Reese's Pieces

number two. This is Reese's on Business on the Brink. Hey there, I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Ariel Castin, and welcome to our spooky Halloween episode us. It was an episode requested by my co worker Ramsey, who wanted us just to talk about Reese's pieces. However, before we get into that, you know we're gonna have a lot of

fun with this episode. And spoiler alert, we actually already recorded the whole thing, but in retrospect, we figured we really can't talk about this without addressing something that's much

more serious. So we wanted to get that clear up front, which is that the candy industry a lot of companies that get chocolate are dependent upon extremely terrible, awful, inhumane practices, largely involving child labor and even child slavery, and there have been uh regulations and kind of deadlines put into place to make chocolate companies fix that. But they're having a hard time, they say, because they don't know where a lot of their chocolate is actually sourced, which seems

pretty corporate, irresponsibly yeah type of thing going on. Yeah, so this is something you may have heard of, the phrase fair trade chocolate. That's you know, obviously, that's chocolate that's been sourced to a place that does not engage in these practices. But Hersh's which supplies the chocolate actually now Reese's as part of her She's you'll hear all

about that. Uh, But Hershey's, which has always supplied the chocolate for the Reese's Peanut buttercups, is one of those companies, and so we wanted to make sure we acknowledged that before we go on to the zany fun of the episode, which I know is a big tonal shift, but and after we recorded it, we realized we really needed to to address that because it's it's something that we think

is extremely important that people know. Yes. Yeah, So now that we've got that, we're going to rejoin Jonathan and Ariel from the past, who already recorded the episode that's

extra spook. Yeah, welcome to our spooky Halloween episode. We were trying to come up with a topic that would be suitable for Halloween, and while chatting with my coworker Ramsey, he said, you should do an episode about Reese's pieces and how they ended up in et when everyone supposed to be a a Yeah, but you know what, Ramsey, there's not enough information on Reesa's pieces. Also a lot of people know that story, but we're gonna include it anyway.

But more importantly, Ramsey's awesome. His suggestion was awesome. It is awesome, Thank you, Ramsey, and it led us on this wonderful trail to the business history of Reese's in general, which is pretty fantastic. Well, and it's it's funny because it's a history that was largely ignored starting in the late seventies because of the company that would take over races.

Because well, we'll get there. I don't get that, we'll get no spoilers jumping way ahead, Jimmy way, all right, So let's start with that history, and it all begins with the founder of the company. Oh and by the way, you might occasionally here in this episode a little crinkly noises because Ariel and I each have a Reese's Peanut butter cup, a manager one, the kind you would get at Halloween. It is so hard not to eat it at this very second, I know I'm trying to hold

off myself. Okay, so start with the history. Harry Burnett Reese is who we can thank for the Reese's Peanut butter cup. He actually I have in my notes. He had aspirations of becoming a real life Willy Wonka forty years before Dahl would write that book. That's being a little tongue in cheek facetious. But he was born in Pennsylvania in eighteen seventy nine and by the year nine he had married a woman named Blanche Edna Hyson, and he started working as a farmer on the family farm

at Frosty Hill, which is near Muddy Creek Forks. Then in my notes, I wrote, this makes me think that this isn't one of the best spots in Pennsylvania based on the name. I mean, if it's Frosty then the mud is probably not like squishy, So bring Muddy Hill. That's where my farm is. And he would end up working several different jobs in his young adulthood, and he was like, he got a reputation for picking up and moving with his whole family multiple times in order to

pursue these opportunities. Eventually, he and his wife and now children, of which he would ultimately have several sixteen intervals, would settle in Hershey, Pennsylvania, which I've been to. Have you been to Hershey? I have not. I have been to Pittsburgh. Yes, that's it. Yeah, so my wife's from Pennsylvania and we've been to Hershey several times. It's also where the Pennsylvania Renaissance Festival takes place. I hear. That's fantastic is and

