Baseball Candy Bars - Random Trivia Answers

• A1) Reggie Jackson. Two years later, in 1978, fans attending the New York Yankees home opener were each given a Reggie! bar, containing chocolaty covered caramel and peanuts and named for the slugging outfielder who had been traded from the Baltimore Orioles before the previous season.
• A2) Travis Hafner. The designated hitter, who led the American League in slugging percentage in 2006, was variously nicknamed "Project" and "Donkey", so the two were combined.
• A3) Frank Thomas. The retail candy contained milk chocolate, caramel, and pecans, while a separate fund-raiser called the Frank Thomas bar, produced only in 1996, had milk chocolate and "crisp" rice.
• A4) Jose Canseco. The outfielder had become the first major leaguer to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in the same season in 1988, a year before the "nutrition" bar debuted. The bar, which hopes you'll "Taste the Power", contains mostly peanuts, corn syrup, sugar, molasses, and dextrose with enough cocoa powder thrown in to call it chocolate.
• A5) Mike Mussina. The fund raising bar showcases its contents as milk chocolate and peanut butter.
• A6) Wade Boggs. The number on the third baseman's .352 bar represented his career batting average at the time (1990). The Hall-of-Famer's average had slipped to .328 by the time he retired in 1999.
• A7) Pete Rose. The "Carob Coated" and "Protein Rich" bar, whose main ingredient is corn syrup, brags that it contains "Vitamins and Minerals".
• A8) Tony Gwynn. The 1990 confection is "pure" milk chocolate, smooth like the 8-time batting champ's swing.
• A9) Ken Griffey, Jr.. Edmonds' Pacific Trading Cards Inc. couldn't produce the milk chocolate trading card-sized bars fast enough to keep up with demand in the Seattle area. Ironically, the 1997 American League MVP is allergic to chocolate.
• A10) Cecil Fielder. The year before his streak, the portly first baseman and designated hitter had found his stroke during a year in Japan.
• A11) Larry Walker. The Colorado Rockies outfielder had led the National League in homers (49) and on-base percentage (.452), slugging percentage (.720), and total bases (409) and captured one of his seven Gold Gloves.
• A12) Cal Ripken, Jr.. The Cal Bar, with milk chocolate and crispy rice, debuted in January 1993 and reached sales of 1.4 million in only four months, primarily from fund raising efforts.

Bonus Factoids:

• The Chipper Bar, named for Chipper Jones, and the Albert Belle Bar both featured milk chocolate with crisped rice and were first produced by the same company, Malley's, in 1996 and 1997 respectively. The David Justice Bar was made by a different company, Morley's, two years later, but had the same ingredients, just like the company's Cal Bar and Big Hurt Bar.
• Although the Baby Ruth candy bar, formerly called the Kandy Kake, was almost undoubtedly named for Babe Ruth, the Curtiss Candy Company got away with claiming it was named for Grover Cleveland's daughter Ruth (who had passed away 15 years earlier!). There was an official Ruth's Home Run Candy Bar at one point (not sure when, but it cost five cents, so probably also in the 1920s).
• Although Hank Aaron advertised for the Oh Henry candy bar, it debuted in 1919 and took its current name the following year, fourteen years before the slugger was born.

Baseball Candy Bars - Random Trivia Questions

It's not unusual for celebrities to use their fame to push products. But even I didn't realize that the practice was so pervasive that you can have an entire quiz on nothing but candy bars created for Major League Baseball players! Some of these questions are pretty hard because the products didn't last longer than your kids' Halloween booty, but most of them are guessable.

Baseball Candy Bars Questions

• Q1) What baseball player remarked, "If I played in New York, they'd name a candy bar after me"?
• Q2) What baseball player had the Pronk candy bar named for him?
• Q3) What baseball player had the Big Hurt candy bar named for him?
• Q4) What baseball player had the 40/40 Power Bar named for him?
• Q5) What baseball player had the Moose candy bar named for him?
• Q6) What baseball player had the .352 candy bar named for him?
• Q7) What baseball player had the Supercharg'r energy bar named for him?
• Q8) What baseball player had the Base Hit candy bar named for him?
• Q9) What baseball player had a candy bar named for him in 1989 when he was only a rookie?
• Q10) What baseball player had a candy bar named for him in 1994 after four consecutive seasons with at least 30 home runs and 110 RBIs?
• Q11) What baseball player had a candy bar named for him in 1998 after his first and only MVP award?
• Q12) What baseball player had a candy bar featuring a picture of him as a 10-year-old?

