First Halloween review of the month! Hooray!

Box of Boogers almost didn’t make it to Junk Food Betty. I passed it up as “eh, just another novelty candy”, but then I saw “Ssssnot Your Regular Candy!” and I realized I’d be insane not to buy these. I mean, c’mon, look at this box:

Awesome, right? Look at that insane guy! And they actually use the term “boogies”! I didn’t even notice how much more awesome it got until I got home:

OH MY GOD THEY WERE PICKED OUT ESPECIALLY FOR ME. And check out those flavors! Snottermelon! Sour Green Boogy! Lemon Loogy! Okay, Sour Green Boogy is pretty weak, but I pronounce Snottermelon and Lemon Loogy to be solid. I haven’t seen this many puns about nose mucus since Jimmy Bermond performed his stand-up comedy routine at our fourth grade talent show.

The full-length view of Crazy Monster Chef is much more satisfying than the headshot on the front of the box. I count four different colors of stains on his clothes and spatula, and there’s a big ol’ spider hanging out on his hump. He appears to be cooking up a delicious stew of infant skull, bone of questionable origin, eyeball and earthworm, all in a delicious green sauce. Listen, I’m not super picky about the cleanliness of restaurants I frequent, but somebody should really call the Health Department on Crazy Monster Chef. If his appearance is any indication, I’m betting his kitchen has a number of violations.

Speaking of Crazy Monster Chef, I almost missed this little piece of joy on the side of the box:

He’s not generic Crazy Monster Chef, he’s CHEF GHOULICIOUS! And he has a whole pantry of candy! Chef Ghoulicious, you are the best! I promise not to call the Health Department on you.

The box alone would have been well worth the price, but it turns out there’s actually candy inside!

Snottermelon and Sour Green Boogy are hard to tell apart at first glance, until you realize the back of the box has a helpful color guide and each of the three flavors has their own unique but uniform shape.

Let’s just get the elephant in the room out in the open now: Sour Green Boogy looks sort of like cock-and-balls. There, I said it. Other than that, the boogers are basically lumpy, shapeless forms with flat bottoms. Still talking about the candy, folks. I’m not sure why the bottoms are flat, but it did make photographing them a bit easier. Chef Ghoulicious thinks of everything.

I like that Chef Ghoulicious kept true to booger colors. The shapes and sizes don’t exactly reflect any mocos I’ve ever mined out of my nasal caverns, but I love the colors. Clear snot is boring, but when you reach Lemon Loogy color, you know something is wrong. Probably coming down with a cold. Sour Green Boogy, you should probably see a doctor about that sinus infection. Snottermelon? I’m assuming that’s the color of mucus that Spiderman spews out whenever he sneezes. Box of Boogers teaches kids about early illness detection.

I forgot that I don’t like gummy candy until I bit into my first Booger. I’ve never eaten my own (or anyone else’s) boogers; or, at the very least, my mom scolded me enough when I was little so that I didn’t become that one kid everyone else made fun of in elementary school who ate her boogers in plain view of everyone. That kid was probably scarred for life, but she made great material for Jimmy Bermond.

Real booger consistency aside, Box of Boogers gummy candy are the kind of gummies that challenge your teeth to bite them in half on the first gnash. They manage to be springy, yet firm. I’m sure there are people out there who like this kind of texture, so I’m trying to remain objective and not give my personal opinion, which boils down to “this feels gross”. Then again, we are talking about a box of boogers, so maybe that’s actually an endorsement.

I pushed my distaste for the texture aside and decided to focus on the flavors, which were surprisingly well-developed for a throwaway gag candy. Snottermelon delivered a strong hit of watermelon candy flavoring, which of course tastes nothing like actual watermelon. I immediately thought of a watermelon Jolly Rancher, which is not a bad thing in my book. Sour Green Boogy tasted just like any other green apple candy I’ve ever tasted. It was more muted than the watermelon, and I think the addition of “sour” was extraneous, since all three flavors had that citrusy sour bite to them. I guess they tried to make up for Sour Green Boogy’s weak moniker by making it look like – oh right, we’re done talking about that. Lemon Loogy was probably my favorite. As you may have guessed, it tasted like lemon candy! The fine print on the back of the box clears up any confusion about what these flavors are supposed to be and lists Lemon Loogy as “lemon/lime”, but I think it most resembled a gummy incarnation of Lemonheads, which I enjoyed greatly as a child.

All in all, Box of Boogers gets an A+++ from me. I scored a box for just a buck on sale, and if I were a person of moderate means who wanted to be the talk of the town come November 1^st, I’d hand these out to kids dressed up in cheap plastic Iron Man costumes in a second. Chef Ghoulicious and his green infant stew sells itself, and the sour gummies are just icing on the ridiculous gross-out cake. While gummy candies aren’t really my thing, Box of Boogers is my new favorite gimmick candy, at least until Box of Armpit Farts comes out.

• Score: 4.5 out of 5 mysterious stains
• Price: $1.00 (on sale; regular price $1.49)
• Size: 3.5 oz. box
• Purchased at: Albertson’s
• Nutritional Quirks: No actual boogers listed on the ingredients list, but you never know.  YOU NEVER KNOW MUAHAHAHAHAHA