Sweetheart candies are back after a short hiatus but due to a manufacturing issue many of them will not have messages. Let’s be honest they were never a great tasting candy. They were ok. They were like Smarties but with a cute message. Those messages were great when you were a kid. When you were still trading Valentine’s at school. Maybe she meant what was on the Sweetheart. Your mind would race. They were a cool holiday treat because of the message.
Sweethearts do not hold up as a candy on their own. You never see anybody walking down the street eating a box of Sweethearts. If they were so good people would crave them year round like Peeps or Cadbury Eggs. Because of their popularity you can now find variations of them all year. They have risen from seasonal treat to year round desire. How do you do that? By being delicious. My daughter has never asked me to buy her a box of Sweethearts. Not once.
So now we have a Sweetheart candy without its’ one standout feature…the message. I appreciate the desire to keep the tradition of Sweethearts alive but the tradition was based on the message. Now instead of a message we have heart shaped Tums candy with no message. Worse yet they don’t even cure heartburn.
If we are going to bring back candies from the past let’s bring back the Reggie Bar. That was a delicious treat and it was associated with Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson. It had peanuts, caramel, and milk chocolate. You know what the message on the Reggie Bar would be? Amazing. Sweethearts were never amazing. At best they could tell the person you liked how you feel about them. They were kind of emojis before there were emojis.
Actually that gives me an idea. Eggplants with messages on them. Be mine, one night stand, sexy, Yes!, etc. The possibilities are endless and people will be rushing to the produce aisle to get Eggplants with a message. Now we just need to find someone who can write neatly on Eggplants.