Halloween - Random Trivia Answers

• A1) All Saint's Day (or All Hallows' Day). As the name implies, all Christian saints are honored each November 1.
• A2) Linus. In It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, he convinces Sally to stand vigil with him, but the only creature that appears is Snoopy.
• A3) Peppermint Patty. York created the Peppermint Pattie in 1940, and Charles Schulz introduced the tomboy in 1966.
• A4) Michael Myers. Tony Moran, Will Sandin, Don Shanks, George Wilbur, Dick Warlock, Brad Loree, Mikael Lindgren, Adam Gunn, Anders Ek, and Chris Durand have all played Myers at various ages in the series.
• A5) Jack Skellington. Chris Sarandon provided his speaking voice, while Danny Elfman did the singing.
• A6) M&M's. After the Mars company turned down Steven Spielberg's offer, the Hershey Chocolate Company accepted, and Reese's Pieces sales boomed. Eight years later, peanut butter M&M's debuted unsuccessfully.
• A7) Mounds. The coconut-filled concoction also differs from its sibling because it uses dark chocolate rather than milk chocolate.
• A8) Good & Fruity. Hershey's stopped making the red-licorice candies recently, but they can still be found through the Internet.
• A9) Reggie Jackson. The Reggie Bar, a simple chocolate-covered peanuts and caramel concoction, was introduced at Jackson's home debut with the Yankees, two years after he had complained, "If I played in New York, they'd name a candy bar after me."
• A10) Austria. The name is a contraction of the German word pfefferminze, although the American product is usually fruit-flavored.
• A11) White. Traditionally, the bands are usually orange, yellow, and white, although a chocolate version with a brown section is also popular.
• A12) Mentos. The Foo Fighters spoofed the candy's offbeat commercials by featuring Footos in their "Big Me" video.
• A13) Blue. The doubly-dimpled discs have been churned out by Edward Dee's Ce De Candy Inc. since the 1950s.
• A14) Orange cream. It is the most popular flavor, according to the Smarties web site.
• A15) Carbon dioxide. The pops are created when the gas quickly escapes. (And no, Life cereal's Mikey, actor John Gilchrist, didn't die from mixing Pop Rocks and Coca Cola.)
• A16) The Kit Cat Club. That would be the 18th-century London literary club, not the New York city nightclub.
• A17) Tootsie Rolls. Hirshfield created the caramels in 1896, naming them for his 5-year-old daughter Clara's nickname.
• A18) Snickers. The "Hungry. Grab a Snickers" slogan is reasonably accurate if unhealthy. A two-ounce Snickers bar contains 22% of the US RDA's recommended daily allotment of fat (a round 25% of the saturated kind).
• A19) 3 Musketeers. After dropping down to a single flavor, the candy bars were advertised as being big enough for three friends to share.
• A20) Charleston Chew. The Fox-Cross Candy Company created the long, chocolate-covered nougat bars but sold out to Nabisco, which has since passed them on to Tootsie Roll Industries.
• A21) Tootsie Pops. The wise bird first appeared in the 1970, answering the question "How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?" Mr. Owl took three licks before resorting to biting.
• A22) $100,000 Bar. The name sounds like The $64,000 Question and matches the top prize in The Big Surprise. Nestle now calls the chocolate, caramel, and rice concoctions 100 Grand Bars for the pathetic reason that the company's first computers couldn't handle a leading dollar sign in product names.
• A23) Baby Ruth. The Curtiss Candy Company couldn't strike a deal with the baseball slugger and apparently managed to avoid being sued by claiming the bar was named for Grover Cleveland's daughter.
• A24) Butterfinger. From 1989 to 2001, Bart warned, "Nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger!"
• A25) Crispy rice. Nestle introduced the Crunch in 1938, nineteen years after the Swiss company started selling their plain chocolate bars in the U.S.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween - Random Trivia Questions

As you could tell by counting the silvery fillings in my mouth, Halloween was one of my favorite holidays as a kid. I grew up in suburbia, where walking around the neighborhood for a couple of hours would net enough plunder to open a candy store. Enough to eat a candy bar after every meal until Chocolate Day, I mean, Valentine's Day.

This week's quiz asks a little about Halloween itself, a bit about Halloween in the movies, and a lot about my favorite Halloween candy.

Halloween Questions

• Q1) What Christian holiday immediately follows Halloween?
• Q2) Which kid in the Peanuts gang anxiously awaits the Great Pumpkin every year?
• Q3) Which Peanuts cast member was named for a candy bar?
• Q4) Who is the killer in the 1978 Halloween horror movie and its sequels?
• Q5) In The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), what character tries to turn Christmas into Halloween?
• Q6) What candy missed out on some prime product placement when its owner turned down a role in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial?
• Q7) What is a nutless Almond Joy called?
• Q8) What candy was Good & Plenty's multi-colored sibling?
• Q9) Which baseball player did the Curtiss Candy Company name a new candy bar for in 1978?
• Q10) In which country did PEZ candy debut in 1927?
• Q11) What color is the tip of a standard candy corn?
• Q12) What candy is advertised as the "freshmaker"?
• Q13) What new color of Smarties debuted in 1989?
• Q14) What flavor is the white Smarties candy?
• Q15) What type of gas can be found in the middle of Pop Rocks?
• Q16) What was the Kit Kat candy bar named for?
• Q17) What candy did Leo Hirshfield name for his daughter?
• Q18) What candy bar sponsored The Howdy Doody Show from 1949 to 1952 and was known as the Marathon bar in the United Kingdom until 1990?
• Q19) What candy bar was named for a novel and originally included vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry flavors?
• Q20) What candy bar was named for a popular dance in 1922?
• Q21) What candy uses Mr. Owl as its mascot?
• Q22) What candy bar spawned from the 1950s television quiz show era?
• Q23) What candy bar sounds like a baseball player's name but isn't?
• Q24) What candy bar used Bart Simpson as its pitchman in the 1990s?
• Q25) What ingredient provides the crunch in Nestle Crunch bars?