Certain Halloween candies aren’t exactly welcome in trick-or-treaters’ collection bags. Tootsie Rolls, Dots, and Now and Laters are just a few examples of largely disdained Halloween candies that have, for some reason, been handed out since time immemorial. This October, the Guide Staff revisited some of these “treats.” Some candies were almost unanimously unpopular, like the detrimental-to-dental-work Mary Jane Peanut Butter Chews; others emerged as sticky, sugary underdogs. All of the candies, however, shared one thing in common: they brought back surprisingly fresh memories of trick-or-treating triumphs and disappointments. Tootsie Roll Give me more than one Tootsie Roll, and I will still eat myself sick until they're all gone. It's a classic for a reason. – Amelia Buzzell It's hard for me to really enjoy something that would work equally well sealing a drafty window or patching up some kind of automotive damage. – Will Landon I legitimately thought everyone loved Tootsie Rolls. They taste good to me, though it's possible that's just some kind of Pavlovian association with getting my fourth-grade teacher's approval. – Sean O'Toole It's a Tootsie Roll. Everyone wants to complain about Tootsie Rolls, but they're persistent and inevitable. Maybe taking the necessary 10 minutes to slowly chew and swallow one of these provides time for some much-needed introspection. Why are we all in such a hurry? Why do we want everything handed to us for free to be "good" or "enjoyable"? Tootsie Rolls are cheap to produce and take at least a week to digest. They are the most ascetic and utilitarian of all candies. What better fuel to get through a long and Hallowed evening? – Lara Unnerstall Dots I only have love for Dots. I think this candy gets a lot of hate from people who haven’t yet figured out how to eat it. Repeat after me: suck, don’t chew. Your dentist will thank you. – Collin Brennan I recently purchased two one-gallon jugs of lemon-scented OdoBan to combat the cat-urine odor in my building's basement. The yellow Dots tasted the way fresh, undiluted Lemon OdoBan smells. Having said that, the lemon and lime Dots weren't bad—but they did stick to my permanent retainer and that is why I didn't finish the fun-size box. – Lindsay Moore-Siegel Caramel Apple Lollipop These were the hippest candies of all when I was in junior high, and I still don't get the hype. Once you get past the novelty, these are just orthodontic accidents waiting to happen (I lost a lot of good braces to the Caramel Apple Offensive of 1997). Still, the caramel is pretty mellow, and works pretty well with the sucker's dayglo tartness. They also seem less … sharp than they were in my youth. I give this a grudging thumbs up. – Tyler Clark I loved these as a kid. I'm actually not mad at it now. The caramel is nice and buttery, and at some point you're actually experiencing multiple flavors. It's not like some Tootsie Pop where you're just eating a lollipop and then you're stuck with a damn Tootsie Roll. Plus, after a couple minutes this sucker is like razor sharp, which I guess could be useful. – Cody Braun A triumph. Segues deliciously from the caramel to the sour apple, with neither flavor being too overwhelming. I don't know how they make this marvel of engineering, but even at the end, I still had an upper-right quadrant of caramel on the lollipop. This one seems polarizing, but I'll attest that it did not cut my mouth. Sure, the caramel can stick to your teeth, but if it didn't, it wouldn't be caramel. – Mel Kassel Mary Jane Peanut Butter Chews Captures a near-perfect dental impression; could be used by police. – Jen Jackson It tastes like chemicals. But it really did smell like peanut butter. How did they manage to make this so disappointing? – Melanie Bartelme My biggest problem with these things isn't the taste (it tastes more or less like artificial peanut butter), but the wrapping. I can never successfully unwrap them. The wrapper always sticks to the candy, and I usually get a mouthful of wax paper. It wasn't as bad this time around as when I was a kid (my candy-unwrapping skills have improved), although I definitely still had some issues. – Dan Caffrey Vastly underrated old-man candy; nondescript packaging still makes me think I'm living dangerously. – Joseph Montes It's taffy's underachieving cousin; its serving size compels me to pop the whole thing in my mouth, but it immediately becomes a choking hazard because it's bigger than I thought it'd be. – Eddie Schmid Looks and tastes like the color taupe. – Patrick Winegar Eyeball Gum (chewy) Like all Halloween gum, this thing emits a brief puff of sugary flavor and then turns into a pencil eraser. – Cody Braun It was five seconds of cloying sugar until it just felt like gnawing on an eraser. – Patrick Winegar The flavor definitely isn't “eye,” but I can't tell what it is. – Stephanie McDaniel Now and Later When I was pregnant, there were about three weeks, where I'd stop at the bodega on the way home from work and buy all the berry-flavored Now and Laters I could find. I kept them in a special tupperware container, and my husband had to ask my permission before he could have one. – Aimee Algas Alker It tasted like banana, but took a whole lot longer to chew. – Rachel Matuch If I bit into an actual banana that tasted like this, I would call poison control and the police, in that order. – Tyler Clark Better suited for gluing kids' mouths shut than eating. – Michelle Schuman Photo: © Stephanie Bassos, Groupon Check out the Guide's other taste tests:

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