142 Fun Facts About Halloween Candy

A Reese's cup pairs chocolate with which filling?

Peanut butter — H. B. Reese started out making candy in his basement with Hershey chocolate, and when wartime rationing hit he dropped every other sweet to make only the cups.

M&M's advertising has long promised they melt in your mouth, not in your what?

Hand — the boast rests on the hard sugar shell: the US Army bought the candy first, because soldiers could carry chocolate in tropical heat without it melting.

Which candy bar's ads pit a Left factory against a rival Right factory?

Twix — the ads imagine two feuding brothers who split one bar into rival Left Twix and Right Twix factories, though both sides are identical and come off the same line.

Which Charms lollipop has a piece of bubble gum at its centre?

Blow Pop — when Tootsie Roll bought Charms in 1988, putting Blow Pops beside its own Tootsie Pops made it the world's biggest lollipop maker.

In 2013, American packs of Skittles replaced the lime flavour with which fruit?

Green apple — lime fans complained for years, and in 2021 Skittles announced that lime was returning to the original pack for good.

Candy corn's flavour is built on honey, sugar and which other flavouring?

Vanilla — it rounds out the honey and sugar, while fondant and marshmallow in the mix give the waxy kernels their smooth, soft bite.

Life Savers got their name because they look like what?

A ring-shaped life preserver — Clarence Crane made the mints in 1912 as a summer candy, because his chocolates melted in the heat, and the press that shaped them left the hole.

In which decade was candy corn first invented?

George Renninger of the Wunderle Candy Company came up with it in the 1880s, long before it became a Halloween fixture.

A 2025 retail survey forecast that Americans would spend roughly which record sum on Halloween?

$13.1 billion — the National Retail Federation's 2025 forecast, up from $11.6 billion a year earlier, even though about four in five shoppers expected tariffs to push prices higher.

Snickers took its name from what?

A horse the Mars family owned — Snickers was one of their favourites, and the family's Tennessee stud farm was itself named after another of their candy bars.

The two Ms in M&M's come from what?

The surnames of two businessmen — Forrest Mars and Bruce Murrie, whose father ran Hershey; the partnership gave the new candy a supply of rationed chocolate during the war.

Tootsie Roll was named after whom?

The inventor's daughter — Leo Hirschfield named the roll after Clara, known as Tootsie, and the nickname stuck so well that the whole company later took it as its own name.

Which chocolate bar is made by Hershey in the United States but by Nestlé almost everywhere else?

Kit Kat — an old licensing deal survived Nestlé's takeover of the brand, so American Kit Kats still come from Hershey.

The name PEZ is shortened from the German word for which flavour?

Peppermint — PEZ takes its letters from the German Pfefferminz; it began as a mint for adults, sold as an alternative to smoking, which is why the first dispensers looked like cigarette lighters.

Before inventing his famous cup, H. B. Reese worked for Milton Hershey in which job?

Dairy farmer — Reese ran one of Hershey's experimental dairy farms until it was shut as too costly, then started making candy in his basement, buying the chocolate from his old boss.

Which colour of M&M's was withdrawn in 1976 over concerns about a food dye?

Red — the suspect dye, Red No. 2, was never used in M&M's, but Mars pulled the colour anyway to avoid confusing shoppers, and red stayed away until 1987.

Kit Kat was created in the 1930s by which British confectioner?

Rowntree's of York — the bar began with a note in the factory suggestion box asking for a chocolate bar 'that a man could take to work in his pack up'.

Which candy bar was created in 1923 to taste like the malted shakes then in fashion?

Milky Way — the name comes from the malted milk drinks of the day, not the galaxy, and the bar was advertised as a chocolate malted milk in a candy bar.

The makers of Baby Ruth claimed the bar was named after whom?

A US president's daughter — Curtiss said it honoured Ruth Cleveland, who had died 17 years before the bar appeared; many saw the story as a way to avoid paying Babe Ruth.

What is the narrow paper strip poking out of a Hershey's Kiss wrapper called?

A plume — Hershey added the paper flag when machines took over the wrapping, so shoppers could tell a real Kiss from the many imitators.

