Lileks: It's time for a new Halloween candy

As I bought the Halloween haul the other day, big bags of compacted sugar in various forms, I realized I would be giving out in 2023 the same stuff I gave out 20 years ago.

American candy has not advanced in two decades. Innovation has ceased. We have become complacent and stagnant, and a national initiative to regain our confectionary edge is needed, stat.

Perhaps there's a Strategic National Zagnut Reserve, and they're waiting for the right moment to bring them back. Or maybe we're still reeling from the old Seven-Up bar, which combined seven different flavors, each in their own sealed chambers — called "pillows" — in one bar. That was too much innovation, some thought. See what happens when you stray from the basics? Madness.

I mean, what was the last time the Milky Way did anything? I think it was the "Midnight" version that had dark chocolate. But what can they do? They can't add nuts. A guy hits a nut in a Milky Way, it upends all his expectations of the universe, and he loses his faith, then joins the French Foreign Legion.

Oh, Milky Way did an "all-caramel" version, which is like those Cap'n Crunch Oops! All Crunch Berries atrocities. You can alter the nature of an ingredient, go from milky to dark, but you can't remove one and call it the same thing.

As I said, there's not a lot they can do. The basic candy bar has a rotating series of constituent elements — chocolate, nougat, nuts, caramel, coconut, crispy planks — combined in different ways. Sure, there's the sour group of candy, which encompasses the tart group, but it's stagnant, too. The Sour Patch Kids I originally handed out are now Sour Patch Young Adults, burdened with college loans and living at home.

So what else is there? Let's review.

• Haribo Gummies: They're like ordinary Gummies, but they have the density of an old pencil eraser!

• Whoppers: Mummified milkshakes in spherical form.

• York Peppermint Patties: Delicious. Be honest: You never, ever, stopped to wonder why they never made it in bar form. Only round divots. If you made it with an aspect ratio of 1-by-2-by-6, people would be utterly confused. "This should taste more ... circular."

By the way, here's a tidbit of historical info from the Hershey site:

"Each patty had to pass the snap test. If it didn't break clean down the middle, it wasn't packaged for sale. You're probably wondering what happened to the extra patties! People would come to the Pine Street plant and scoop up any imperfect batches — they still tasted great!"

What kids do not want: Now and Laters. Those things are work. The flavors are wrong; it's like "What a Robot Might Think Bananas Taste Like Based on Reading a History of 19th-Century Central American Politics." Or "Say, What If the Stuff You Use to Seal Cracks in the Wall Fell in Love With a Strawberry." I will not inflict these on kids.

But I will give them Jolly Ranchers. They do not want Jolly Ranchers. But they should.

For one thing, they're not made in big impersonal factories. Most people don't know this, but Jolly Ranchers actually are sourced from vast quarries in Montana. Burly men use jackhammers to carve out one-ton blocks, which are chipped, shaped and polished by third-generation artisans.

For another thing, they last, and this is an important lesson for kids. Those fun-size nuggets will be gone in a trice, and leave you wanting more, and eventually you will be ill from all the joy. Jolly Ranchers are contemplative. They are a novel, not a limerick.

I mentioned at the start that we need a crash national program to promote candy innovation. To widen kids' expectations of the possible. To find some new combination, like "nougat and salmon," that would upend our expectations. Maybe "Caramel and Steak," or, perhaps, "That white fluffy stuff and Nacho."