Circus Peanuts

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
21

Unless this is sarcasm, you’re in a very small minority. The orange and black candies are the last thing remaining in many a child’s post-Halloween candy bag.

One stuporous evening, it occurred to me that circus peanuts were essentially marshmallows, so I decided to try making Rice Krispies treats using a bag of them. Momentarily frightened by the black smoke and toxic chemical smell they emitted as they melted, I held my breath and persevered. The results, while nominally resembling Rice Krispies treats, were as disgusting as you might imagine. I brought them to work to see if anyone would eat them. Most who dared said they were awful, but one co-worker actually liked them and ate the remainder of the plate. So there you go.

Time will tell whether the experiment shortened my life. If so, I hope “Circus Peanut lung” at least makes the medical journals.

22

We call them “styrofoam peanuts”. A bit of wonderful snark using this phrase was coined by my SiL about her sister’s erstwhile creepy speedfreak boyfriend:

He was a four-eyed
One-toothed
Styrofoam peanut-eater!

23

This kind of makes sense to me, though I’ve never actually drunk sauerkraut juice. But if that’s the case, then why don’t other salty foods have that effect on me? For that matter, if it’s the salt in the juice that causes the laxative effect, then why wouldn’t people who use sauerkraut juice as a laxative just eat the equivalent amount of table salt?

24

I’m aware that I exist as perhaps the sole consumer of peanut butter whatevers, but what strikes me as odd is that if they’re cut into small rectangles instead of just globbed into some waxed paper they’re the same thing as another old timey candy called Mary Janes. But unlike circus peanuts they’re best when they’re as fresh as possible.

I have the candy desires of C. Mongomery Burns. I love old fashioned candy. I love those dots on paper, I love those wax tubes full of sugar water, I just dig old candy. Except Boston baked beans. Those things are totally indedible.

25

I would have said Bit-O-Honey. My grandfather got me hooked on that honey taffy with almond treat, and I still think there’s nothing quite like it.

26

Isn’t that LSD?

:smiley:

27

Since it is such a small minority, I will admit to liking circus peanuts. I spent some years in the south as a child (I’m in my 40s), and I guess we didn’t have much to choose from at the Zippy Mart or the Piggly Wiggly. But there is something compelling and addictive about that artificial (even psychedelic) color and chemical-tasting glucose rush. In any case I liked them enough to buy them at 2 am after a night out during college. When I moved overseas, I would stock up on visits back to the US (mostly in California), and buy out the entire stock in the candy aisle at the drug store. I did get some funny looks from the clerks. For health reasons I have quit sugar altogether, so maybe the brand is in some danger now without those mysterious annual spikes in sales in California.

28

I wonder if it would be fair to assume that people under a certain age, say 30, are largely unaware of Circus Peanuts? I’d never heard of them, and I would be surprised if many of my friends have.

ETA: in Canada btw.

29

Until recently here in the South circus peanuts weren’t too hard to find. I think Dollar General and such still carry them. I’ll have to look.

Your association of the orange psuedogoobers and the aged parent brings to mind an embarassing event of my tender years (some twenty-five years ago). I was shopping in Fred’s with my grandmother (translation: she shopped, I was dragged along) when we passed through the candy aisle. I can’t remeber what or if I got anything. What is burned into my memory is what she got: you got it, orange circus peanuts. I probably wouldn’t have paid much attention, but for the fact that she couldn’t wait to get out of the store. Mamaw tore open the bag and started snacking right then and there.

I recall hissing at her that she was going to get us in trouble, but she told me I was being silly and kept chewing as she shopped, with me sure all the time that a manager or someone else in authority was going to run my grandmother in for shoplifting. About twenty minutes later she went to check out. She calmly placed the open bag of circus peanuts on the conveyer belt along with her other purchases, What she bought I couldn’t say. All I remember was the lurid orange of the open bag of circus peanuts against the black of the conveyer belt.

To my surprise, the clerk said nothing, but simply added the orange goobers to the total. Mamaw paid for them and we were on our way.

When we got to her house, I decided I had to try one. After all, if they good enough to flout the law for, how could I not? I’d like to say that I spit it out and shook my head in wonder, but, believe it or not, I actually liked the texture, although the flavor was a bit… much. Still, I ate a few and wouldn’t turn one down today. Still, they are by no means good enough to risk incarceration. But they were to Mamaw. And I don;t recall her ever before or after eating bagged candy before she’d paid for it, so maybe there is something addictive about the things.

30

Circus Peanut Hijack!

I’m in Cecil’s camp when it comes to circus peanuts (i.e. don’t love 'em, don’t hate 'em). But that’s not what I came in here to post. Let me tell you the story of ROMP:

Back when I was in high school, one day I noticed that someone had spelled the word ROMP in circus peanuts on the sidewalk in front of my house. “Hmm,” I thought curiously, “That’s not something you see every day.” I shrugged it off and went on with my day.

At some point later I received a phone call from someone disguising their voice (naturally, not with a device). It’s hard to describe what the voice sounded like, it was deep and loud, slightly reminiscent of a Dalek yelling “Exterminate!” Anyway, the voice identified itself as ROMP spoke of itself in the third person, and said some other stuff that I cannot recall exactly. Needless to say, it was now clear that Something Was Going On.

One morning I woke up to find circus peanuts on the outside of my windowsill (my room was on the second floor). I received more phone calls. I received notes - with circus peanuts included - telling me to go to random places (Chuck E Cheese, a video rental store) where invariably some store clerk would give me something, sometimes another note, sometimes little things, but always with circus peanuts. My best friend also began getting contacted by ROMP.

As you might imagine, finding out who ROMP was and what the hell was going on became the central focus of my time and energy.

One evening, I was sitting in my basement watching TV - it was 8 or 9pm. The doorbell rang and my mom answered the door. She called to me that I got a “delivery.” I came upstairs to find her holding a pizza box containing a cheese pizza covered in circus peanuts spelling, of course, ROMP. I immediately rocketed out the front door in an effort to catch the delivery guy, hoping to question him about who ordered the pizza. I should probably mention at this point that it was a hot night and I was wearing nothing but boxer shorts.

So, there I am, tearing up the street at full tilt with no shirt and no shoes, chasing after a little subcompact car, yelling at him to stop. I lasted about 2 blocks before I gave up the chase and returned home, defeated (and unwittingly walking right past a parked car full of the perpetrators of the whole thing, crouched down hiding from me).

To make a long story slightly longer, I was unable to figure out who it was, until after several weeks and more shenanigans I received a box full of circus peanuts and a t-shirt featuring a picture of 4 friends of mine - the kind that you would get made at a mall kiosk - and a ROMP! caption.

I never looked at circus peanuts the same way again.