Dave's Transformers Candy Rant - Revenge of the Fallen

     KLIK Candy Dispensers 
     Target Mailaway M&M Dispenser

     Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Artifacts/Candy09a

     I've been trying to find the M&M fan-toppers too, but to no avail so
far.  Oh, and the "Strawberried Peanut Butter" limited edition M&M flavor was
a little strong on the strawberry, but otherwise good.

CAPSULES

     KLIK Candy Dispensers: Stick with Pez, these things suck.  Only
worthwhile if you need spare heads of the relevant size for some kitbashing
project.  $1.49 at Target
     Target Mailaway M&M Dispenser: It's decent for an all-plastic thing, but
the character topper is kinda creepy.  5 bags of M&Ms (Medium or larger) and
S&H, but I expect most people reading this review will be looking for it on
the secondary market.


RANTS

     KLIK Candy Dispensers: These are Au'Some Inc's answer to Pez dispensers,
in theory shooting out little Smartie-like candies into your mouth with the
flick of a lever.  They have heads on top, which pull up to load the candies
in, but the head doesn't tilt back.  These have been available with Marvel
licenses for a while, but I never bought those.  The heads are about the same
size as Pez heads, and the candies are more like Pez in taste than they are
Smarties (sweet rather than tart).
     The first warning sign is that the package recommends washing them
before use...but the image on the body is a paper sticker, so washing will
tend to destroy the label.  They're in crinkly bags with two rolls of candy,
displayed in trading-card-size boxes with equal numbers of both types.
Target has them with the trading card boxes, in fact.
     The head molds for Optimus Prime (cast in dark blue plastic) and
Bumblebee (cast in light gray plastic) are so-so, like they took CG models
meant to be used at half the size and blew them up.  Prime gets light blue
eyes and a bunch of silver paint apps, while Bumblebee has a lot of yellow
paint, plus some dark gray accents, light blue eyes, and a red Autobot symbol
on his forehead.  Prime's "body" is red plastic, Bumblebee's is yellow.
     The mechanism involves pulling back a flimsy lever, hoping that a candy
pushes up into place properly (which happened maybe three times in my "test
roll") and then letting go so that the candy shoots out, hopefully into your
mouth.  It works poorly even on the rare occasions that it works at all, and
the way the candies are wrapped makes the thing hard to load.
     For those interested in such things, the serving size is one roll of
candies, which weighs 4.5 grams and is 98% or more sugar.
     An interesting novelty, but it really doesn't work very well as a candy
dispenser.  About the only advantage it has over Pez is that it can be
reloaded with commonly-available Smarties (and their knockoffs), but it's not
like it's hard to find Pez refills.  Au'some is not awesome.


     M&M Dispenser: This is a moderately disturbing mailaway premium.  Oh,
the idea of a retro-styled M&M dispenser in general is not disturbing at
all.  Fill the clear plastic top with a medium bag's worth, turn the handle
to crank out one or two M&Ms with every full turn.  It also acts as a coin
bank, accepting coins up to the size of quarters or modern dollar coins, but
it does not require a coin to dispense.  It ships in a plain box, and has a
cardstock insert to give the impression of what it might look like when full
of candy.  Total height before character topper is 8.25" (21cm), with the
topper it's 11.25" (29cm).  Construction is lightweight plastic, but molded
from red plastic on the bottom to look like painted metal.
     What makes it disturbing is the character topper, "Red" dressed up as
Optimus Prime.  Why is it disturbing?
     FLESH TONE.
     You see, the anthropomorphic M&Ms normally have white limbs, but someone
decided to cast these limbs in caucasian flesh tone plastic.  And while the
gauntlets are pretty much full forearm-and-fists affairs, the boots look like
leg braces, with open areas on the shin and calf left fleshtone.  Yes, milk
chocolate seems to suffer a calcium deficiency and weak leg bones.
     This mold is also used on one of the M&M fan-with-candy toys, I don't
know if those continue the creepy fleshtone.  However, the color scheme seems
consistent with the Limited Edition Packaging for the M&Ms themselves, so
probably.  
     I think there's still a few weeks left on the promo, target.com might
still have the order form up somewhere on it...if you're already buying M&Ms
you might want to stock up to get this.  But I wouldn't recommend dropping a
lot of money for it on the secondary market.  If you really want the
character toppers, it'd probably be cheaper to seek the fans-with-candy,
which also have Yellow as Bumblebee.

     Dave Van Domelen, still has three unopened bags of M&Ms thanks to
sending away for this.