Hershey is obviously a monument to chocolate. Even back then, Hershey's the the Chocolate Company was a thing. Yeah, but that's that's not where Reese started in Hershey. He started working at a dairy farm called the Round Barn in like nineteen sixteen. But here's the thing, Round Barn owned by Hershey. So yeah, he technically he was, but he wasn't working straightly strictly for the chocolate tier. He was

working for the dairy farm. Yes, so he worked there for a couple of years, but then Hershey's, in a cost saving measure, closed that dairy farm in nineteen nineteen, and so then Rees's went over to try and do

some other stuff, including create his own candy company. Now that initial attempt was the R and R Candy Company, and he was largely basing his his recipes off of his mother's recipes, and they included things like chocolate covered almonds and chocolate covered raisins, taking the things that kids don't want to eat at Halloween and dipping them in chocolate. Yeah, and uh, it did not end up becoming a huge success. And I mean even at the time, like Hershey's was

already a dominant player in pocolate. We'll have to do a full episode on Hershe's at some point. But when you think of her She's, you think of hershey Bars, and he's focusing it looks like on little I Can't held candies. Yeah, he's looking for the stuff that would be sold in like the big barrels at a general store. Because this is also before you know grocery stores and department stores are really a thing. Yeah, so our in our candy company didn't do well, and so he rebranded.

He called the new company the Superior Chocolate and Confectionery Company, which is superior to our and R Candy I suppose yep.

He tried to sell some stock in order to fund this business, but this also did not take off, and pretty soon he was closing the doors on that one, and not too long after that he would go back and work for her She's again, this time in the shipping department, which where he was sneaking little chocolate covered raisins into everybody's packages with a little note saying, if

you want more of these, cover Superior. Now. He did not find the particularly engaging or interesting, but it was paying the bills, and in the meantime, he continued to create different recipes for his own candy, working out of his basement's um hygienic basement candy. Well, here's the thing, you know, I will eat basement candy, maybe everything but bathroom candy. Okay, that's fair. Well, you know why he

was making his basement. It's because this is before air conditioning, so the temperature would get too warm, especially during the summer months. Like in summer they couldn't make chocolate at all because the temperature would be so warm they could never get the candy to set properly. It would always be that kind of sweaty, melty stuff. So the basement was the coolest room to work in, so you could heat up the chocolate, mold it, and let it cool

and set there. So that's why he set up down there. Yeah. So I think it's really cool that some of the candy was he named after his kids, yes, right, yeah, And not only that, but it was the successful stuff that he was making. Yeah, so that this is what would actually help establish him and convince him to make a real go of it. Yet again, So do you know the name of the candy bars? Well, I do, Jonathan, because it's right here in our nose and frost. Okay,

let's not. Don't peel back the curtain too far. I'm sorry. Okay, No, there's the Lizzie Bar, which was carmel and coconut covered in chocolate. Sign me up. You know. I first read it and I was like, m hmm, but I could totally see mixing a Snickers in an almond in a mound's bar, and I'd be happy, and I love coconuts so much together with the caramel took me by surprise for a little bit. And the other one was the

Johnny Bar, which is made from alasses. So I guess similar to a sugar daddy, maybe, yeah, kind of yeah. And so he had sixteen kids that I mentioned in total, eight boys and eight girls. They tragically not all of them would live to adulthood, but you know, he had had so many kids, and every single history has a similar joke about how the chocolate business was necessity because of his large family. And uh, they had a great advertising slogan that would come a little bit later down

the road, but I wanted to include it now. Arial could you please deliver that slogan sixteen good reasons to buy Reese's. Yep, they would have a picture of all the kids lined up, so essentially saying exactly, buy candy so we can feed these children. So, uh, this was enough for him to be convinced to give another go about actually starting a candy company of his own, because these these chocolate bars named after his kids were starting

to see some success. And so once again he quit his job at Hershey's and he founded the H. B. Reese Candy Company in nineteen twenty three. And you know, he was already selling candy at this point and that was enough for him to actually make a living. So now he was just creating the company to make that

his full time gig. Yeah. And the candies he was making around the time where things like peppermint creams, encoded dates and things like that still in the raisins and almonds arena, and he, as you said he was, he was trying to sell them in like the general stores and the barrels. So he sold them on consignment to local shops in Pennsylvania. And he had made enough money to build a new house, probably because he ruined his basement and his old one. That's an assumption by me, Ariel,

but I'm sticking to it. And also enough money to build a factory. Yes, So now he's like hiring people he's making he's making these candies in uh, in larger amounts. And by hiring people, um, I think you can imagine what much of his workforce was made up of his children, which is almost the same thing that I don't know if they would sing songs about, you know, being greedy or chewing gum all the time, but they definitely would work for him quite a bit. We'll get back to

