Pranks and beans

The world of pranks has come to jelly beans with Bean Boozled Jelly Beans — the latest product from the Jelly Belly Candy Company.

It’s a clever repackaging of the Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans — a licensed Harry Potter candy that featured ear wax, vomit and bacon flavors. (The bacon was kind of tasty in an artificially bacon sort of way.) But with Harry Potter leaving movie theaters shortly and the books having ceased publication in 2007, Jelly Belly needed to find a use for its collection of nasty flavors.

Booger is still included, thank goodness, in the customizable tins that pair two identically colored but very differently flavored jelly beans (such as black jelly beans that taste like either skunk spray or licorice). In case you were getting tired of barf or baby-wipes flavors, you can enjoy centipede and canned dog food in the second edition.

It’s about time the prank candy market was updated. We’ve been dealing with gum that turns your mouth black, blue or red since my childhood. Or the hard candy that once the outer coating dissolves is suddenly a fish-flavored lozenge. And dirty-worded fortune cookies should have been retired long ago.  

Now we can have the sophisticated joy of the bait-and-switch and watch our loved ones suffer through pencil shavings and moldy cheese flavors. But this kind of humor comes with a steep price — a half-ounce customized tin is $3.49. 

[Image via Flickr: goobimama]