Sour Patch Kids reached American shops in 1985 after first being made in which country?

Canada — the gummies were made in Hamilton, Ontario, before they crossed the border, and were renamed for the American launch while Cabbage Patch Kids dolls were the craze.

Jolly Rancher began in 1949 in a town called Golden, in which US state?

Colorado — Bill and Dorothy Harmsen chose the name because 'Rancher' gave their shop a western feel and 'Jolly' a friendly one.

Under what name was Twix sold in Germany, France and much of mainland Europe until 1991?

Raider — the 1991 switch was announced in Germany with the rhyming slogan 'Raider heißt jetzt Twix, sonst ändert sich nix': Raider is now Twix, and nothing else changes.

A teal-painted pumpkin on a Halloween doorstep signals that the house offers what?

Non-food treats — the Teal Pumpkin Project began with one East Tennessee family and went national in 2014, so that children with food allergies can still go trick-or-treating.

In It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, what does Charlie Brown get while trick-or-treating?

A rock — at house after house he reports 'I got a rock', and after the 1966 broadcast viewers posted candy to Charles Schulz and the studio to make up for it.

What did children in Ireland traditionally say at the door instead of 'trick or treat'?

Help the Halloween party — the traditional Irish call at the door; 'trick or treat' itself only became common in Ireland and Scotland in the 2000s.

An 1895 record of Scottish guisers describes lanterns carved from which vegetable?

Turnips — an 1895 account describes Scottish masqueraders carrying lanterns cut from hollowed-out turnips and being rewarded with cakes, fruit and money.

Under what name was candy corn originally sold?

Chicken Feed — Goelitz boxes carried the name and a rooster, because the candy was aimed at farm families at a time when about half of Americans worked the land.

As of 2023, which company was the biggest maker of candy corn in the United States?

Brach's — the market leader keeps playing with the formula: a 2022 'tailgate' mix came in hot dog and hamburger flavours, and a 2023 funfair mix added kettle corn and cotton candy.

Making one of which marshmallow treats took 27 hours by hand before a 1950s machine cut it to six minutes?

Peeps — each chick was once formed by hand; once machines took over, the Easter favourite could spread to Halloween and Christmas shapes as well.

Which candy bar's ads tell you 'You're not you when you're hungry'?

Snickers — the campaign began in 2010 and shows hungry people turned into someone else entirely, usually a celebrity, until a bite of the bar brings them back.

In their early days, Reese's cups were sold under what name, reflecting their price?

Penny Cups — each sold for a cent; they began as one sweet in a mixed assortment, and demand grew until shops were stocking them on their own in boxes of 120.

Until 1990, Snickers was sold in Britain and Ireland under what name?

Marathon — the name went in 1990 to match the rest of the world, and came back for three months in 2019 as a retro edition in one British supermarket chain.

Sour Patch Kids began in the 1970s as a UFO-craze candy sold under what name?

Mars Men — the name was dropped when the gummies reached the United States in the 1980s, because buyers there were by then keener on Cabbage Patch Kids dolls than on aliens.

Forrest Mars is said to have got the idea for M&M's after seeing soldiers eat Smarties during which war?

Spanish Civil War — Mars reportedly saw soldiers there eating chocolate pellets in a hard sugar shell; his own version followed in 1941 and at first went only to the US military.

Which colour replaced tan M&M's in 1995?

Blue — it won a 1995 public vote against pink and purple, with more than 10 million votes cast, and tan was dropped to make room.

Under what name was the four-finger Kit Kat launched in Britain in 1935?

Chocolate Crisp — the Kit Kat name crept onto the wrapper two years later, and when wartime shortages forced a recipe change the bar went into a blue wrapper with the old name dropped.

In which country was Twix first produced, in 1967?

United Kingdom — Twix was first made at Mars's Slough factory in 1967 and did not reach the United States until 1979.

Which slogan has Skittles used in its advertising for decades?

Taste the Rainbow — a New York agency coined the line, and in 2019 Skittles marked Super Bowl Sunday with a stage musical starring Michael C. Hall, performed just once.

