I am a Halloween obsessed nut. Every year I start watching the stores for any sign of new decorations or candies that might be released, and this year the stores began stocking Halloween items in late July. I’ve managed to stockpile everything from the Hershey grab bag of Carmel treats, to every offering from the Jones Soda Company, but it wasn’t until this week that I found a box of It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown Fruit Snacks. They were also available last year, but I was never lucky enough to stumble upon a box of them.
The box features some great artwork of the Peanuts characters in their Halloween finery. There’s Charlie Brown as a pirate, Sally as a ballerina, Linus as a cowboy, and Lucy as a wizard, though they might have been aiming for some kind of witch. Directly in the middle of all those beloved characters is Snoopy laying on an enormous pumpkin with Woodstock perched on his stomach. The back of the box featured a cut out mask, but I’ve heard that some had tiny decorations.
Each box features 36 individual orange foil packages with pictures of Woodstock all over. I wish that he was dressed as something, but he’s just plain old Wood stock. At least they stuck with orange, one of the traditional Halloween colors. The point of the fruit snacks, is that parents can give these marginally healthier snacks out in lieu of candy, but I’m not sure how many people will actually try this.
Each package supposedly contains a mixture of colors and flavors; blue, green, red, and pink. I saw supposedly because we opened three packs before we ever came across one of the blue fruit snacks.
As for the taste, this is the first time I’ve ever found a kind of fruit snack where I would willingly eat every flavor. The green is some kind of sour apple flavor, but not very sour at all. It has a very similar taste to a Green Apple Jolly Rancher, but in a chewable form. Unfortunately in all the packages we’ve opened so far, there’s been less than 3 green fruit snacks in each pack, and sometimes none at all. The pink fruit snacks are equally good, with a sweet watermelon taste. The red fruit snacks are your typical cherry flavor, and taste exactly like any you could find in another brand of fruit snack. As for the blue, I’m not sure what its supposed to taste like. I’ve been hesitant to eat any blue food (except for Slush Puppies) since having an allergic reaction to a blue Garfield snack in junior high. I tend to give the blue ones away.
A box of 36 Charlie Brown Fruit Snacks was $4.99, which is a pretty good deal considering most fruit snacks are in the $2 range for 6 packs. If you see these in your area, give them a shot. I only wish they came around more than once a year.
