When first looking at the packaging for Jolly Jolly, one might even be misled into thinking it was, in fact, a good candy. The array of fruit looks very well drawn, not at all cheap. The packaging is transparent where there is no design, so it doesn’t seem to be hiding anything. And the little cups are filled with something in bright colors not at all resembling mucous or tamarind. However, these initial impressions are dead wrong. Do not be lead astray. There are subtle hints for the observant candy connoisseur. First is the brand name in comparatively small letters. Not at all as American as Jolly Jolly, it is instead “Mah Tong Huat.” And even closer inspection reveals that Jolly Jolly is a “PRODUCT OF MALAYSIA”. And as we have learned from such monstrosities as My Love and Happy Plum, Asians seem to have a much different view of what constitutes "candy" as do Americans. Also, if one pays attention to nature, they would realize that the bright colors such as orange, yellow, and red of some of the cups are usually donned by wasps, bees, snakes, and POISON DART FROGS, some of nature's most deadly venomous creatures. Beware. Of course, hindsight is 20/20. That I would have realized before it was too late...

The plastic outer packaging comes easily apart, revealing fully the ten "MINI CUP JELLY" inside. The package boasts five flavors, pineapple, orange, apple, grape, and strawberry. These flavors seem to be delineated by bright, almost flourescent colors. As near as I could tell, they were yellow, orange, green, non-existant, and red, with respect to the previous list. I felt a bit gypped that there were only four flavors when I was told quite clearly I would receive five. But what can you expect? Maybe grape was so horrendous that it was pulled from the line-up. This is a very disturbing thought given the quality of the other four flavors.

The individual cups are much harder to open than the outer package. This might be because of poor design, or it might be a last ditch attempt by the underpaid Malaysian assembly line workers to protect the outside world from the horror that is Jolly Jolly. In either case, after a few minutes of tugging at the miniscule hard plastic tab, sometimes having to resort to gripping it with your teeth, the plastic cover comes suddenly off rewarding the diligent with a spray of coloured sugar water, instantly staining your nice white shirt. I'd relate my initial impressions of this, but Mark and Ben tell me not to be a potty mouth. Not directly of course, but through their webpage. It's kind of like a Mark and Ben messiah. But to get back to my main point, the juice thing really sucks.

Now, after I got done telling off Jolly Jolly for spraying me with a blast of fruity color, I put it in my mouth. It wasn't that bad to begin with, the sugar water was sweet and tasted kind of like the fruit it was supposed to taste like. But then, my saliva neutralized the sugar water, and I was left with gelatin. That's it. Tasteless, nasty, semi-solid phlegm-like gelatin.

God damn it, Malaysia, what did I ever do to you?

Finally managing to choke down the stuff (being in a public place and not wanting to spew it all over the floor), I did the obvious thing. I ate another one. What can I say? Ben and Mark are my heroes. It was just as bad as the first, except the sugar water tasted a little different. The remaining gelatinous mass was just as phlegmatic in consistency. You know what's even worse than having phlegm in your mouth? Having someone else's phlegm in your mouth. And you know what's even worse than that? Having someone else's phlegm in your mouth from Malaysia.