In 2016, Skittles temporarily changed its candies to what colour in support of Pride?

White — the colourless packs said that during Pride only one rainbow deserved to be the centre of attention, so Skittles was giving up its own.

Tootsie Roll claims what distinction among American penny candies?

First to be individually wrapped — the maker's own claim for its penny roll, which later went to war: Tootsie Rolls were packed into American soldiers' rations because they kept in any weather.

Which gumdrop candy did the Mason company launch in 1945?

Dots — Mason launched the gumdrops in 1945, and for Halloween they have also come as Ghost Dots, pale green drops that hide which flavour you are about to get.

What unusual ingredient does Tootsie Roll's original recipe call for?

Yesterday's leftover batch — Tootsie folds some of the previous day's Tootsie Roll mix into each new batch, a 'graining' process the company says links every roll back to the 1896 original.

In the classic Tootsie Pop commercial, which animal gives up counting licks and bites the pop after three?

An owl — Mr. Owl takes three licks, crunches the pop and announces 'three'; the ad first aired in 1970, and student experiments since have counted anywhere from about 150 to more than 400 licks.

The idea for the Tootsie Pop came when an employee licked what while eating a Tootsie Roll?

His daughter's lollipop — in the company's telling, an employee licked it while chewing a Tootsie Roll, liked the mix and pitched it at the next ideas meeting; the Tootsie Pop followed in 1931.

The American Milky Way's closest match outside the United States is sold under what name?

Mars bar — Forrest Mars modelled it on his father's American bar in 1932, while the Milky Way sold in the rest of the world has no caramel and resembles the American 3 Musketeers.

Before 1954, the letter printed on each M&M was which colour?

Black — the stamp arrived with the line 'Look for the M on every piece', so buyers could tell the real candy from imitators; it has been white since 1954.

The 3 Musketeers bar originally came with three pieces in which flavours?

Chocolate, strawberry and vanilla — the 1932 bar held three small nougat pieces in those flavours; wartime sugar restrictions in the 1940s left only the chocolate piece.

The 3 Musketeers bar borrows its name from an 1844 novel by which French author?

Alexandre Dumas — the bar took his title because each pack originally held three pieces, sold together for a nickel as one of the biggest bars around.

To bet on milk chocolate, Milton Hershey sold which thriving business for $1 million in 1900?

His caramel company — Hershey sold the Lancaster Caramel Company but kept its small chocolate subsidiary, reportedly saying caramels were a fad and chocolate a permanent thing.

What did the founder of Hershey see at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition that changed his business?

German cocoa-processing machines — Hershey saw J. M. Lehmann's chocolate-making machinery at the Chicago fair and bought it, and by the next year he had a chocolate company of his own.

Why can't the coating on a Butterfinger legally be called chocolate?

It contains no cocoa butter — the coating is made with other vegetable fats, and US food rules do not let those stand in for cocoa butter in anything sold as chocolate, so the wrapper says 'chocolatey'.

Which cartoon character famously advertised Butterfinger from 1988 to 2001?

Bart Simpson — the ads began before The Simpsons had its own series; once the deal ended, the show hit back with a bonfire that spits Butterfingers out because 'even fire doesn't want them'.

Which candy bar shared the jingle 'Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't' with Mounds?

Almond Joy — the jingle sold two sister bars at once: Almond Joy has nuts, Mounds don't.

During the Second World War, the US military bought most of which coconut bar's output for ration kits?

Mounds — by 1944 the military was taking about four of every five bars made, and to keep coconut coming the maker ran a 'Flea Fleet' of small ships past German patrols in the Caribbean.

Nerds were launched in the early 1980s under which candy brand name?

Willy Wonka — the brand was invented to sell real candy alongside the 1971 film of Roald Dahl's book, so by the time Nerds arrived a fictional chocolatier's name was on shop shelves.

What are US Smarties called north of the border, to avoid a clash with Nestlé's chocolate Smarties?

Rockets — the name avoids Nestlé's chocolate Smarties in Canada; the candy itself began in 1949, when Edward Dee pressed sugar tablets on machines of the kind used to make wartime gunpowder pellets.

