#2-Milk Duds

Vote for Your Favorite Movie Candy…and Why Are They Called Milk Duds?

Want to vote for your favorite movie-eating candy? I’m doing a poll. You can vote below.

My favorite? Milk Duds.

Dud is a great word. It means something that fails to work properly or is otherwise unsatisfactory or worthless.

“The firecracker was a dud. It didn’t explode or anything.”

It can also refer to a person.

“Our quarterback is such a dud. He can barely throw a pass.”

Since the word is so negative, why would a candy maker name its product Milk Duds?

This is what the box looked like when Granpa was a kid

I looked it up, and it’s because back in the 1920s the company that invented them wanted perfectly round caramels coated with milk chocolate…and no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t make them look like that. So they called them Milk (chocolate) Duds.

Granpa ate Milk Duds at the movies when he was a kid. The package was different then because they were made by a different company. I wondered if today’s Milk Duds were the same as in the olden days, so I gave him one of mine to taste. Here is his review:

“Not like I remember. The caramel’s the same, but I don’t know…the chocolate tastes different.”

So Granpa and I did some research and found out that Hershey’s doesn’t use cocoa butter (that’s the oily part of the cocoa bean) anymore. Now they use vegetable oil. Without cocoa butter—the government says—chocolate isn’t really chocolate. So Hershey’s is not allowed to say Milk Duds are covered with chocolate. All they can say (look at the box at the top) is “chocolatey covered.”

Granpa says that proves they really are duds.

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(Voting is below the images.)

goodandplentygummywormsjelly bean

juniormintslifesaversmandms

milk dudsraisinetstwizzlers

reesescandy barsno caps

sour patchstartburst

Here’s my movie-eating candy poll. The choices are in alphabetical order. Pick one!

But if you or anyone else in your house has already voted, you don’t get to vote again (all the voting choices will disappear…cool, huh?). You can come back to look at the poll results as many times as you want.

What is your favorite movie-eating candy?

View Results

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Comments from my Readers & Friends

  2. Today, I read a magazine called Reader’s Digest and I saw that there is a Candy Trivia and I have to guess what candy it is.

  3. hi i am reading your first book right now it is amazing i love it thank you for making them and sending them to my school

  5. You just visited my school Reeces pieces but I love milk duds second Im getting one of your books YAY your fan **Allyson**

  12. I picked “other” because I really like everlasting gobstoppers.

    From, Thingymajigger

  13. Cheesie plz respond: No offense but I REALLY think Lana Shen like likes you!!!! no to be mean……. XD

  16. I love how Milk Duds are creamy on the outside and is gooey on the inside with caramal.The only part i hate about them is, they get stuck in your teeth!

    • Yes! Me too. My dentist said he does NOT like Milk Duds for exactly that reason.

    • I bet lots of your friends (the ones who LOVE LOVE LOVE chocolate) think you are totally weird. But people are different and have different tastes…so there!