Junk Food Nation, recently my friend Corinne, who is a senior in college, posted the following on her Facebook page:

Wait...what?

A free Princeton LSAT course? Hurray, you get to…take classes for five weeks?  My prize is more school? I’m not sure I can think of a worse prize.

Oh wait, yes I can. I once saw an ad for a raffle…at a street fair…for free colonoscopy.  “You win!  I’m gonna jam this camera up your ass now!”  I mean, it was FOR a doctor’s office, but good lord – you wanna talk about an American Horror Story, that’s IT.  Holy Geebus.

I love winning a prize now and then, but companies really need to think through their giveaways.  I’ll sign up for any contest if its free – gimme a free pizza, free bag of Avon products, free weedwhacker, enter me into a raffle for oven mitts, baseball mitts, Heather Mitts – it’s allllll good.  But don’t make the prize more work, and pretend you’re doing me a favor.

With regard to the free Princeton LSAT course, I’ve heard some people opine that “Knowledge is my reward.” Well, those people clearly don’t know how much better cash or XBox game systems are as a reward. You don’t see vacuum cleaners as part of McDonald’s Monopoly contest.  You see jet skis and happiness.

Today’s junk food: Jolly Ranchers Awesome Twosome Chews!

The Money Shot

First of all, who doesn’t like Jolly Ranchers.  Those solid hard candies were a staple of my childhood.  And then when I got older, people put them in vodka drinks and Zima bottles, and they became even more delicious!  Yep, Zima.  I am that old.

Anyways, Jolly Ranchers Awesome Twosome Chews. I love that Jolly Ranchers is trying to change it up and take a different form.  Like Starburst Jelly Beans – my Kryptonite.

Bold and Tangy!

Jolly Ranchers Awesome Twosome Chews features combos of two different flavors – cherry orange and watermelon green apple.  I guess those flavors go together?  We’ll see.

The packaging on this candy is pretty simple – big cartoon displays of the fruit combos, and then making the O’s in the word TWOSOME into the profiles of the candy contained within?  Nice move, Jolly Ranchers. But what’s with the mixed font? This ain’t a high school yearbook.

Loaded with chemicals and could potentially choke you!

Jolly Ranchers Awesome Twosome Chews contains every manner of chemical and coloring imaginable – LOVE IT! Especially how at the end, they indicate “Sulfur Dioxide, to maintain freshness.” I don’t know what sulfur dioxide is, but it doesn’t scream out freshness to me.

Plus: “Careful: Small objects, like hard candies, may inadvertently become lodged in the throat.” But…aren’t these chewy candies within?  MIXED SIGNALS MIXED SIGNALS!

It's like candy Combos!

Jolly Ranchers Awesome Twosome Chews looks like candy Combos. Nacho Cheese Pretzel, Pizza Cracker…Cherry Orange!  Nope, doesn’t sound right.

Two peas in a chewy gummy roll

Jolly Ranchers Awesome Twosome Chews – a retrospective.  I dunno, sounded artsy.  Cherry Orange on the left, Watermelon Green Apple on the right.  Sprinkled with sour sugar. Looks like Sour Patch Kids stuffed inside a gummy worm, and then cut open.

I wanted to REALLY get into the inside of the chewy gooey candy and see what was up…

Gooey orange

The inside of the Cherry Orange was really gooey, and soft – way softer than your standard gummy candy. It was more like orange candy paste – and very tangy, sweet, and orange flavored.  So artificial…but in its complete fakeness, so tasty!  Just as candy should be.

The outer gummy roll shell tasted like a tart cherry with nice sour sugar. Combined, the sour orange and the tart cherry worked REALLY well – a tangy sweet treat!

Gooey green

The inside of the Watermelon Green Apple was similarly good – a nice crisp sour apple gooey paste.  Sounds gross but tastes great if you’re a sour apple fan.  The outside watermelon shell was sweet and slightly tangy, but with a very good watermelon taste.  Combined with the sour apple, I must say the two complemented each other perfectly.

Both of the twosomes inside this candy bag were tasty, tangy, and represented their fruit flavors really well. Sure it tasted artificial and maybe a little too sweet.  But it’s CANDY!  As such, these were perfect.  Kudos to you, Jolly Ranchers.

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So, what is the worst prize YOU’VE ever seen or won?  Tell me the comments below or hit me on Twitter @junkfoodguy or on my Facebook Page.

Sincerely, Junk Food Guy