SweeTarts were invented in 1962 under the direction of the CEO of which company?

Sunline Inc. — its chief executive J. Fish Smith had SweeTarts developed in 1962 from the tart Pixy Stix formula, and they launched in 1963 in cherry, grape, lemon, lime and orange.

What are candy apples called in Britain and much of the Commonwealth?

Toffee apples — the British and Commonwealth name; Halloween and Bonfire Night both fall just after the apple harvest, which is why the treat belongs to autumn.

William W. Kolb reportedly invented the red candy apple in 1908 while experimenting with what?

Red cinnamon sweets for Christmas — Newark confectioner William W. Kolb was testing a red cinnamon candy for the Christmas trade in 1908, dipped apples in it and sold them from his shop window.

What was the first Jolly Rancher business, opened by Bill and Dorothy Harmsen in 1949?

An ice cream store — it struggled once the weather turned, so the Harmsens added boxed chocolates and a five-cent hot cinnamon taffy stick, and requests for the stick turned them into candy makers.

Which fruit chew was launched in Britain as Opal Fruits, a name it kept there until 1998?

Starburst. Mars ran a competition to name the new sweets and the winner took home £5; Britain kept his Opal Fruits name for decades after the same chews were selling in America as Starburst.

Which flavour of Twizzlers twists outsells all the others?

Strawberry. Hershey says its most popular twists contain no licorice extract at all; only the original black Twizzlers do, which is why the fruit flavours are sold as licorice-type candy.

What flavour were the red licorice twists that American Licorice launched in the 1920s and later renamed Red Vines?

Raspberry. The twists sold for about thirty years before the company renamed them Red Vines in the 1950s and rebuilt its whole brand around the colour.

Why did I. C. Bahr choose the name Dum Dums for the lollipops in 1924?

Any child could say it. That was sales manager I. C. Bahr's whole case for the name, and the brand's later owner gave children a reason to keep the wrappers too: they could be mailed in for toys and other prizes.

Who has made Dum Dums in Bryan, Ohio, since buying the brand in 1953?

Spangler Candy Company — the Bryan, Ohio firm bought Dum Dums from Akron Candy in 1953; its unlabelled 'Mystery Flavor' pop comes from the point where one batch's flavour blends into the next.

Which candy bar began as the Kandy Kake before its maker reworked it and dropped bars from planes on tiny parachutes?

Baby Ruth. Otto Schnering turned his slow-selling Kandy Kake into a peanut-and-caramel log at half the price of rival bars, and it was soon one of the best-selling bars in America.

The peanut-and-caramel Payday bar of 1932 is said to take its name from what?

The day its first batch was made: the bars are said to have come off the line on the company's payday. In the Depression the dense coat of peanuts let Frank Martoccio's firm sell them as a cheap stand-in for a meal.

What is the centre of a Whoppers candy made from?

Malted milk. The balls first reached shops in 1939 as Giants and became Whoppers a decade later; early ones were sold loose from the box, unwrapped, at two for a penny.

Before leaving the factory, a sample York Peppermint Pattie had to pass a test by doing what?

Snapping cleanly in half. Henry Kessler wanted a firm, crisp pattie, unlike the soft, gummy mints rivals sold, so a sample that failed to break clean down the middle was rejected as a second.

Why did Hershey stop making Kisses during the Second World War?

Foil rationing: the wrapping foil was needed for the war effort, so the Kisses lines stopped while Hershey turned out billions of ration bars for American troops instead.

Which company paid for the 1971 film of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in order to launch a candy bar?

Quaker Oats had never made a film, but it put up the whole $3 million budget to advertise a new chocolate bar, then could not get the bar's recipe right: it kept melting and had to be pulled.

What is printed on the outside of every Laffy Taffy wrapper?

Jokes. Many are sent in by fans, and a 2022 contest alone drew more than 6,500 entries, with the best 101 added to the brand's joke bank.

The powdered candy wrapper of a Pixy Stix is designed to resemble what?

The powder is poured straight into the mouth from the paper or plastic tube.

