six inches of shame

recently the hit-or-miss masterminds at the wonka candy company put the flavors of their fabulous runts candies up for review. one pictures charlie bucket, mid-fifties, dressed in wonka’s stale purple suit, seated at the head of a long table in a conference room beneath a massive smirking portrait of the godfather himself. he’s just wrapped up a reiteration of his dedication to getting every wonka candy into “rope” form. he sees the bottle caps exec open his mouth to speak. dreading the inevitable debate on whether cherry is really a soda flavor, he frantically shouts out the first thing that comes to mind: “so what’s new with runts?”

(suddenly you wonder whether the fan shouldn’t have had him after all.)

alas, what ensued is far more drastic than the inclusion of blue-raspberry or the sad replacement of lime with watermelon in the nineties. some disenfranchised tropical runts lobbyist seems to have bed the right oompa loompa and forced upon us the supposed-extinct pineapple flavor and its new bastard cousin, mango. what’s worse, these flavors have come at the cost of watermelon, blue-raspberry, and the stalwart classic cherry.

a brief but well-intentioned internet search turned up no press releases explaining the specifics of this stunning change. in fact, the wonka product website still taunts us with a picture of the old box – cherry, blue-raspberry, and even the bitter watermelon grinning like summertime—lackadaisical and already part of a vague and romantic past.

for the present, at least chewy runts have been spared the tropical fate of their rigid kin. if one can overlook the pruney grape pieces, there is some small consolation to be found inside the red plastic bag. beyond that, however, runts enthusiasts will likely have to wait ‘til april and pray that runts eggs will continue to feature classic flavors.

for my part, I'm reserving my quarters for laundry and the homeless - but still scouring bus stations and diners for a dusty quarter-machine full of all my old friends.



-steev sachs