Saturday, April 04, 2009

Whoppers - The Original Malted Milk Balls

1990 was a dark year, we all know the sheer madness that occurred when Mars Inc. took the strong athletically sounding Marathon chocolate bar and named it Snickers [after a beloved horse of the Mars family]. Apparently Mars had the idea of doing some rebranding to consolidate their product names into one as opposed to having different ones in the US than from Europe. They did this reprehensible thing to the Marathon and then seemed to have stopped [until 1998 when they changed Opal Fruits to Starburst - but that's another rant].

Although thankfully they've not changed the names of the other two staple chocolate bars; there's a good reason for this. The Yanks have a Milky Way bar, but so do we - but they're two different bars. The US Milky Way bar has a layer of caramel on top of the nougat which is what we call a Mars bar. A Milky Way bar here is a 3 Musketeers bar in the US. So while they could probably take our beloved Milky Way and call it a 3 Musketeers; they'd still have the disaster of getting people to accept a Mars bar being called a Milky Way, a disaster I might add that would make the current economic crisis seem like a minor accounting problem.

Anyway, while up to now I loathed this kind of rebranding, [I've accepted it now but don't you wish G.I.Joe was still Action Force?] on my recent unofficial tour of Washington D.C. I discovered one product in the US that I was damning wasn't owned by Mars Inc. and therefore cannot eclipse the product name here. The Hershey company - best known for their absolutely horrid tasting chocolate [if on it's own as a bar or in the form of a Hershey's Kiss] apparently markets what people in this part of the world call Malteasers as Whoppers - The Original Malted Milk Balls.

I'm serious - WHOPPERS!!!


Bruce Russell said...

Not that you've contextualized these in this way, I'll never be able to enjoy them again.

Unknown said...

I'll never be able to eat a Malteaser again without thinking of the Colonel's balls.....thanks a fucking lot!!!

Constance said...

Wow, Colonel. You have some seriously tame blog commenters. I thought for sure you'd get shredded on this one. When I saw this posted, I thought "such a brave man." Guess not! I expected far more from you, Cubaboy. Only one expletive? No graphic verbs? Again, wow.

Hershey chocolates are indeed an insult to the taste buds. I had a meeting at the Hershey Company headquarters and every flat surface in the joint had a candy bowl filled to the brim with every variety of Hershey candy. At the meeting tables, there was one bowl per two people. I say bowl, they were more like plastic buckets. It was a little bit disgusting.

vaughan said...

God Bless you Bruce and your american lack of double entendre and this idea of being unable to think of every sentence in a filthy manner.

(Begin Double Entendre mode)
here's a ad idea for an ad campaign

"Put a Whopper in your mouth and watch it dissolve...mmmm full of milky goodness!"
Malteasers are completly different animal to Whoppers and much nicer , I always have Malteasers at the cinema but when I was in the States last year I had no choice but to eat Whoppers but to make things worse they had a promotion running in accordance with the Dark Knight so I ended up with Dark Whoppers in my mouth(ooo er)
When i came back I told the Colonel all about sucking on Whoppers and for some reason he seemed excited and started saying "Yes I like the sound of those".
(Double entendre mode ended)

Constance as for Hershey Chocolate I Love Chocolate but the first time I was in the States I didn't eat any for three months , I eneded up getting Bars shipped from Ireland and giving them to my fellow classmates from Europe who were as desperate because I love America but somehow you guys with the Hershey Bar have managed to capture the taste of cats piss in chocolate form. Still is it as bad as Chocolate flavoured Skittles?

Former Grunt said...

I demand The Colonel releases a cover of Southpark Chef's song entitled "Suck On My Chocolate Malty Balls."

Youtube awaits...

Constance said...

I respectfully submit that Mr. Vaughan should write the song and direct the subsequent music video.

Constance said...

Oh, and the thing about Hershey bars: people use them to say they've had a baby just born. You know the thing you see in movies where dads in the waiting room hand out cigars and yell "it's a girl" or what have you? Well, Hershey started this marketing thing (or jumped on the bandwagon) where they produce real Hershey bar labels you can wrap over your standard bar. The labels say either

It's a
HersHEy (the HE is in blue, all the letters are in capitals)


It's a
HerSHEy (SHE is in pink)

Basically, Hershey bars are useful for s'mores.

Anonymous said...

Alas we cannot get Malteesers here in the US, nor can we get the Bounty Bars. That is why we always asked visiting folks from England to bring some with them.