Thanks for stepping up on a Gaffneyless Friday! Fun mechanism, and an unfamiliar candy that looks delicious. Maybe I'll have to buy too many of them for Halloween...
A deliciously inspired choice, Mikey! (And, like me, Pennsylvania-made.)
KayW 🤓3:58 · 2024-10-25T22:09:35.062Z
YUM!! Okay I've not yet tried this particular candy, but what's not to like? I may need to update my shopping list. Thanks for the tasty meta... and a most excellent ear worm to boot!
hoover 🤓1:28 · 2024-10-25T23:34:46.400Z
I totally forgot to say that earlier this year I had the pleasure of hearing Brubeck's sons play a concert for a couple hours with a local choir and local jazz musicians. It was awesome!
And this might not just be a continental divide issue: I reckon many Americans have not heard of "Take Five" either! For a while, it was packaged in this confoundingly drab, dark packaging; I think it had a resurgence once it was rebranded to look like a Reese's cousin, which it effectively is.
What universal candies are you a fan of? And what exclusive-to-Australia specialties??
Maltesers! I think these would fall into the "universal" category, although they originated in the UK. They are associated in my mind with going to the cinema when I was a kid. :-) I'm also a fan of acid drops (not the LSD kind!) and lemon sherbets.
Berto 2s · 2024-10-26T12:57:26.667Z
Maltesers are v similar to Whoppers in the US. Seems to be a love ‘em or hate ‘em type of thing (a bit like Marmite?!)
or even more so Vegemite! Now, British candy; I am fan of Turkish Delight (Cadbury), All-sorts, Crunch and Aero bars. US, in addition to many Mikey mentioned, the now defunct Chunky, Dots and Sky Bars (the originals, not the remakes which one can find in the candy section of some highway restaurant complexes)
I remember "Take Five" candy bars. I even had one once.
I guess one of my favorite is "Baby Ruth" which I figure is quite under-rated in the sense that everyone's heard of it but it just about every-ones pass-over on the way to the Snickers or Milky Way-- a near universal "meh". I rather like "Bit o' Honey" and "Abba-zabba" and the fact that they are universally reviled just appeals to me more.
hoover 🤓1:28 · 2024-10-25T18:49:28.349Z
Well crap, when you google BRUBECK + CANDY you get "Little Man with a Candy Cigar" which is why I tried all the variations of CANDY CIGAR(S) and CANDY CIGARETTE(S)!
Explanation: Seven entries in the grid are appended with the oft-dreaded numbers: STAR, BUTTE, MO, TO, CHARL, WHAT, KIT. The prompt can sometimes give us a little nudge, and so candies are likely involved! Some of those, like STAR, BUTTE, AND KIT, should prompt the start of some candies like STARBURST, BUTTERFINGER, and KIT KAT; the number is just indicating the number of letters that are "the rest" of the candy bar, per the title. The seven candies are STARBURST, BUTTERFINGER, MOUNDS, TOBLERONE, CHARLESTON CHEW, WHATCHAMACALLIT, KIT KAT; I think I've had all but the second- and third-to-last on this list!
How does that help us? The first letter of the "rest" that we added (BURST, RFINGER, UNDS, BLERONE, ESTON CHEW, CHAMACALLIT, KAT) spell out BRUBECK. Ideally, if this doesn't immediately prompt anything, a quick hop onto the Google will show this individual was not a confectioner but rather a jazz musician, perhaps most famous for his classic standard "Take Five," named for its odd time signature. That is also the name of, in my opinion, one of the most underrated candy bars ever and the answer to the meta! (Searching a phrase like "Brubeck candy bar" does give us some hits also!
Note a couple of Easter eggs: perhaps most obviously, TAKE is literally at 5-Down, and I figured if you recognized this quasi-obscure candy bar, that's a pretty easy win! Also, to take five colloquially means to take a rest, and that doubles back into the title. Let me know your favorite candies in the comments!
JM 🤓2:29 · 2024-10-26T12:40:53.841Z
What about “Blue rondo à la Turk” ish taffy?
Berto 2s · 2024-10-26T13:03:01.305Z
I’ve had Dave Brubeck’s Greatest Hits on CD forever, twenty years plus, and always loved Take Five along with Unsquare Dance for their funky time signatures. Almost impossible to tap your foot to!
Haven’t heard of the candy bar though (or 3, 5 and 6 for that matter! - although I’m in Charleston SC for the weekend so will have to try the Chew!)
GOOD GRIEF! Got BRUBECK and banged my head against the wall for 15 minutes (Not "little man with a candy cigar" or "Utopia Candies") and then finally somewhere in the back of my reptilian brain was a nudge "wasn't there a candy bar called....."
Great puzzle. Never seen that mechanism before and it was a stare-stare-flash
MatthewL 🤓4:35 · 2024-10-26T21:16:32.812Z
Was stuck on candy cigars for sooooo long. Needed a bit of a course correct from a friendly Muggle. At least I had the right idea! Thanks for the puzzle, Mikey.
I swear there must be some google god out there who hates me ("You thought you were so good at boolean controlled index searches? Well, I'll show you! In the 21st century EVERYTHING is going to be free word search and associative ranked browsing! Ha-ha") I could not get any of my first seven google searches to yield any thing (except "Little Man with a Candy Cigar").
Weirdly Google's AI assumed Brubeck was a misspelling of Brach's and suggested Brach's seasonal candies... and then went on with a paragraph about Dave Brubeck. Near the end was a reference to "Take Five" and a little bit in the back of my mind went "oh, yeah...."
Great puzzle! I tried 'candy cigars' first too.
It didn't help that there's a candy bar here called 'pesek zman' that translated means 'Time Out', Brubeck's classic album.
Awesome. Took me coming back to it a number of times to figure it out... finally got on track with KIT, and it was smooth sailing from there. Thanks Mikey! I look forward to eating many of all of these this weekend after I steal tons of candy from my kids :-)
Qmark 3s · 2024-10-31T14:00:25.751Z
Thanks Mikey! Did not know this candy...but love how it fits with your chosen "font" for the title this week.
Bird Lives 3s · 2024-10-31T22:47:10.924Z
I would have gotten it on my first try if I had known that this candy existed. Sad to say, it's been far too long since I have trick-or-treated. And this one was not included in the variety bag we got for tonight.
[pedantry]As for the tune, I hope everyone realizes that it was written not by Brubeck but by Paul Desmond (a wordplay guy in his own right) and that the title refers not just to the time signature (5/4) but also to the melody, which is based on a 5-note scale, save for a couple of passing notes. Those five notes are the black keys on the piano. You could play it with one hand holding an orange. [/pedantry}