Hey folks! This is Private Event specialist Greg, here to talk sweets and snacks.

As it is every October, Halloween Candy is in the news. As sure as the trees change colors and fall around us, we also get an annual deluge of fear-inducing articles about drugs in candy (which has never happened) and clickbait maps about every state's favorite candy. I buy that we Nebraskans love Sour Patch Kids, but do Minnesotans really love Hot Tamales that much? Who got asked these questions? People who still have landlines? Who ARE these people?!

Sorry, I'll dial back from my incredulous ‘90s comedy material.

Instead of getting mired in the molasses muck of manipulative media, let's talk about some hard and fast truths. The weird ways classic candies got their names!

As many kids do with their Halloween haul, let's start with chocolate! Three Musketeers doesn't get its name for being light and airy like a rapier, but as a relic of its original formulation. It originally came in a triptych of fluffy nougat flavors: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. Milky Way wasn't really astronomic in nature, but it was meant to evoke healthfulness. Mars' initial advertising claimed "Milky Way's nutritional value is equivalent to a glass of milk." The FTC stepped in to stop that, but the name stuck. Hershey advertised their chocolate (just named for the founder) as being "more sustaining than meat." Gross! Thanks for getting involved, FTC! Mars got a little more light-hearted with Snickers, which are named for a family horse. One of their other horses won the Kentucky Derby. Just imagine a universe where the slogan is "Gallahadion: You're Not You When You're Hungry."

Moving to the world of fruit candy, PEZ is an elision of the German word "pfefferminz." The first dispensers were called Box Regulars (catchy!) and were marketed as smoking cessation aids. They were designed to mimic cigarette lighters. So I guess they're a sort of funhouse mirror version of candy cigarettes? In the '50s, cartoon character heads and fruity flavors were added to sell them to kids.

Speaking of kids, did you ever notice that Sour Patch Kids don't look like actual children? That's honestly probably for the best. They were originally called Mars Men after being introduced in the spacey year of 1979, but as Cabbage Patch fever (the dance) swept the nation in the 1970s, these aliens plopped their clone pods in the mythical Sour Patch. These days, they're inescapable. A great local cidery in Nebraska even has a varietal meant to replicate their sour-then-sweet flavor.

It seems fitting that Trivia Mafia should wrap up this piece with Smarties, but it's got nothing to do with being clever. The name is based on the "that smarts" face you'd make from eating these tart, chalky pucks. [Did you know that in Canada and the U.K. they have a totally different candy named “Smarties” that’s kind of like an M&M? And it comes up first when you put “Smarties” into Wikipedia, even in the U.S.? — Editor Ruby]

That's all there is to know about candy this week! We're all waiting with baited breath to track how many clicks these links get. You all got very interested about your Zip Codes last week, so we'll see if that clickbait candy map fulfills its destiny. — Events Specialist Greg

(Big thanks to Mental Floss, Woman's Day, and Candy Favorites for the legwork on the titular history of these tasty treats!)