the family issues a bit later. So in ninete, Reese happened to fall into a conversation with a local shop owner who was telling Reese, you know, my customers really like these peanut butter cups that this other candy company, this other candy maker is making. In your face, Reese, yeah, so so peanut butter cups. Chocolate covered peanut butter cups were already a thing. Okay, Reese had never made them, but they were they were a known quantity. So Reese

did not invent the peanut butter cup um. And but he was being told by the shop owner, the problem is, this candy maker can't make enough of these peanut butter these chocolate covered peanut butter cups to meet the demand my customers have. They are always asking for them. So do you think you could make some? And Reese wasn't super crazy about this, just he didn't that was not what he was really interested in doing. But he thought, well, there's a demand, I should definitely try to meet that.

So he got to work and um, he started roasting his own peanuts, which for a long time was like the thing that Reese's would say, set their peanut butter cups apart from everyone else's. Yeah, but that's because he

almost burned his peanuts. Yeah. Apparently, according to the histories, there was a malfunction in the roasting equipment which over roasted the peanuts almost to the point of burning them, and then he ended up turning it into peanut butter anyway, and it was a happy mistake because it produced a

peanut butter that people found particularly tasty. Yeah, but imagine when you're trying to cook peanuts to a certain level and then you overcook him, and now you have to overcook him that exact amount every time to keep your to maintain like a standard. Yeah. I ad meant that once he fixed that roaster, he had to figure out how to replicate the effect with a roaster that was actually working properly. And then he covered the burnt peanut

butter in Hershey's chocolate. Yes, And this would be something that is an interesting, interesting kind of sympatico relationship because throughout his career Reese would use chocolate from Hershey's. He would purchase the chocolate from Hershey's, and Hershey's would send him the chocolate needed. He and her She had a good working relationship. It's it's not uncommon for confectioners to

outsource their chocolate from other people. Yeah, and so this was one of those cases where, uh, this was not even a rivalry so much as it was like like just two different companies doing business in the same area. But they both realized there was enough room. Plus, I mean, Hershey's was operating at a level far beyond what Reese was doing at this point. So then he introduces the peanut butter cup. That's not what they were called originally. No,

they were called penny cups. That's how much they cost, one penny a cup. That's also that's also the same. It's a good exchange rate. When you said one one one cup of penny, or however you said it, I just pictured someone like throwing pennies into a cup. That's fair enough. That's fair enough, which you weren't incorrect. My brain just went weird anyhow. Sorry. We actually have the

date that they debuted too. It was November. Are you certain, because oftentimes dates are shaky, I mean sure enough to put it into the notes that's super awesome. To be fair, yes, the histories state November fift it could give or take five years, but for once, we're not getting so many conflicting reports on the date, so it's it's pretty spectacular. So he originally sold these peanut butter cups in bulk mixed up with all of his other candies in five

pound bags. But you know what, people like the peanut butter cups better than the chocolate covered dates, and so again Reese was not super thrilled with that. He he was not a fan of the peanut butter cups, but

you got to give the people what they want. So he would continue to make them, and eventually it would take a couple of years, but eventually it got to the point where he could make them solely on their own and sell those as a separate item as opposed to being one item in a five pound bag of bulk candy. So they got popular enough where they could stand out as a single item, which was unusual at the time. And then we get to a brink moment. Yeah, so this was a bring moment that was not unique

to Reese's. It was not something go ahead and unwrap that candy I'm gonna I'm not gonna eat it. I'm just unwrapping it. Okay, that's fair. She really, she literally is. That's not that's not us doing sound effects. She really did just do that anyway. So this bring moment was a bring moment that happened to the entire world. This is not something that was unique to Reese's and not a moment would be if you're keeping track of what year.

It is the Great Depression, and it was almost enough to bring the story to an end, and then we would have two segments of nothing. But we've got a little more to explain right after this break. So the Great Depression hit, you are right of their areal. Yeah, I'm your started before I'm done with this peanut butter. Okay, I wasn't going to eat it, but um, it smelled really peanut butter and good. I can taste those burnt peanuts. Okay,

