Candy Review: TARGET'S Freaky Treats

In my first venture to Target to take in their "Halloweekend" offerings, I picked up a package labeled "Freaky Treats:  Gummy Candy Filled Party Boxes." 
Not only because I wanted something representative of the art, theme and characters Target had chosen for their 2010 season without breaking the bank... but also because, frankly, I was hungry. 
I figured four different kinds of gummy shaped and flavored candies can't be too bad and all for the low-low price of $2.99.  (Please forgive the orientation of the photos.  After scanning them all, I can't for the life of me figure out how to SAVE the orientation of the pic.)   
Here's the rundown:

FRANKEN FOOD - Blueberry Gummi Brains:  This is my favorite of the characters in the Freaky Foods lineup because it reminds me of Calvin (from Calvin and Hobbes) dressed as Frankenstein's monster.  The box has a nice Halloween-season-orange background with a few bats flying around.  Makes me smile. 

The candy?  The brains are half blue, half white, which makes some sense in that they're supposed to be "BLUEberry gummy brains" but I would rather have had green "Frankenstein brains" that were still blueberry flavored, just green in color (I don't need flavor/color synchronization).  As far as the actual flavor goes, it's more "nebulous fruity flavor" than "blueberry."  I WAS surprised at the size of the brains in the package.  Due to their size you really only get 5 in a package, but they were pretty big compared to a standard gummy bear size (I use the metric Haribo or Black Forest as my gummy yardstick... or in this case-- a quarter.  Warning:  Quarters are NOT edible.). 

MUMMY MORSELS - Grape Gummy Bats:  Box is fun.  Again, if you told me Calvin was dressed as a mummy I'd believe you.  A cool light green background with the same bat pattern but the Mummy gets a shower of candy corn.  Lucky mummy. 
The candy bats seem HUGE.  Bigger than I thought they'd be and there's even some sharp detail on the top of the bat for a graphic mouth/head/wing-veins thing. 

The standard grape flavor is there though it almost feels spray painted on.  After a few chews you're left with more gummy than "grape" flavor.  But it's definitely artificial grape-- that same mystical purple color we've all been eating since childhood in everything from Kool-Aid to Icees and have all accepted as "GRAPE."  My current favorite unless it gets trumped by the other two....

GRIMIES GRUB - Fruit Punch Gummy Eyeballs:  My least favorite box only because I feel like we should have a werewolf and not a... tree? 
Sure there's a jack o' lantern and a full moon layered over a purple box with a font medley of "Yikes!  Eek!  Boo!" etc. 
But seriously, where's another CHARACTER?  If four kids came to my door and I handed out the four boxes in this pack, you can imagine the kid who got this box saying in a oh-so-Charlie-Brown-I-got-a-rock-WAY "I got a tree." 

The candy DOES make up for it in appearance, though.  You pull out that baggie and you've got 5 eyes staring at you in TWO colors: orange and green (for the record I had 2 orange and 3 green).  
The taste?
Seriously when I popped that first eyeball in my mouth my first taste sense-memory was:  cat pee.  I almost thought the cat had somehow peed inside the plastic.  Like my cat has the ability to teleport-pee.  Tele-pee. 
After the initial urge to spit it out the gummy DID in a few seconds morph into a "pineapple-like" taste.  Not so much "punch."  I consider Hawaiian Punch to the be the "punch benchmark" here and what I got was cat-pee-pineapple.  LEAST FAVORITE.  Mummy morsels still have the lead...

VAMPIRE VITTLES - Strawberry Gummy Fangs:  Would totally be my favorite box if it were an orange background.  You've got Dracula... you've got those same damn bats... you've got Drac carrying a jack o' lantern trick or treat bag!  Bam!  Extra points!
But on a yellow background?  Meh.  Doesn't do it for me. 

As for the candy, they're weiiiiiird. 
I don't know why I find gummy fangs odd to eat.  Maybe it's the combination of two things in the real world that would be soft AND crunchy:  teeth and lips.  The other gummies could very well be gummy in real-life-consistency, but something about fangs and lips being gummy weirds me out a bit.  Plus take a look at them. It's like they're "O" shaped worms.  With teeth on their bodies.  I expected the gummy to be a solid fang smile.  Instead it's a circle.
And in case you're wondering, there's no way to wear the fangs.   I tried.  I thought maybe if I bit them the right way I could get a passable vampire fang thing (like making fangs with candy corn... yeah like you've never done it...). 
But all weirdness aside, this is certainly the tastiest.  You can't really go wrong with artificial strawberry and that's what you get here.  Plus the size of the "O" worm fang-gummy-thing makes it feel like you're getting a whole lot of candy.  Kudos. 
And the Vampire Vittles pulls it out in the end to be the WINNAH!

I forgot to mention that each box has a tiny sticker inside that simplifies the cover box artwork it's contained in and adds a "Happy Halloween" greeting.  As the stickers are about a quarter of the box-size, and there's a lot of plastic bag inside it's easy to lose the sticker in the euphoria of tearing into a box of brains/fangs/eyes/bats.

So the real question:  should you pick them up? 
Hmmmm... not to just munch on.  There isn't enough candy contained in all that packaging to make it worth your while.
But if you know you're getting only few trick or treaters, it might be ok.  The boxes look cool, and there's just enough candy that's BIG enough to make it seem like some good loot.