Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for October 26, 2023

Knew a lady who rubber banded different candies together making a toy plane. Like Arlo, those days are gone.

Young Arlo tossing out the popcorn balls?

Popcorn balls always came from the houses that you least wanted anything handmade from…just sayin’.

I remember getting a popcorn ball and just eating it right away rather than putting it into my container.

San Jose Mercury News did a 20-year search of post-halloween reports of dangerous items in candy. Every single one was a hoax, reported the next day or two. But who reads(or remembers) articles about “never mind; nothing really happened”.

Lived in a rural area when my daughter was young, and trick or treating was by car to the various houses. There was an old lady who was famous for her caramel apples and the kids made a special stop at her house for them. Took my daughter one year to her house and was told by someone who answered the door that she could no longer do them. I don’t know why, but it struck me as the end of an era somehow, when homemade treats were eagerly anticipated and safe, at least in our little corner of the world.

Has there ever been ( scoops of ice cream ) given out ? : )

We hustled from house to house to get as much candy as possible. I never knew which house any particular item came from. When I got home I tossed anything home-made. I’m a picky eater and I never trusted those “things”.

The Sixties was when I was trick or treating. (Full size candy bars!!!)

Most of the homemade stuff I remember getting was actually pretty good (i.e. free & sweet) back then.

Never had time for pranks, because we were 100% focused on getting to as many houses as we could; probably a 2 mile radius with NO adult supervision.

There were years we tricked or treated in a couple inches of snow.

We would usually fill at least two large bags; was eating Halloween candy into the next year.

My biggest Halloween problem was the “vig” my father would demand when I got home.

Popcorn balls are sticky treats but if the maker’s hands were not clean….eewww. I never thought of that way back when.

Our sacks were the big brown bags from the grocery store

Today’s plan: find a recipe for popcorn balls.

Popcorn balls and apples were given out until the “razor blades in the apples” incident put a stop to that. Determined it was a hoax but it changed Halloween.

My mother made them, and they were good. I doubt they got eaten when she gave them out, however.

I cherish a memory of my grandmother (in the 70s) letting me help make popcorn balls for Halloween, around 1955. Her house and kitchen were spotless, except for places my sticky fingers had just touched.

I can still see, in my mind’s eye, Grammy demonstrating how the sticky sugar+corn syrup mixture was ready to use when you could hold a ball of it and pull it apart with your hands, and the middle section barely sank. Had to do that when it was the perfect temperature—not immobile, but also not so hot it burned your hands.

We (she) wrapped our treasures in waxed paper. Kids getting them looked happy, though now I’m wondering if perhaps they were secretly miserable and planning to toss them in the trash. :(

Every year our neighbors made them fresh that night. They were amazing. Their four kids always helped. Small rural neighborhood. Great times.

I liked the popcorn balls and one lady always made cookies. ;-)

I still make them but I’d never give them away

I LIKED popcorn balls! But only if they’d been placed in plastic bags. Then came the stories of razors in apples and LSD-laced cookies, and after that it was all commercial candy in individual wrappers (or wrappers with several small pieces like candy corn). But I only went a couple times and that came later.

I was never allowed to trick or treat way back when I was a kid. Parents had the attitude of “we may be poor, but we don’t need to beg”. Never forgave them for that.

Popcorn is made from corn, which is a vegetable. As a kid, I preferred chocolate for Halloween. I considered popcorn balls a form of “cheeping out”.

I always loved getting the popcorn balls!

And last I heard, the sum total of tampered-Halloween-candy-related injuries was still 0. If that’s changed, it’s because they trumpet it so much every year, they convinced some sicko to take them up on it (much like there were no car-jackings in Chicago until both the Tribune & the Sun-Times started constantly reporting on cases in NYNY).

Halloweenies of Yesteryear. One of the favorite costumes was the Hobo—sometimes a Beatnik, like Maynard G. Krebs, on the TeeVee show, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis ( CBS from September 29, 1959, to June 5, 1963). And we did get quite a few popcorn balls. And those taffy things in the orange and black wrappers.

One of our town’s 2nd grade teachers would always have the kids come into her house so she could see each child’s costume. She would then try to guess who each person was. Of course she knew us all anyway since our town had a population of about 1100. Good times.

Razor blades and glass, bite and chew slowly….or throw it at something…

I liked em all the way up til the day that I brought them in to school as a class treat and got some serious flak.

My grandmother made excellent popcorn balls and all the kids loved them. I miss them and her very much. It’s a shame we were all made afraid of “razors in apples” by the packaged candy industry.

I remember Popcorn Balls fondly. Does anyone else remember getting dimes? (The March of Dimes Campaign)

Craziness! Those were my favorite things! My friends, too. Maybe you just had an untalented popcorn-ball-baker. :-)

@Cat mom – Just sayin’…you are right!

I guess it was the forbidden fruit phenomenon. I wanted that popcorn ball SO BAD. The parents were lovely people, but they had three “hippie” sons and my mom made us throw them away. I’m sorry, Mrs. P!

