Breaking Off A Piece

Remember when Arrested Development got cancelled and the people who loved it were pissed but nobody else cared, then the show built a cult following thanks to Netflix and DVD, then there were like 47 Buzzfeed lists filled with righteous indignation that this gem of a show was taken so prematurely, then Netflix announced they would be filming another season, then everybody got really really excited, then it came out and WOW did it kind of suck, then nobody talks about it anymore, really?

This is only kind of like that.

You see, back in the 90s, M&M’s* figured it wasn’t selling enough candy, so it got drunk and and decided it needed to get weird. New colors. New characters. New sizes. New sex appeal (SFW, but … it shouldn’t be).

These ideas ranged from gross (“I see you Green M&M, and you make me uncomfortable.” -Guy who runs a blog called “Breaking Off A Piece”) to decent (M&M’s Minis are a nice change of pace. More on that some other time.), with one inspired exception: M&M’s Crispy, M&M’s featuring a puffed grain of rice (heretofore defined as a rice krispie) stuffed inside of a regular M&M.

M&M’s Crispy were fking delicious. Three defined textures (hard crunchy shell, smooth chocolate, crispy rice), a balanced sweetness, just enough of a change of pace to distinguish itself from other small crunchy chocolate candies. I couldn’t have cared less about the actual cereal Rice Krispies, but man, I ate the shit out of em when they were in an M&M.

Then, one day in 2005, M&M’s Crispy were gone.

At first it wasn’t something I thought was intentional. You know, like when your grocery store decides to stop carrying your favorite flavor of granola bar, you don’t think it’s been discontinued, you just think maybe some stock boy screwed up or that the other people who shop there are too dumb to realize that Toasted Almond is the best flavor so now you just have to start going to Target. But after a year or so, there were definitely no M&M’s Crispy to be found ANYWHERE, because M&M/Mars decided to stop making them (Confirmed By The Internet).

That was a big ol bummer.

Fast forward a decade or so, when the internet realized that nostalgia = money. This business principle resurrected Arrested Development (to complaints), brought back Surge (to Amazon) and made Cory Matthews a dad (to a tween).

M&M’s, seemingly drunk again**, was looking though its contacts to mass text everyone Merry Christmas when it stumbled upon an old friend it hadn’t talked to in a while, remembered the nostalgia thing, AND BROUGHT CRISPY M&M’s BACK (Ed. note: Yeah, that candy website just carded you. I’m just as confused as you are.).

AND THEY’RE STILL. SO. GOOD.

The only difference seems to be the color of the bag: Once blue (a color usurped by Pretzel M&M’s, an upstart cousin to the Crispy M&M, which hold a legitimate claim to the cerulean hue), it’s now a bright green. Otherwise, the candy tastes just the same, down to the gentle crunch of the each rice krispie.

Apparently there were enough Facebook groups created about M&M’s Crispy that M&M/Mars decided to recontinue production. The best part? According to the Los Angeles Times, this is no limited release: M&M’s Crispy are here to stay.

If it’s Facebook groups that does it, then keep an eye on Oreo O’s. While you do that, I’ll be pumping my fist.

*M&M’s might be the only word that uses an apostrophe in its plural form while simultaneously being singular with the same spelling and punctuation. M&M’s is DEFINITELY the only word that satisfies those conditions AND includes an ampersand.

**Birthday Cake M&M’s was my Sunday candy bar. And it tasted exactly like you would think chocolate artificially flavored to taste like vanilla cake would taste like.