I need another one, Well, this one's mine. Originally, guys, I wanted to just bring this giant bag of rees peanut butter cups and see how many I could eat throughout the episode episode. But I'm sparing you all of that smacking noise. If you want to take that challenge on yourselves. Please do let us know how many you ate. Yes, you can, but don't tell us how much you threw up. Ariel will keep it tally and then as a reward, will name whoever ate the most of the end. But

be honest. All right, we don't want you saying I ate a thousand Reese's peanut butter it cups No, Okay, let's get back to the story. The Great Depression really hit Reese very hard, and he was so short on cash that, according to the stories, he got to the point where he wasn't able to pay his employees in money, so he paid them in candies. I mean I would be happy, I mean, but his employees were his kids, right. Well know, yeah, that's that's you know, fun in theory,

but not very practical. Yeah, you can't pay your rent in candy most of the time, and his employees complained in The sheriff even came after him, and he went into hiding. And yes, he kind of reminds me of the Ozarks. Yeah, he ran off to hide at his old family farm while the sheriff was looking for him.

So things were pretty grim, and he decided that in order to to make it through the hard times that he actually would go back to farming, especially in the summer months, because again it was too warm to make the candy, So he ended up putting his workers to work doing stuff like canning vegetables, So people who had been making chocolates were now canning, Like, maybe they'd make those canned lama beans taste better. I like chocolate. I

would eat those. He also would end up in order to keep his business afloat, and he secured several loans to make sure everything was in operation. Now. Obviously, that in itself meant that he was taking on a big risk because now he had debt he needed to pay off in addition to just making sure that he could make ends meet, you know, day to day. Yeah, but here's the thing, people still really liked his peanut butter cups. I guess they brought him a little bit of joy

in the midst of all this financial turmoil. Yeah. Yeah, it's one of those things where it was a luxury that people were willing to pay for on occasion, and it was relatively affordable. Yeah, it wasn't like it was super expensive. So the peanut butter cups were incredibly popular and kept him in business. And by n five, because of that popularity, he had actually made enough money to

pay off all that debt. So it was only a few years that he had this debt over him, and then literally the peanut butter cup was what allowed him to to get out from under it. Yeah, but you know what, he still couldn't give up on those chocolate covered dates, not for a while until World War te was stubborn. Yes, so the Great Depression kept all of his other like he was still making other types of candies.

But the World War Two was a different story because during World War Two the United States government put strict rationing on a lot of different staples, sugar exactly, and so with sugar under this rationing, Reese was not going to be able to make enough of the candies. However, one thing that wasn't rationed was peanut butter, so that man, he had plenty of peanut butter, and he could still

buy chocolate from Hershey's. Her she was still agreeing to sell Reese chocolate, so that meant he could still make the peanut butter cup. And ultimately he said, all right, well, the only thing that makes sense is to just make peanut butter cups, and it was a good decision. It kept him in business. So he keeps on churning these things out, and at this point he has um really focused specifically on just making peanut butter cups. By the mid nineteen fifties, UM it had gotten to the point

where they were going to need to expand again. They were going to need to build essentially a new factory that they had outgrown their old one, and UM they decided that they were going to actually build this thing and it was scheduled to open in nineteen fifty seven like that. That was kind of the target of when this would come online. But HB. Reese himself would not live to see that come to pass. He would pass away on May sixteenth, nineteen fifties, six one year before

the new facility would come online. Man, that's really sad. But what's even sadder is the fact that he left his company to his sons. He excluded his daughters from his will, from his will, and then his not all of his sons all I guess eight of them, six of them, six of them, six of them at that point wanted the company. So there was all of this

in fighting on whether they should sell it or keep it. Yeah, the sons didn't all get along with each other, and yet because of the will, they were each named two different positions of authority in the in the company. So get six people who don't like each other and then tell them they have to lead a company together. You can imagine that's not gonna smoothly. So yeah, there was this whole thing about who, whether they should keep the company,

whether they should sell the company. They had built the manufacturing facility. This was an interesting thing too, because it shows how how Reese's was interesting in its marketing. I mean, you know they had done this sixteen good reasons to

buy a resas. They had gone from marketing Reese's as being sort of a hand dipped candy to now that they have the new manufacturing facility saying untouched by human hands, which also makes me think of Willy Wonka, which kind of makes it go from like a little home good

field to a super technical candy of the future field. Yes, so, by the time the nineteen sixties rolled around, it was pretty obvious that her that Reese's sons were not going to be running the company forever, at least not all of them, and so this because some of them were looking around at the possibility of selling the company off. They looked specifically to her She because and her She and her She had heard about it. Yeah, and her

She already had a stake in this candy. Yes, so the company her She takes a look and says, all right, well, will make you an offer. And this ended up being a big point of argument amongst the Suns, And then eventually they came to an agreement and they decided to sell to her She's um and and the ones who

wanted to stay with the company became employees of her She's. Yeah, some of the men joined the board of directors for Her She's, and then the others kind of went their own way, and it would become one of the best selling candies out of Hershey's. That's because it's delicious, y'all. Yeah.

