This column is, admittedly, different than most. Blame progress. I don’t like “new & improved” anything; I’m a fan of “old & worse.” Which is how we wound up with today’s topic.
Something in the news recently made me wince. Butterfinger candy bars have switched to a “new & improved recipe.” That’s like waving goodbye as the Titanic sets sail; you know it’s going to end badly. Remember 1986’s New Coke debacle?
Still, Mother Powell raised me to be open-minded. So I gave Butterfinger 2.0 a try. And instantly regretted it. It was like eating cardboard. (And not particularly tasty cardboard at that.) I recommend feeding it to your dog—as punishment for soiling the rug.
Why, I wondered, would anyone monkey around with a candy bar that’s been around since … And I stopped. How old is Butterfinger? For that matter, just how old are classic candy bars? Prepare to find out.
Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bars–1900 The granddaddy of candy bars. Milton Hershey made them as the 20th Century got underway. They’re now sold in 60 countries.
Tootsie Roll–1907 They aren’t candy bars, but they were wildly popular when they hit stores 112 years ago and they’ve remained so ever since. They proved Her­shey’s success was no fluke.
Heath Bar–1914 This toffee treat went on sale the same year the Great War broke out. And it’s still great today.
Clark Bar–1917 David Clark left his mark on American snacking with a bar that bears his name. It was so popular, Clark Bars were given to American Doughboys in World War I.
Mounds–1920 Vincent Nitido didn’t realize it when he began selling coconut covered in chocolate in West Haven, Connecticut, but the Roaring Twenties were the Golden Age of candy bar creativity. Mounds went on to make Almond Joy because, you know, sometimes you feel like a nut …
Baby Ruth–1921 Starting out as the Kandy Kake bar in 1920, the Curtiss Candy Company quickly discovered few customers liked it. So the next year they tinkered with the recipe and gave it a new name, which just happened to sound an awful lot like a very popular New York Yankees baseball player. Oh, no, the company insisted; their bar wasn’t named for Babe Ruth. It honored “Baby Ruth” Cleveland, Grover’s daughter who’d been born in the White House 30 years earlier. Few people bought the story, but they sure bought the rebranded bar. Babe Ruth kept hitting home runs, generation after generation kept eating Baby Ruths, and by the early 21st Century it finally acknowledged its link to The Bambino.
Milky Way–1923 Frank Mars started selling this taste of Heaven in in Minneapolis. The rest, as they say, is history.
Butterfinger–1923 The sadly lamented original recipe started in Chicago. And get this: candy maker Curtiss promoted both Butter­finger and Baby Ruth by dropping samples on crowds from airplanes!
Charleston Chew – 1925 No, this perennial favorite had nothing to do with Charleston, SC. Produced outside Boston, its maker wanted to piggy­back on something pop­ular. The Charleston dance craze was in full swing then, so there you go.
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups–1928 H. B. Reese created the cups in the basement of his Hershey, Pa., home. After he passed away in 1956, his sons merged the family business with that other famous candy maker in their hometown.
Snickers–1930 You won’t believe how this bar got its name. It honored “Snickers,” the Mars Family’s favorite racehorse. I don’t know how “Snickers” did at the track, but Snickers was a winner at candy stores.
3 Musketeers–1932 It originally had three pieces in a single package: chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla. Which was how it got its name. World War II shortages forced the company to make only chocolate, which it still does today.  
Nestle Crunch–1938 A relative new kid on the candy block at age 81, it began as a novelty bar. It proved so popular, Hershey’s came out with a similar Krackel bar in 1938 to keep up. By 1993, Crunch was Nestle’s bestseller in America.
If there was a Candy Bar Hall of Fame, these products would be in it. One bite transports us back to our childhood and beyond, to an earlier time when pleasures were simpler. Something Butterfinger’s maker would do well to remember today.
Email Mark at jmp.press@gmail.com.