Which 1960s candy was created from the same recipe as the powder in Pixy Stix?

SweeTarts. Its maker pressed the same tart powder into solid discs and launched them in the powder's own flavours: cherry, grape, lemon, lime and orange.

Which American candy, first made in 1847, went back into production under a new owner in 2020?

Necco Wafers. Civil War soldiers carried the wafers, and the line ran until the Necco factory shut abruptly in 2018; a new owner bought the brand and had them back on sale two years later.

Which spice, rather than grape, flavours the purple wafer in a roll of Necco Wafers?

Clove. The old-fashioned flavours come in a sweet that won't melt and travels well, and in the Second World War the US government ordered the wafers for its soldiers overseas.

Mary Jane candy, first sold in 1914, is a taffy made from peanut butter and what?

Molasses. The Miller family's candy business began in a Boston house where Paul Revere had once lived, and by the company's account Charles N. Miller named his 1914 chews after a favourite aunt.

Bit-O-Honey, introduced in 1924, is a honey-flavoured taffy containing which nut?

Almonds. Bits of them are worked through a honey taffy made with egg white for extra chew, a far cry from the chocolate bars it competed with when it launched as six wax-wrapped pieces.

The Charleston Chew, a candy bar born in the 1920s, was named after what?

A popular dance: the Charleston was the craze of the 1920s. The bar's maker was started by a stage actor, Donley Cross, who went into the candy business with his friend Charlie Fox.

Which toffee bar did brothers Bayard and Everett start selling in 1928 at their family's confectionery in Robinson, Illinois?

Heath. Their father, a schoolteacher, had bought the shop to set his sons up in business, and the family later put the toffee on the milkman's order list, so customers could have it delivered with the milk.

What crunchy ingredient is mixed into the milk chocolate of a Hershey's Krackel bar?

Crisped rice. The full-size bar vanished in 1997, and for 17 years Krackel survived only as one of the small bars in bags of Hershey's Miniatures, until fans' requests brought it back in 2014.

Why did Mr. Goodbar launch in 1925 under a fictitious company's name?

Its maker disliked peanut bars: Milton Hershey let his president, William Murrie, launch one only if the Hershey name stayed off it, so Murrie invented the 'Chocolate Sales Corporation'. The bar was a hit.

What was added to the Whatchamacallit bar in 1987?

A layer of caramel. Hershey's candy chemists added it to what had been a plain bar of peanut-flavoured crisp; the bar's odd name came out of a brainstorm with the firm's advertising agency.

Which company, the maker of marshmallow Peeps, introduced Mike and Ike in 1940?

Just Born. Even the company cannot say where the name Mike and Ike came from; its own guesses have included a vaudeville song, a staff naming contest and the names of the inventors.

The name Haribo is an abbreviation of founder Hans Riegel and which German city?

Bonn. HAns RIegel BOnn began in a home kitchen there in 1920 with his wife Gertrud as the first employee; when he died in 1945 she ran the firm until their sons came home from prisoner-of-war camps.

Which candy staged a 2012 advertising 'break-up' between the two characters on its box?

Mike and Ike. The firm spent about $15 million pretending the pair had fallen out over creative differences, and the stunt worked: sales had their best rise in a decade before the two 'reunited' in 2013.

Which US president had a jar of Jelly Belly jelly beans passed around at his Cabinet meetings?

Ronald Reagan. He took to jelly beans while giving up smoking as governor of California, and as president he kept them at meetings and gave jars to visiting dignitaries.

Which Italian group bought Nestlé's US candy business for $2.8 billion in 2018?

Ferrero — the Nutella maker paid $2.8 billion for Nestlé's US confectionery brands, including Butterfinger and Baby Ruth, in 2018, folding most of them into its Ferrara Candy subsidiary.

Halloween candy fears spiked in 1982 after someone laced which painkiller with cyanide?

Tylenol. Warnings about tampered treats multiplied that autumn, yet sociologist Joel Best, who combed decades of newspaper reports, found no case of a stranger's Halloween candy killing a child.

Mass-produced circus peanuts are orange but taste of which fruit?