Now we're gonna skip ahead a bit in the story, because I mean, ultimately the story is like, and they kept making recus peanut butter cups, and people kept buying them, and they kept eating them, and then they kept making them and c even years pass and now we get a very famous ad campaign which I remember from my childhood, because it was still going when I was a kid.

But we're into the nineteen seventies now, and this was a campaign that would ruffle some feathers among people who knew Reese and who were familiar with the history of Rees's. There was a guy named billings fuse, A a who was a director at an ad firm that said, all right, we're going to do an ad campaign where people are going to accidentally create the combination of chocolate and peanut butter. According to him, he was saying, people just aren't convinced

that chocolate and peanut butter is a good combination. Is crazy. The whole reason that Reese started making them is because the candy was selling out. Yeah, there was a demand, and it had been in demand for for like four decades, and they it was it was an obviously successful candy. Yeah, I mean it was one of her She's best sellers too. But for the basis of this ad campaign, they wanted it to look like Hershey's had come up with this brand new idea almost by accident. You just accidentally got

peanut butter and chocolate colliding together. Yes, And that's exactly what the ad campaign was. It would be. It would be all these different scenarios where someone's carrying like a chocolate bar and someone else has got, like, you know, a spoon of peanut butter as you normally would, and then through happenstance, the to collide and you get some variation of Hey, you got peanut butter on my chocolate, Hey you got chocolate peanut butter, And they try and

they're like, say, chocolate and peanut butter. Who knew everybody? Yeah, that's the thing everybody knew. I mean, I do have friends who do not like chocolate peanut butter together, but I have former friends who do not like chocolate. I respect them. I don't understand it. It's okay if you don't like peanut butter and chocolate together, we still love you, yea. So maybe you could argue that this was their first national ad campaign for Reese's peanut buttercups, really is the

first national ad campaign for Hershe's in general. So you maybe you could argue that these particular chocolate covered peanut butter cups were mostly known in the Northeast and the regions around that where Hershey's was shipping this stuff, and that maybe nationwide, it wasn't as big a deal, but this changed that because whether you agreed with the ad campaign or not, whether or not you were upset that Hersy's was effectively erasing the history of this peanut butter

cup and therefore also of HB. Reese. The campaign was a success and sales skyrocketed. Yes, okay, now we're going to skip ahead to and her She's was working with a peanut butter powder. Yes, this was different than the peanut butter in the cups. Yes, they took all the oil out of it. Yes, it's dry. Yes, And that way they could mold it into shapes and use it as baking chips and things like that. And then they could cover it. And I was going to steal that

from and I'm jealous, so he would cover it. They'd cover it in candy coating. And they had these powdered peanut butter candy coated things that they needed to market to push. You know what, we're gonna get back into that. I need to take a break and fund another peanut buttercup. I'm going to lick the paper. So this peanut butter flavored powder that Hershey's had created had the consistency similar to chocolate. So again, it's not the same stuff that

was in a Reese's peanut butter. You can say that again. And it was it was meant to be used in stuff like baking chips. Yeah, where you don't want the oil because it will ruin the consistency of your batter exactly. Aerial is by the way, in case you do not know, this an incredible baker. I've only been able to sample the stuff she's baked on a couple of occasions. It's always phenomenal. I need to make some of my peanut

butter shortbread cookies. Yes, you do. So they introduced this this candy coated peanut butter powder stuff in and um they had already introduced a candy coated like chocolate years before. But Eminem's had that market sewn up, so her she has gotten out of that, which is of them. Yeah, so in this case, they're like, well, this is different because it's peanut butter, it's not chocolate. And they needed a name for it, so they settled on the amazing

name Pebs. Pebs did not did not really strike anyone as interesting. Um, As I mentioned, they had already had a previous candy coated chocolate that was called the Hershey Ets as a great name. Yeah, And then they realized that there was a problem with the name Pebs. And it wasn't that Pebs was not capturing the imagination. Skippy has a peebe bites sort of product right now. The problem that they read into was peb Ease would be

