshmallow in there, but it’s overwhelmed by the metallic cadmium flavor.

Chocolate Carmel Remember when you had your first Sugar Baby? Carmel and Chocolate and the carmel was so thick that you’d chew on one piece of candy for half a day. It was glorious. Heck, I still have a Sugar Daddy from band practice in the 11th grade that I’m working on. I keep it back by my upper left molars (this is why I speak with a lisp). The Chocolate Carmel Chocolate Mix Skittle takes those sweet and innocuous Sugar Baby memories and layers over them an implanted false memory of you being seven years old and alone in a room with your weird Uncle Joe tickling you mercilessly until you pee all over your Garanimals. The best thing you could say about the Chocolate Caramel flavor is that it is inappropriate. The worst: felonious.

Chocolate Pudding Pudding should never crack and crumble in your mouth. Plus, it made the right side of my face go numb and I didn’t stop drooling until this morning.

Brownie Batter I put it in my mouth, bit down, passed out and when I woke up, I was naked, shivering and in a Turkish prison, accused of spying for the American Dogs.

Vanilla Yes, in the Chocolate Mix Skittles, there is a vanilla flavor. You may draw your own conclusions about that. I’m guessing that’s because they tried to do a “Dark Chocolate” flavor, but even they thought it tasted like motor oil. I imagine this is the conversation that went down in the lab:

M&M Researcher #1: We can’t use the Dark Chocolate flavor! The focus group is still vomiting. One is complaining that his hair fell out. All are threatening lawsuits.

M&M Researcher #2: Crap.

M&M Researcher #1: No, we are already doing the crap flavor, remember? That’s the code name for the “Chocolate Caramel” flavor.

M&M Researcher #2: No, I mean, ‘nuts!’

M&M Researcher #1: Well, we could try putting nuts in there, but I think people will choke on them. Some of them are losing fine muscle control, so I’m not sure if we want to take that risk. The lawyers will be all over that.

M&M Researcher #2: Look. Why don’t we just use the vanilla flavor? It tested OK. No one threw up during the initial testing. And we only got one case of severe abdominal cramping a week later. That might not have even been related to the Skittle, you know? Who can know about these things!

M&M Researcher #1: But they are supposed to be Chocolate Mix Skittles! If we put a vanilla flavored candy in there, won’t people think we are idiots?

M&M Researcher #2: Nyahh. Come on! This is the American palette we are talking about. The same people that think breakfast cereal bars actually have milk in them and are good for you! Trust me, no one is going to care or even notice a vanilla flavored Skittle in the Mix. Plus, we have to get them out this quarter!

Really. Stay away from this jambalaya of pain. Unless you are feeling annoyed with someone and want to send them into a coma; why, then Chocolate Mix Skittles are the PERFECT gift, just in time for Valentine’s Day.

1. So this is why you’re fasting… it all makes sense.  Gross, sick sense.

   Posted by sarah  on  02/11/08  at  01:48 PM

2. Oh wow.  I followed your tweet here, knowing full well that I was going to lose my appetite just thinking about this idea for more than five seconds.  But yikes… this is so much worse than I expected!  It’s bad enough that there are all these new flavors of Hershey’s Kisses out there, but now they’re putting out fruity M&Ms;and chocolatey Skittles?  Surely, the end is nigh.

   Posted by Rachelskirts  on  02/11/08  at  02:05 PM

3. It should be against the law to commit such heinous crimes against chocolate.

   Hell, it should be against the law for anyone other than Godiva, Cadbury’s, and the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory to manufacture chocolate.

   Posted by Michelle  on  02/11/08  at  02:19 PM

4. I’m starting to think this “chocolate everything” trend isn’t what I dreamed it would be. In the past month I’ve sampled chocolate tortilla chips (okay, but not really chocolate-y. I was expecting something like a chocolate-dipped pretzel, but with more panache), and chocolate-cherry soda. Did. Not. Like.

   Posted by Kathy  on  02/11/08  at  02:57 PM

5. That is nah-sssssteh.  Thank you for your noble sacrifice on our behalf; we will stay away.

   Ahhhh, Sugar Babies....

   Posted by Novembrance  on  02/11/08  at  03:03 PM

6. That sounds absolutely foul.

   Posted by Lorlaee  on  02/11/08  at  05:25 PM

7. I must know where to find these! These are the perfect gift for my friends for Valentines! Because I’m evil, I guess, but also cause I love to laugh. Oh, the faces my friends will make. =P

   Posted by Cissy  on  02/11/08  at  08:58 PM

8. Thanks for the warning--and the laugh!  Usually I will try anything chocolate.

   Posted by Joell  on  02/11/08  at  09:01 PM

9. Ewuuu…

   Posted by michael  on  02/11/08  at  11:33 PM

10. Even the name… Chocolate Mix Skittles SOUNDS gross.

    Posted by Neil  on  02/12/08  at  05:20 AM

11. Cissy gets the “I’m the most evil-est person on the planet” button for the week.

    FOR SHAME!

    Posted by jon  on  02/12/08  at  12:24 PM

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