Banana. The odd marshmallow has a famous descendant: a General Mills developer who loved circus peanuts chopped them into a bowl of Cheerios, and the idea became Lucky Charms.

Razzles start out as a hard candy and end up as what?

Chewing gum. 'First it's a candy, then it's a gum' ran the jingle when the tablets launched in 1966: the sugary fruit shell breaks down as you chew, leaving the gum base that was mixed into it.

The weapon that shares its name with Bazooka bubble gum was named after what?

A comedian's homemade horn: radio comic Bob Burns called his pipe-and-funnel instrument a bazooka, and the wartime rocket launcher looked enough like it to inherit the name a few years before the gum appeared.

Which bubble gum did Fleer accountant Walter Diemer invent in 1928?

Dubble Bubble. The founder's own 1906 attempt, Blibber-Blubber, was too sticky to succeed, and the only food colouring in the factory was pink, which is why most bubble gum is still pink.

Now and Later taffy squares were created in 1962 by the Phoenix Candy Company in which New York borough?

Brooklyn. Its maker had lived on seasonal lines such as saltwater taffy and Halloween candy, and created the taffy squares to have something it could sell all year round.

Which extreme sour candy did an Iowa importer build from a super-sour sweet he found in Taiwan?

Warheads. Peter De Yager of the Foreign Candy Company toured Asia hunting for ever more sour sweets, found the strongest in Taiwan and gave it a mascot whose head erupts in a mushroom cloud.

Why did Topps engineer Frank Richards invent the Ring Pop in the 1970s?

To stop his daughter sucking her thumb, Richards gave her a sweet to wear on her finger instead: a hard-candy jewel on a plastic ring, which Topps then put on sale.

What gas is trapped inside Pop Rocks to make them crackle?

Carbon dioxide — the candy is cooked with pressurised carbon dioxide that stays trapped in tiny bubbles and fizzes out as it dissolves; General Foods chemist William Mitchell patented the idea in 1961.

What are the two main ingredients of a Zagnut bar?

Peanut butter and toasted coconut. A Pittsburgh candy maker launched it in 1930 as the coconut-coated sibling of its best-known bar; after the firm changed hands the two went separate ways, and Zagnut ended up with Hershey.

Which candy bar, sold since 1920, hides its caramel-and-peanut nougat under a coat of white fudge?

Zero. It launched as Double Zero, a name meant to sound icy cool, and one popular reading ties it to the frosty white coat, which looks like a dusting of fresh snow.

What was the Sugar Daddy caramel pop originally called when it was created in 1925?

Papa Sucker. Robert Welch created the caramel pop under that name; in 1932 it became the Sugar Daddy, slang for a rich older admirer, which its maker said promised 'a wealth of sweetness'.

The 'Nik-L' in the name of Nik-L-Nip wax bottles is a nod to what?

Their original five-cent price. The 'Nip' is less settled: the maker says it is the way you nip the top off the wax bottle to drink the syrup, while others point to 'nips', miniature bottles of liquor.

Which licorice candy was first made by Philadelphia's Quaker City confectionery firm in 1893?

Good & Plenty. The pink-and-white capsules are among America's oldest candy brands, and in 1950s television commercials a cartoon boy engineer called Choo-Choo Charlie sang their praises.

The word 'dud' in Milk Duds refers to what?

Failed attempts to make them round. The chocolate-covered caramels kept coming out lopsided, so their maker gave up, kept the 'duds' and added 'Milk' for the milk in the recipe; Hershey's own blurb admits they are never perfectly round.

Reese's Pieces became hugely popular after appearing in which 1982 film?

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Elliott lures the alien with a trail of Reese's Pieces, but only because the film-makers' first choice fell through: they asked Mars about using M&M's, and Mars said no.

Which peanut butter crunch candy was created in Pittsburgh in 1917 to be shipped to American soldiers overseas?

Clark Bar. David Clark's loose chocolate drops were too awkward to send to the troops, so the military asked for something easier to transport; his wrapped five-cent bar went on general sale after the war.

Which cough-drop company launched the 5th Avenue bar in 1936?