very hard for them to trademark. Yeah, So they needed to come up with a different name so that they could trade market and make sure that they protected their their intellectual property. Yea. So they called them Reese's Pieces, which I just want to say is a huge misnomer because if you go to eat a Reese's Pieces expecting the same wonderful flavor you get from a Reese's peanut butter cup, You're going to be sorely disappointed. It is

a very different experience. It doesn't have that salty, mommy peanut butter flavor. Yeah, and you're missing the oil too, which does make a difference now and all of the chocolate. There's no chocolate in Reese's Pieces, But also beyond that, there's literally no connection to Reese's right, Like it wasn't made by Reese. This was not This was not a peanut butter powder that here. It has none of the same ingredients. Really, yeah, woman, he's got peanuts, but but

not like the peanut butter exactly. So it's this is where they ended up using Ee's name as a brand of its own, rather than there's no connection to the man Reese. But then, to be fair, this isn't really fair, but to to illustrate why Hershey's had largely, you know, erased Reese's history in their marketing. So the name really didn't mean anything anyway. It was just a name. It was it was it was something to grab people's attention. If oh, I like this one product, so I'm gonna

like this other one too. It was a brand um and it did really well at first. Yep. It was like you know, brand new candy. So I got people's attention and sales were pretty good. But then after that initial burst of popularity, the sales kind of flagged a little bit, which was problematic because Hershey's was investing in new manufacturing facilities. Yeah right, so they really couldn't afford to have declines in sales. It's not unusual to see a new candy like come out the gate swinging and

then let's just mixing metaphors. But then, uh, I'd love to see a horse come out of the gate swinging there like, wow, that horse is angry and fast. No it, But coming out of the gate going full tilt and then slowing down, that's not unusual. But they were worried that the rate of slowdown might be an indicator that they could end up with a very medium, you know, mediocre kind of performing candy. Yeah, they wouldn't make back all of their investment into it. And so this is

where we get to eat. Yes, the opportunity of Et the Extra Terrestrial. So am Bulow Productions was making this movie, and they're different versions of this story. So there's a lot of he said, she said kind of stuff out there, and there's a lot of stuff where people are just making assumptions. But we're gonna try and give the general gist of what happened. Yeah, so, uh, Spielberg wanted the main character, Elliott. Yeah, yeah, uh sorry we did that to you guys, to use candy to basically get Et

the alien in to trust him. Yes, this is the famous trail of candy that was lampooned in Family guy with James Woods, as I called piece of candy candy, Yeah, originally that candy. They wanted it to be Eminem's. Yes, And so they went to Mars because another thing they were hoping to do was do some product like actual product placement, which was not common. Yeah, that was a

brand new idea really in the early nineties. The concept being that hey, we're going to use your product front and center in our movie, and in return, we will get some form of support from you. In this case, they were really looking at marketing support, like ad campaigns that would tie into the movie and thus help promote the film. They weren't looking for production costs, which is what a lot of product placement does now. Adam Sandler movies, Yeah,

so many movies. I watched so many TV shows where I'm light product placement, product place where are very conveniently pointed straight at the camera, or certain shows will just flat out they don't even try to hide it anymore. They're just like commercial in the middle of the show. Anyhow, we're getting off track. One of the story says that the president of Mars, who owned Eminem's, didn't think the film would be successful, and that's why he said, now. Yes.

There are other stories that say they were nervous about any sort of movie about an alien because the movie Alien had come out not too long ago and it scared the pants off people, and so the thought was, well, I don't want our candy to be associated with something like that. Whatever the reason is, whether it's one of those or something entirely different, what we do know is

Mars past on this opportunity. Then the next part of the story goes that a VP at Amblin turned to his son, his young son, and said what kind of candy would be best to lure a e t out

into the open? If Eminem's isn't available, mart Move Amblin VP yes, and his son said Reese's Pieces, which the VP said, yeah, he had never heard of the candy before, and then universal Slash Amblin would reach out to her She's would essentially the same offer, although according to least some stories, they actually shot a sequence using Reese's Pieces before they even talked to her. She's and essentially said here it is. Would you like to would you like

to be part of this? Other versions of the story say no, no, no. Jack Dould, who as director of New product development over at Hershey's, flew out, got to see a bunch of very early stuff about ET, but not like a finished sequence, and then was convinced that this was gonna be a good idea and that they

should be on the ground floor. So he said, yes, we will do that, and then he had to go back to her She's and convince everyone at Hershey's that it was a good Yeah, that we're going to spend money on marketing for this film so that we can also market our candy, and people were not It took them a little bit. Yeah, they were not totally on board.

