Weird Candy Names

The Just Born candy company, makers of Mike and Ike® brand candy (and of Peeps® brand marshmallow candies!) has some real talent for unsettling flavor and candy names.

Jolly Joes® seems like a throwback name, something that would seem nostalgic in 1939. Has anyone seriously called anything “jolly” since 1925?

Mike and Ike Jolly Joes packaging excerpt

Is there anything about “jolly” or “joe” that connects to “grape”? I can’t think of anything. I’m also in awe of whoever named the flavor we know as “grape”. Apparently, that person had heard someone else talk about how grapes taste once or twice before naming that flavor.

Tropical Typhoon® chewy assorted fruit flavor candy:

Mike and Ike Tropical Typhoon packaging excerpt

I liked the Tropical Typhoon a lot better than the Jolly Joes, but really, nobody cuts up a pineapple like that.

The name seems a little more modern, something an ad man thought up in 1995 after his kids talked about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or he walked in on “eXtreme” Saturday morning TV cartoons.

The flavors and the names of the flavors are weird too. Kiwi Banana and Strawberry Banana both have that fake flavor that’s been designated “banana”. I’ve heard it hypothesized that “banana flavor” is what Gros Michel bananas taste like. Since that cultivar has not been commercially produced in 70 years or so, “banana flavor” no longer resembles the flavor of bananas.

Caribbean Punch could pass for the “blue raspberry” (whatever that is) flavor we find in other candies.

Paradise Punch is the best Tropical Typhoon® flavor, not too heavy, kind of fruity, and no banana. It isn’t identifiable as some other flavor, unlike Mango, which is probably “peach flavor” in other candies.

Wikipedia’s Mike and Ike article includes a flavors chart that isn’t amenable to linking, but is fascinating, so go take a look. Some obsessive person has produced a chart of all Mike and Ike flavors. There’s no “peach” in the flavor chart, but there is a Peach Berry, I bet it’s the same as Mango.

Other eyebrow-raising flavors on the chart? Blueberry and Blueberry Cobbler, Cherry, Cherry on Top and Cherry Pie. Those are extremely fine distinctions to make with the blunt instrument of candy flavor. Kudos to Just Born!

The elephant in the label is Fruchewy®, an adjective that Just Born marketing thinks is worth registering as a trademark. They’re kind of wrong. “Fruchewy” is dumb, cringe as the kids might say. Nobody would bother to use it except for purposes of mockery.

Edit 2026-09-91 A Spam EMail follow up

I checked my spam folder to find a log in code (why are you morons making it so hard to pay a damn bill?) and I spotted an obviously AI-aided follow up.

Subject: An early invite for a dedicated channel around your food branding commentary
From: stacy@pcspirit.co
Date: Aug 28, 2026, 11:15 PM

We recently came across “Weird Candy Names” and appreciated its specific look at unsettling flavor names used by a confectionery brand.

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Best, NeoDrop Teamline

Clearly, “NeoDrop Teamline” has heard about confectionary brands, and even a little bit about these “flavors” that you humans often talk about. I’m not sure what “product and culture sources” might be. Got any hints? Definitely LLM-scented prose, “Shape promising findings”, “Monitor … food-branding developments”, who writes like that? Wooden marketing jargon makes my skin crawl.