Luden's. One popular theory is that the bar was named not for Manhattan's famous avenue but for the main street of Reading, the cough-drop maker's home town.

Which chocolate's British adverts asked who you loved enough to give your last one?

Rolo. The 'last Rolo' line ran on British television from 1980 until Nestlé dropped it in 2003, judging it too sentimental for couples who told researchers they prized humour over romance.

Toblerone's triangular shape is said to be inspired by which mountain?

The Matterhorn. It is the popular story for the shape, and the peak long decorated the box; in 2023 its outline gave way to a generic summit when some production moved to Slovakia and Swiss rules barred the national symbol.

What did the founder of Andes mints first call his shop, before changing the name to Andes?

Andy's Candies. Andrew Kanelos opened the shop under his own nickname in 1921, then, the story goes, found that men did not like giving their wives and girlfriends a box with another man's name on the lid.

Which Nashville candy of 1912, a mound of marshmallow nougat, caramel and peanuts, is considered the first combination candy bar?

Goo Goo Cluster. Bars before it were a single kind of candy, which is what 'combination' means here; the name is thought to copy a baby's first sounds, a candy so good you'd ask for it from birth.

Since 1950, American trick-or-treaters have collected coins for which organisation?

UNICEF. A Philadelphia couple, Clyde and Mary Emma Allison, sent children out that Halloween with decorated milk cartons to collect coins instead of candy; the small orange boxes came later.

Soul cakes were traditionally given to 'soulers' who went door to door offering to do what?

Pray for the dead. Soulers went from door to door around All Souls' Day, trading prayers for a household's departed for cakes, a custom often named as a forerunner of trick-or-treating.

Which Day of the Dead sweet often carries a person's name?

Sugar skulls. Called calaveras and moulded from a sugar paste known as alfeñique, they carry the name across the forehead, and many are made to be displayed rather than eaten.

The carved Halloween lantern's name is linked to an Irish legend about which character?

Stingy Jack. In the Irish tale he tricks the Devil into never claiming his soul, so when he dies neither heaven nor hell will take him and he is left to wander the dark with a single glowing ember.

The word Halloween comes from a Scots contraction of what phrase?

All Hallows' Eve — 'Hallow-e'en' is the Scots form of All Hallows' Even, with 'even' (evening) shortened to e'en; it is the night before All Hallows' Day, 1 November.

The word gobstopper comes from 'gob', British slang for what?

Mouth. A gobstopper is a sweet big enough to stop it; in his memoir Boy, Roald Dahl tells how he and four friends hid a dead mouse in a sweet-shop jar of gobstoppers in 1924 and were caned for it.

Compared with today's Goldbear, Haribo's original 1922 gummy bear was what?

Bigger and slimmer. Hans Riegel's Dancing Bear sold two for a pfennig even as inflation shook Germany, and its success set Haribo on the road to the Goldbear of 1960.

Which caramel candy is named after the Westphalian town where its maker was founded?

Werther's Original. Storck began in the town of Werther, but the butter caramels only went on sale under its name in 1969, as Werthers Echte; 'Original' replaced 'Echte' for buyers abroad in the 1990s.

In a 1993 Seinfeld episode, which candy falls into a patient's open incision during surgery?

Junior Mints. Kramer presses one on Jerry in the viewing gallery, it flies into the patient, and the man goes on to make an unexpected recovery; a larger mint pattie stood in on camera because the real one was too small.

By its maker's account, the Oh Henry! bar took its name from a sigh often heard from whom?

The girls at the shop counter: in the Williamson company's telling they sighed 'Oh, Henry!' whenever a handsome young customer came in. A rival account credits Tom Henry, a Kansas candy maker said to have sold his recipe.

Which candy did Young & Smylie, a firm founded in 1845 and later renamed Y&S Candies, go on to create?

Twizzlers. The firm was trading as the National Licorice Company when the twists appeared in the 1920s, and they get their shape from nozzles that twirl the candy as it is squeezed out.

Which cereal began in 1964 when a General Mills developer mixed bits of circus peanuts into Cheerios?

