Did you get your Halloween candy X-rayed?

[Ponch8]

@KRC

I remember hearing about something like this in Albuquerque in the early '80’s but I don’t know if they still do it. Nowadays worried parents take their kids trick or treating at the shopping malls.

I trick or treated at a shopping mall one year. We did it because it was raining outside, not because of any fear of needles in the candy. It was unbelievably lame, so we ended up doing the regular trick-or-treating anyway.

[Miss_Woodhouse]

Not only did my parents never check our candy for poison or razor blades, she laughed about the stories. Of course, she was the only person in town still giving out home made treats. She tried giving candy to the kids we didn’t know personally, but they got all hurt they weren’t getting doughnuts too.

Nobody threw away one my mom’s doughnuts. Any parent who even thought about it was too late by the time their kid turned away from the door. Doughnuts don’t even go in the bags. They get eaten immediately. Besides, my mom always sent a doughnut out for the parents too.

[Lynn_Bodoni]

And Act II popcorn balls are nowhere near as good as homemade. Just sayin.

Homemade popcorn balls are usually a great deal fresher, for one thing, and don’t have a lot of the additives of commercial popcorn balls.

Homemade popcorn balls would probably be a great Thanksgiving dessert, too.

[Tom_Tildrum]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

I don’t recall anything about X-rayed candy, but I was past trick-or-treating age by the 80’s. I do remember warnings in school about poisoned candy and razor blades in apples, but it sounded like bullshit to me even as a kid. How were people supposed to be able to get these razor blades into the apples without breaking the skin, or poisoning the candy without disturbing the packaging?

They would fasten razor blades to the branches of the tree, and the apples would grow around them. It takes a certain amount of planning.

[Darth_Nader]

@Markxxx

I don’t think until the Tylenol tampering case of the early 80s, did people REALLY think about product tampering in a big way.

That’s what I was going to say. Halloween changed forever that year.

[aceplace57]

I’m barely old enough to remember when neighbors baked treats to hand out. Cookies, brownies, and even homemade candy like peanut brittle. By the time I started trick or treating nearly everyone gave out store bought, wrapped candy. But, a few neighbors had a plate of cookies for kids and families they knew personally. The sweet lady down the street that sometimes baby sat me wasn’t a threat. I always looked forward to her cookies.

[Daerlyn]

I was a kid in the 80s and early 90s. Never did we have x-rayed candy. I don’t think my mother even checked my haul. Of course, when I got home I’d immediately dump the whole thing out on the living room floor so I could hog the good stuff, so maybe she was just discreetly supervising that process and would have grabbed anything suspicious.

Like all those chocolate bars I wouldn’t eat.

Now that I think about it, my dislike for chocolate probably made Hallowe’en the best holiday of the year for my mother.