It’s wise to be suspicious of social media outrages; mistrust but verify and all that. When I saw Today’s Thing, I was doubtful.
Why was I suspicious? First of all, it seems strange for a candy company to wade this deep into a social issue, and take sides - you'll be wished into the cornfield if you don't think a boy wearing a dress is normal.
Also: There’s no Twix in the ad. The aspect ratio was odd, too - but then I thought, well, they may have sized it for Instagram. It’s not on their site. It’s not on their Twitter feed. It’s not on their home page, which continues to run the deeply cynical campaign about being on Team Left or Team Right - a amusingly blunt way of positing any sort of online tribalism as a meaningless marker. Their Facebook page didn’t have anything. What was the origin?
Googling around, I found that Mars and Fox had collaborated on a “Bite Size Halloween” thing in 2017. Googling more, I found out that there was a series by that name on Hulu in 2020, with 30 more this year. A few are online. Signed on to Hulu; found it.
The Hulu version does not have any Twix branding. The pre-roll ads were for Aldis, Papa John, Geico. Nothing about Twix.
Back to the Twix Facebook page, where I assumed the comments would be . . . lit, as they say. They were. A lot of people did not like the ad.
In fact, I’d say there are more people online who do not like the ad than there were Chapelle protestors outside of Netflix. The Twix instagram comments for the last few days are even more numerous. But one Twitter user liked the ad, couldn’t find it, wanted to know if it had been erased.
Well:
So they’re owning it? The link didn’t go to the ad, though. It went to another ad, which had the exact same wrap-around: the same intro and outdo, for Twix.
First of all, what’s the 31Nights pate? It’s “Freeform’s 31 Nights of Halloween.” And what is Freeform? “Freeform is the new name for ABC Family.” ABC, Disney, Hulu.
Ah.
Scrolled more, and it finally showed up. October 11 is the post date; hadn't seen it before, and I'd scrolled down far. Different URL. Ta-da:
Something wicked this way comes.
A magical friend arrives in The New Nanny, the next installment of Bite Size Halloween, sponsored by @twix. pic.twitter.com/ABVXT0TCaD
— Freeform's 31 Nights of Halloween (@31Nights) October 11, 2021
So yes, it’s real, and it’s Twix endorsed. It doesn't really matter how you think about it. What you learn is how Twix thinks about you. They think you'll love it, and if you don't, you're on the wrong side.
Twix believed this clarification was necessary, I guess.
Here's how they used to do it.
Once a familiar name in confections, because Grandma always had those caramels. She got them in bulk at the drug store or Ben Franklin. They sold them next to the warm peanuts.
Yeoman Colt in the first Star Trek pilot.
I don’t remember ever calling it Indian corn.
Oh, God help you if the nice old lady opened the door and had nothing but stuff from the bag on the right.
Boston Baked Beans were the most mysterious and inexplicable candy made. They were none of those things.
Another ad lifted from reddit:
FIFTY-NINE VARIETIES. They outdid Heinz on a very narrow subject.
It’s not Williston North Dakota, but way way away in Florida. Wikipedia: "Williston is a city in Levy County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 2,768. The city was established before 1885 by J.M. Willis, who named it after himself."
I don’t know why I started here. Perhaps because it looks like the sole remaining structure from a downtown now gone.
Ah. So they converted the empty lot into target practice for bomb drops.
Absolutely original. I guarantee those doors are a hundred years old.
Well, no, I don’t, because I can’t. But probably.
“What’s your mood? I mean, how do you sell your lawn products?”
Maybe I will
And maybe I won’t
They weren’t particularly big on excess ornamentation in Williston, were they?
It has the look of a blasted, scoured building that survived some catastrophe, but was haunted ever after.
Same type of painting on the window as #5. It’s possible - no, likely that there was a vogue for that decoration for a while, and few examples remain.
Hypothesis: a building on the left was removed, and they didn’t give a fig about matching the brick, so it looks like a bad skin graft.
Also, these folks are quite protective of their glass blocks.
It beats covering it up or chiseling it off. Nice touch with the dates, too.
This is not an OUMB. This is a remarkably severe example of the style, and it has an uncompromising presence I rather like.
How many hours did a man stand here, waiting for someone to come in and do business?
How many different stores inhabited this simple structure?
Our God is a Just God.
Not a proportional one, but Just.
Why the devil did I clip this -
Oh.
It’s difficult to imagine the use for which a structure like this would be put.
I mean, what is it? Why does it strike a small amount of unease into the observer’s breast? Not the cross askew, but the two wings, the tiny upper floor - something’s not right.
You know what this used to be.
If you hover above, you’ll find the old route, which now appears as a narrow line of trees. You can follow it for quite a while, heading north.
