I’d protest the death of Fantales, but my teeth are stuck together

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My fellow Australians, what have we done? First we stood by as the world’s largest living structure, the Great Barrier Reef, was bleached as deathly white as a Mintie or the board of a major Australian company. Now, our callous indifference has consigned Fantales, the chocolate-covered caramels which are almost as hard to bite into as coral, to oblivion.

Manufacturer Nestlé has announced their demise not only because we’ve stopped eating them but because the machines that make them are breaking down. Presumably even they can’t cope with the sheer tensile strength of the world’s most impractical lolly.

Mmmmmmm …. mmmmmmm …. mmmmmmmm …Credit: iStock

Are we going to let this happen? Is the Fantale to be rudely consigned to the dustbin of Aussie confectionery history when even the Curly-Wurly is inexplicably still on shelves? Oh, cruel world that – with the internet – has invented a more efficient way to discover random facts about movie stars than reading tiny blue text on a crinkled, waxy yellow background while we glue our teeth together with Carameldite.

I was going to rush out and grab a packet to consume while I wrote about Fantales, but I stopped short. Not only have I eaten so many that I recall them vividly enough to give Proust’s madeleines a run for his francs, but to be honest, I don’t fancy more than two or three. Nobody ever does. There’s only so many you can eat before your jaw dislocates. So, I see Nestlé‘s point.

Fantales are a survivor from the mixed lollies era, when they were a key component of the white paper bags full of Minties, Jaffas, jubes, snakes, mint leaves, chalky bananas and those weird disembodied teeth that were the preferred, and often only, confectionery option available in our local independent cinemas. The corner shop sold them too, for an illicit sugar hit on the way home, after which we’d spend many minutes trying to extract bits of caramel from our teeth with our tongues and fingers before heading home to our ruined dinners.

Still, when the New York Times sought a uniquely Australian sweet for a 2018 roundup of idiosyncratic global treats, it chose Fantales. Surely partly due to their iconic status, but also because, let’s be honest, they’re a weird idea nowadays.

Once, the Hollywood bios were perfect for playing Guess Who with your family or friends during the tedious wait for the opening credits, or on a long car ride. It was a version of Hard Quiz where the most difficult part wasn’t the question, but physically consuming a sweet so you could justify unwrapping another. But these days, we’re on our screens in every dull moment, so celebrity trivia no longer has even the limited entertainment value it once did.

Quite a few people on Twitter mourned Fantales in the hours after the announcement. Several wondered whether they could freeze a batch for posterity – I congratulate them on finding a way to make them even harder.

But I suspect it’s not the opportunity for dental trauma that we miss, but simpler days of simpler pleasures. Objectively duller days, let’s be clear – but that was the youth many of us had, where going to the movies was not only hugely exciting but one of the few options available to break up an endless, sweaty summer holiday.

Sure, Nestlé could try to reboot Fantales for 2023. They could rename them Followtales, with wrappers featuring influencers like Logan Paul and Roxy Jacenko. But it’s surely time to say farewell, and thank you for your service. The remarkable thing is that Fantales lasted almost longer than cinemas themselves will.

Just don’t mess with Minties, Nestlé, or you’ll get an army of middle-aged candy lovers on the streets, trying to protest while our teeth are stuck together. It won’t be confected outrage, what’ll really be upsetting us is growing old in a world where 20¢ no longer buys enough lollies to satisfy our cravings for sugar and food colouring. And who will help our dentists buy beach houses in the future?

Vale, you sweet, sweet, infuriating sweets. But if we all make it to 93 like you, we’ll have had a better innings than most of the starlets whose life stories once filled your wrappers, only to be cut off halfway through, before we could guess who they were.

Dom Knight is a writer, broadcaster and co-host of the Chaser Report podcast.

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