I once got a bit of rotten carrot wrapped in tinfoil.

We ate the popcorn balls from folks we knew. I loved ’em. My teeth and I would probably have a problem with them now…

Popcorn ball makers eventually sell their houses, and the realtors describe their places as “whimsical”.

Popcorn balls were popular among the kids when i was growing up. Where i teach school now, there was a lady whose house was widely popular among our students because of how great her popcorn balls were (and no there were no “additives”). She was giving them out to the children of the children she treated by the time she passed away a couple of years ago.

The dentist in my neighborhood gave out apples. There were more smashed apples on the street than pumpkins.

I was amused to you a Popcorn Ball recipe in my recipe email from the NYTimes this morning.

Guess I’m an outlier. The lady down the street made popcorn balls and they we re delicious. The sticky stuff which held it together was a kind of candy in itself. Throw in peanuts and almond pieces and it was candy heaven.

True, Arlo. Sick people out there that are OK with harming innocent children.

Nostalgia. All my friends gush when you mention popcorn balls so I made some for an upcoming Halloween party, Caramel, marshmallow, and Peanut butter. Individually not combined.

The origin of nerf balls.

Why perpetuate the fallacy that people put harmful thing I’m Halloween treats? There is no evidence of such a thing. Let’s just keep the people scared -that’s how we got MAGAts.

I go back so far, we took anything, homemade or not. We traveled in huge waves down the street. All the yards were covered with little boomers.

My mother was FAMOUS for her popcorn balls! Neighborhood parents would have their kids ask for some for them, too…and kids came back year after year, into their teens and even when they had kids of their own! She tried to teach me how to make them, but in order for them to hold their shape when they cooled, that sugar syrup had to be HOT! She always buttered her hands so the hot syrup wouldn’t stick to her skin…I think that was the secret to their deliciousness!!!

We were lucky to have some wonderful bakers in my neighborhood when I was a kid. There was one elderly Italian lady with limited English skills that would always have platefuls of delicacies and hot chocolate for us. Not many kids would go there, they were afraid of her (why I don’t know) but my best friend and I always visited her throughout the year. We would make her our last stop and she would load us up. The hot chocolate helped on those cold evenings too.

Fortunately I had outgrown trick-or-treating when the urban myth of tainted candy was born. My stash never had to be inspected and confiscated. (Except maybe some of Mom’s favorites…)

Popcorn balls were a must have treat when I was a kid.

My father gave little bags of popcorn. Tiny bags. With Halloween decorations, but they were supposed to be to fill with candy.

Up until all the kids in our neighborhood grew up I gave out popcorn balls or bags of cookies that I made. I always included a little tag with our name and address. I seem to remember lots of kids getting very excited about them, and many parents also asked for one!

Spoiler : When I was a kid Halloween didn’t exist. The big event was “Bonfire Night” or “Guy Fawkes” ("Penny for the guy, Mister ?) on 5 November. Some people say that Guy Fawkes is the only person the enter the house of Commons with good intentions, but I couldn’t possibly comment on that.

Grew up in eastern North Dakota in the 1970’s. We would often get homemade popcorn balls, cookies, or homemade candy for trick-or-treating and we were allowed to keep it and eat it. Why? We knew all of our neighbors back then, everyone was kind and nice, and we were able to tell our Mom’s who made what, “Oh, this popcorn ball? That is from Mrs. Clement’s house. This cookie? Mrs. Opp gave those out….” This was back in the day when it wasn’t unusual to get 100 to 150 kids at your door for trick-or-treating, as well.

we quit going to a house (which was likely the idea there) when the woman who lived there was invariably watching tv and eating popcorn on halloween night, and she’d give trick-or-treaters a handful from her popcorn bowl! agh.

“I got a popcorn ball!”

And no kid had ever been hurt by “tampered with” halloween candy.

we had one house in our large neighborhood where the “old lady” would make popcorn balls every year. I think she died before I was 10, so before all the scares. Every year my Dad would get my popcorn ball. I believe my older brother ate his own. We did have to keep close watch on our candy once it was home, my Dad liked pretty much anything sweet.

I used to LIKE them, but I didn’t go trick or treating that I remember of, but I took my kids to trick or treat, for treats, not tricks.

I have rather found memories of them; I’ll take them over licorice or circus peanuts any day…

I got a rock

I am picking up that a popcorn ball has some sort of melted candy on it? Never have seen same and never got same.

My husband and I are a year and a half apart in age. Sometimes it seems like he comes from another time and place than I do. This time of year he starts talking about going out with his friends to all of the various neighborhoods that they lived in and eating as much as they could of the unwrapped candy before they got home.

I went out with the girl next door plus maybe one other and went up our block and down the other side. In later years we went through the next block also as we were friends with two sisters who lived there and went to their house.

Then I went home – no dinner as I was going to eat all that candy – which I never actually did. Birthday cake though. The bag of candy would go in my closet. Sometime around July or August it would be “suggested” that I clean up my closet and I would find the bag with about 80%, maybe more of the candy, and it would all get tossed out as it was “too old” to eat.