What Happened To Mr. Bones Puzzle Candy From The '70s?

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What happens when you blend candy with anatomy, puzzle solving, and a touch of forensics? You get Mr. Bones candy — a sweet and scary treat created in 1977 that delighted kids with the macabre until the mid-90s. But, like so many beloved childhood candy you'll likely never eat again, it was ultimately discontinued, likely the result of the manufacturer being sold and the production facility closed. As for the flavor, some recall it being largely unremarkable, with one Reddit user saying, "It tasted like dusty, sugary PEZ-like stuff. Kind of in-between PEZ and Necco Wafers."

The really fun part of Mr. Bones was the activity beyond the sugar. The interactive candy featured a plastic coffin that held 15 human bone-shaped candies designed to interlock with each other, letting you puzzle together a full skeleton before eating. Unfortunately, it seems many coffins did not come with a full set of bones, so kids typically had to have more than one to make a complete Mr. Bones rise from the grave.

Decades after being discontinued, a company called Super7 resurrected Mr. Bones, sort of. In 2023 Super7 released a set of action figures that looked just like the vintage candies, albeit without the signature coffin packaging, and the bone pieces weren't edible. But it gave a new generation the chance to see the kind of spooky sweets their parents and grandparents got to experience.

While one might expect a candy like Mr. Bones to have come from the creators of, say, gumball eyes or gummy worms, the original candy was made by Fleer Company, which was most famously associated with trading cards and bubble gum. In fact, Fleer was responsible for creating Chiclets gum in 1895 and Dubble Bubble gum in 1928. Mr. Bones' designer, a man named Vero Ricci, had an affinity for turning gross objects into sweet candy. For example, he'd already designed Garbage Can-dy, which featured a plastic garbage can filled with candies shaped like fish bones and old shoes. It's one of many retro candies we miss.

Mr. Bones was popular enough to delight kids for almost 20 years and was super-popular for giving out on Halloween, but since being discontinued, it appears that, today, the only way to get the original is to purchase it through a resale site like eBay, where (as of this writing) a complete plastic coffin container with the candy bone pieces are selling for roughly $30 to $50. On sites like Oriental Trading Company and Amazon, you can find similar, sinister candies (some with coffin packaging and some without) that would be great for modern trick-or-treaters.