Candy Bar Memory Lane: Marathon Bar. Does anyone remember this candy bar? It was my favorite...?

Question

Whatever happened to this great candybar?

10 points for anyone who remembers and describes it with nostalgia!

Answer 1

Ah, I remember it well. I remember those inncoent strolls on a Sunday afternoon with my pet dog, Spot, holding hands with my girlfriend Emily and munching on a delicious Marathon Candy Bar. That chocolaty-caramely deliciousness would make me feel light in the feet and add a skip to my step. Spot would always jump up trying to sneak a taste. Oh, what a little devil he was! I buried him with a dozen Marathon Bars in his little casket. I will never forget him or my Marathon Candy Bars!

Answer 2

Marathon John Candy Bar

Answer 3

Miss: Marathon
When I was a kid there was an amazing candy bar called the Marathon. It was made by Mars and came in a bright red wrapper and was almost ten inches long (the candy was only 8 inches). Inside was a braid of firm caramel covered in chocolate.



The Marathon bar came along at a time when I would guess I was particularly impressionable and it was a marvelous time in candy. New candies were being introduced that seemed to speak directly to my soul. It was at this time that things like Reese’s Pieces, Sprees & Starbursts came out and Pringles (okay, not a candy, but I’d buy them at the Stop ‘n Go). And let’s not forget Pop Rocks.

The Marathon bar was probably not marketed towards me. The commercial campaign I remember involved a square-jawed, white-toothed and practically perfect looking Patrick Wayne (son of John Wayne) who went by the name of Marathon John. This hero of little commerical stories did everything slow, like eating his Marathon bar. He had a nemesis in the commericals, a wirey fellow named Quick Carl. Quick Carl was careless and jumpy and was, of course, always foiled by Marathon John and his candy bar that you can’t eat quickly. (We didn’t have color TV back then, so the whole “red” thing was lost on me ... it’s not that I’m that old that I remember black & white TV, it’s just that we didn’t get one in my family until 1979).

My guess is that this long candy bar that came with a measuring stick on the back was aimed at adolescent boys. You know how obsessed they are with measuring things. And how often do you find yourself at lunch or hanging out at the park with your little paper bag of sweets and wanna measure something with your buds?

Anyway, the candy bar was introduced in 1973 by Mars and discontinued it in 1981. But of course once you discontinue a candy bar the fans come out of the woodwork. The bar has been gone for more than twenty years and still there are rabid admirers who insist that it be returned to the American Pantheon of candy bars. I suspect that one of the issues with it is its non-standard size. It just doesn’t fit on the shelves the same way and slotting is important for the big candy manufacturers. But Cadbury seems to be doing fine with the Curly Wurly ... but for all I know their biggest market may be the United States and these folks in their forties who insist that there is no other candy bar for them than an eight inch braid of caramel covered with chocolate.

A few years ago Mars resurrected the name Marathon but this time gave it to an “energy bar” type candy. I’ve never tried it.

Links: CS Monitor and the Snickers/Marathon bar, Linda Lee Dobbins muses on her favorite candies, including the Marathon bar and other contemporaneous memory lane items including the Marathon bar

If you’re looking for a fix now that you’ve waxed as nostalgic as I have, pick up the Cadbury Curly Wurly bar. You can find them in the UK or Canada or perhaps in the States at a shop that carries UK imports and of course online. Old Time Candy has a nice page about Curly-Wurly and the Marathon Bar Here’s my review of the Curly Wurly (I gave it an 8 out of 10). The only question that remains (and perhaps you dear readers can help) is who came up with the bar first? Was it a Cadbury product that was licensed by Mars just as Hershey licensed KitKat from Rowntree (well, now Nestle)? Or did Mars come up with it and it was successful enough in the UK to continue?

POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:56 pm Mars • Cadbury • Chocolate

Answer 4

Braided Carmel covered in chocolate and it seems like it must have been at least 12 inches long! (actually they were 8 inches) I loved them and have no idea whatever happened to them. but there are bars made just like them called the curly worley you can purchase them at this site I found. Thanks for the memory! but now im having craving!

Answer 5

We did no longer have Sky Bars interior the united kingdom yet I keep in mind a Fry's Chocolate Cream bar (chocolate bar with fondant centre, divided into approximately 5 segments). At one time they produced a version the place each and each phase became right into a different shade/flavour yet i can't keep in mind what they stated because it. certainly one of my earliest chocolate thoughts is of 5 Boys chocolate (which i think of became into first made by Fry's and then by Cadbury's). It became right into a slab of milk chocolate divided into 5 segments, each and each of which bore the embossed face of a splash boy. each and each face had a different expression beginning from smiling to crying. This undertaking brings lower back a wave of formative years nostalgia. close to my first formative years abode there became right into a identifying to purchase parade with bubble gum machines exterior the candy save, you put in your penny, became a knob and your gobstopper or bubblegum magically dropped into the drawer under. a number of the machines had little plastic toy prizes interior yet those proved elusive. In later years, on the way abode from college we'd call in on a regular basis to the enormous newsagents/candy save that occupied a great nook place on the line. they had a extensive counter divided into what regarded like one hundred sections, each and each containing different chocolate bars and packets of chocolates. on the wall at the back of have been great jars containing chocolates that have been bought loose by weight. yet another area had many styles of chocolates that have been 2, 3 or maybe 4 for a penny, inclusive of jelly snakes, alien craft and fruit salad chews. there have been additionally fortunate bags, Sherbet Fountains, Liquorice Catherine Wheels or "shoelaces" or "pipes", Barley Sugar sticks, Coltsfoot Twists, Love Hearts, candy Necklaces and a myriad different chocolates. We childrens used to stand amid this Aladdin's Cave of candy delights for what regarded like an hour, identifying how perfect to spend our tuppence or threepence as a fashion to get the optimal value for it. the save assistants would desire to have had the persistence of saints! superb thoughts .....

Answer 6

It was in a red and white wrapper, I think and it was big!! it was a braid of chocolate and caramel.

Answer 7

No,
cause it went "belly up" cause you and your "size 0" peers didn't buy enough of 'em...

That's my answer and I'm stickin' to it..
Brazilian chocolates are sooo much better!!!!!!