Yesterday I bought my Halloween candy (and then some, tee hee). The $6.50 Dum-Dum bag claims to contain 300 pops, in a variety of flavors. Being very bored, impatient for some seasonal sweet treats, and dedicated to combating ignorance (in my own dorkish way), I opened it up, sorted the lollies by flavor, and counted them. Here’s what I got:
banana: 19
blu-raspberry: 16
bubblegum: 19
butterscotch: 16
cherry-cola: 34
chocolate: 9
coconut-pineapple: 7
cotton candy: 15
creme soda: 15
grape: 24
“Mystery???”: 49
pink lemonade: 15
root beer: 16
sour apple: 13
strawberry: 18
watermelon: 18
TOTAL: 303
Conclusion: the Spangler company really delivers on its promises, on both counts. Most of these taste great, although the cherry-cola is an acquired taste, I’m personally not fond of anything with coconut, and the chocolate ones are just gross). Curiously, and to Spangler’s credit, given the hegemony of citrusy sour flavors in the non-chocolate candies, only one of the flavors is based on a citrus fruit (pink lemonade)! At just over two cents per lolly, they’re a great bargain.
I’ll leave it up to you guys to rate the flavors.
I’ll take a whole 300-ct of Cream Soda please! I bought 2 bags of Dum-Dums when I quit smoking 6 weeks ago. I agree the chocolate ones are gross.
Anyone else expecting that “Halloween candy sample analysis” meant that the OP stuck the lollipop in an ICP or something?
I always broke the Dum-Dum off the stick (except for the paper in the center) then sucked it like that. I probably always swallowed the paper as well.
That is a great selection of flavors for cheap little ubiquitous dum dum pops!
Are the ‘mystery’ ones all one flavor, or is that a catch-all for various ones you were unable to identify?
I was thinking of handing out rubber lizards this year. We have to drive to the town common to do Halloween - town only has ~1000 people in it, so it is a small turn-out of trick or treaters. everyone brings their jack o’lantern though, and there’s hot cider. It’s very Norman Rockwell-ish but with diminutive zombies and pirates.
The creme soda ones are alright, and I don’t particularly care for the real creme soda.
Re. the “mystery” flavor, the company calls all their transition lollies that. On the manufacturing line, when they transition from one flavor to another, that is, and there’s the possibility of some flavor/color mixing. In theory, every mystery pop could be truly unique. So far, the mystery pops I’ve tasted seemed to be just one flavor, and they’ve been different.
The only reason I know this is because it was revealed in a Food Channel program, “Unwrapped”. (This show also gave me my jones for the Dum-Dums. I was thinking, “wow, I didn’t know that,” and “how many years has it been…?” 
I like the root beer ones, but this year I’m giving out chocolate candy so I can eat the leftovers!
It’s a universal that chocolate Dum-Dums are garbage. I usually have a handful or two in the candy dish on my desk, and at the end of the day the only ones that are left are the chocolate ones. The kids won’t touch them, and these are kids who’ll eat damn near anything. Who convinced the Dum-Dum company that this flavor would fly?
I love love love the chocolate Tootsie Pops. I haven’t had Dum-Dums in decades, though, so I can’t say whether I liked the chocolate ones or not. I doubt that we’ll give out any Dum-Dums this year, so I won’t have any chance to sample one.
I wish I could find Tootsie Pop Drops in local stores. Those are like the Pops, without the stick.
Hmm - the last time I had a Dum Dum was when I was a kid. My mom would take my brother and I with her every Thursday to go grocery shopping. First place we’d hit would be the bank. On Harlem Ave in Palos Heights. I can’t remember it’s name but when you opened up an account, you’d get a stuffed animal - it was one of those dogs that carry a barrell around it’s neck to rescue people (I forget what they’re called) which I still have 40 years later indicating nothing but that I need to throw out some garbage.
Anyway, we’d go through the drive up, and when the canister would woosh back at the end there’d always be 2 Dum Dums in there for me and my brother. I loved the Root Beer ones. Then we’d go to Jewel and fight over who got to ride on the bottom of the cart and who could sit in the seat.
Good times…maybe I’ll get a bag for Halloween…
You’re all more than welcome to send your chocolate dum dums to me. This is of course a purely altruistic offer on my part. 