Lucky Charms came to developer John Holahan after a trip to the grocery store, and it became the first cereal with marshmallows in its recipe.

Which Surrealist painter designed the logo of the Spanish candy brand Chupa Chups in 1969?

Salvador Dalí drew the emblem for a brand whose name comes from chupar, the Spanish verb meaning to suck.

Which colour of pumpkin on a doorstep signals non-food treats for trick-or-treaters with food allergies?

Teal pumpkins started with a food-allergy support group in East Tennessee, and a national charity has promoted the idea since 2014.

Which sitcom's 1993 episode sees a Junior Mint dropped from a viewing gallery into a patient during surgery?

Seinfeld has Kramer press the candy on Jerry mid-operation; it flies off the balcony, and the patient later recovers.

What was the day job of William Morrison, who co-invented the cotton candy machine in 1897?

Dentist William Morrison and confectioner John C. Wharton launched the treat as Fairy Floss at the 1904 World's Fair, selling 68,655 boxes.

Which candy, launched in 1962, was named for the way a newborn in its maker's family looked after delivery?

Lemonhead recalls a Ferrara family baby who was delivered with forceps and arrived with a lemon-shaped head.

Which studio made Adventures of the Gummi Bears, the 1985 cartoon loosely inspired by the chewy candy?

Disney kept the series running for six seasons until 1991, and it became the forerunner of the studio's Disney Afternoon cartoon block.

The Mystery Flavor of Dum Dums pops is created when what happens on the production line?

Two flavour runs overlap on the line, and selling the mixed pops as a mystery saves stopping production to clean up between flavours.

Which candy company traded under the Goelitz family name until 2001 and began making candy corn in 1898?

Jelly Belly made candy corn for decades before its gourmet jelly beans arrived in 1976, and the firm later took the bean brand as its own name.

Which Gaelic festival, marking the harvest's end and the start of winter, helped shape Halloween customs?

Samhain was one of the four great festivals of the Gaelic year, held on 1 November to open the darker half of the year.

Early PEZ dispensers, sold to adults as an alternative to smoking, were shaped like which pocket item?

A cigarette lighter was the model for the plain flip-top box; character heads only arrived in the 1950s, when the candy was aimed at children.

What wartime measure, in force from 1942 to 1947, stalled the spread of trick-or-treating in the US?

Sugar rationing ended in June 1947, and that autumn children's magazines gave the custom some of its earliest national coverage.

From about 1870, New York's Ragamuffin Day sent costumed children door to door for candy on which holiday?

Thanksgiving begging came to be seen as a nuisance to adults, and in the 1930s ragamuffin parades were organised to replace the door-to-door custom.

Kit Kat bars are exam good-luck gifts in Japan because the name resembles a phrase meaning what?

You will surely win is the sense of kitto katsu, and a 2009 tie-up with Japan Post let people mail the bars from 20,000 post offices.

Which German confectionery brand is credited with creating the worm-shaped gummy candy in 1981?

Trolli's parent firm started out in 1948 producing pasta in the German town of Fürth before it turned to sweets.

Confectioner's glaze, an ingredient of candy corn, is made from a resin secreted by which insect?

The lac bug leaves its resin on trees in India and Thailand, and the same secretion is sold as shellac for finishing wood.

Which fruit loaf is sold each Halloween with a ring baked inside, said to promise marriage within the year?

Barmbrack once doubled as an Irish fortune-telling game, with a coin, a pea, a stick and a rag baked in beside the ring.

From 1938, Des Moines children trick-or-treated a day early, telling riddles for candy, in which tradition?

Beggars' Night was adopted to curb Halloween vandalism, and Des Moines kept it for 86 years before moving trick-or-treating to Halloween itself.

On a traditional candy corn kernel, which colour forms the wide end opposite the pointed tip?

Yellow sits at the wide end to mimic a corn kernel, and a cocoa version called harvest corn swaps it for chocolate brown.

Which 1980 comedy film has a Baby Ruth bar in a swimming pool mistaken for something far less appetising?

Caddyshack gave the bar its most infamous screen moment; five years later its maker paid to place it in The Goonies.