It was. It was actually a hard sell. Uh, there's it's it's funny because there's some stories that say he went to uh to his coworkers and he showed them some early pictures of ET and they're all like, he's ugly. And then it wasn't until they were able to watch a finished cut of the movie that they were like, oh as they cried their eyes out as any human being with a beating Heartwood after watching ET certainly certainly, which is why I don't watch it anymore because so beauty,

it's too beautiful. I think I saw it like virus. It's too beautiful, But it was really successful. The sale of Reese's pieces increased by six and that was early on. There's some figures that have that as high as three. So it was clear a great tie in. The marketing campaign was a huge success. The sale of Reese's pieces were so popular that actually outpaced the sale of Eminem's during that same time. A positive brink. Yeah, this is

definitely one of those positive moments. And this is also a moment where some people will point to it and they'll say, man, Mars made a bone headed decision. Can you believe that they passed on ET? Here's where I want to be a little fair. There was no way of knowing at the time that ET was going to

be a big hit. Steven Spielberg had made some great movies already, he had made Jaws, he had made Close Encounters of the third kind, but he was not yet known as like a master filmmaker, and so there was no assurance that ET was going to really work. So also, you don't know if Mars even had the marketing budget

that year to to put towards something like that. So there are a lot of a lot of factors that could have fed into Mars say, know that aren't just based on Oh well, that movie is never gonna work. So I think one, it's important to remember where Reesis came from. So thank you Ramsey for suggesting this, because it's so much bigger than the Reese's Pieces story. But also, uh, this history kind of tells us that, you know, when you're hitting a hard time, look at what's working and

invest in that. Yes, yeah, it's it's an important thing to say, Like, I could keep going with all my different lines of business, but if the if that's going to be a real big challenge and there's one specific part that's doing really well, maybe it's best for me to just focus all my efforts there, at least for

the time being. Um. Another thing I would mention is that Mars did get Eminem's into et in a way because in the novel version of et Et it's still Eminem's because the novel was written before the deal filter. I didn't know there was a novel. Of course, there's a novelization of the film, and in that one it's Eminem's not Reese's Pieces. Yeah, well we have a we

have a fun fact here. Yep, yep, we have. If you've ever actually enjoyed or endured Reese's pieces, then you may have noticed that there's not as many colors as you might find in say a bag of Eminem's. There in fact, only three colors. There's orange, and there's yellow, and there's brown, and you're gonna get way more of one of those than the other two, which is orange. Yes, the orange makes up of all the candy pieces that are made, and then the other fift is divided evenly

between yellow and brown. It makes sense because yellow and brown is a color candy. But when you think Reces, you think orange trappers. So that's that's why if you ever get Reese's and you open up a bag and you're like, man, there are a lot of oranges in this one, well, it's because they make twice as many a man. I hate when I get oranges inside my bags of can d okay, And I also want to clarify, and then we're gonna let you guys go, because we know we've gone a little bit long that I don't

endure Reese's pieces. I just needed to know the first time I tried them that it wasn't chocolate covered Reese's peanut butter It would have been so much better if I had been prepared. Yeah, I well, you know, I had a lot of Reese's pieces when I was a kid, because again I was I loved et and that marketing

totally worked on me. But these days, if I'm going to have something with Reese's name on it, it's going to be a peanut butter cup me too, because they are amazing and I probably should not have eaten the one that I had. I'll just have to get on the treadmill for another. Like our fine. Yeah, so well, Jonathan's on the treadmill. If this story has inspired you to think of topics that you'd like to hear us talk about, you can email us at Feedback at the

Brink Podcast dot show and let us know. Yeah. You can also visit our website, The Brink Podcast dot Show. That's where you're gonna find more information about the two of us, as well as an archive of all of our past episodes. Yep, and if you like listening to the Brink, please tell your friends, you know, give us a positive review. We'd really appreciate it. Yeah, share the love because we're having a lot of fun covering these

and Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween. All right, Well until next time. I Am Spooky Jonathan Strickland, I Am Creepy aerial cast I'm like the paper Business. On the Brink is a production of I Heart Radio and How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for My heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H