Vinay Menon: Sun-Maid pulls a Halloween prank in a shrivelled attempt to stop trick-or-treaters from hating raisins

In a rare show of corporate self-awareness, Sun-Maid now admits, “There’s nothing scarier than getting raisins on Halloween.”

Spinach. Haggis. Cauliflower. An old slipper. Any trick-or-treater would prefer to discover that stuff over Sun-Maid. Remember being a kid and trudging home with frostbitten fingers – where was global warming when we needed it? – and dumping out your bag to make value judgments about the haul?

Full-sized chocolate bars, especially Oh Henry! or Coffee Crisp, those were the gold standard. Then you had your second-class candy: Nibs, Kraft Caramel Squares, Jawbreakers, Wax Lips, Nerds, Rockets and, a product that would now get a homeowner tossed in the slammer, the Popeye Tasty Candy Cigarettes. Blow me down! Hey, kids, it’s time to pretend smoke!

Then, as you splayed your fingers and raked through your loot like an archeologist on a T-Rex dig, you’d spot that evil box, hiding between a Hubba Bubba and Tootsie Roll. The rendering on the front was of a grinning brunette in a red bonnet holding a bushel of grapes.

It should’ve been Beelzebub with a tray of poison apples.

Raisins, raisins … RAISINS?

The next day at school, during the recess barter, you couldn’t trade 10 boxes of Sun-Maid for one partially eaten licorice. Race, gender, socioeconomic status, none of this mattered. Sun-Maid was the great equalizer.

Every kid from every walk of life was repulsed by raisins.

So after all these years, you’d think Sun-Maid would have the good sense to not show its shrivelled face in October. But, no. It seems the gonzo marketers are now leaning into the hate. As the brand recently bragged: “In grinchlike fashion, the iconic snack brand is ransnacking St. Helens, Oregon – where the 1998 cult classic “Halloweentown” was filmed – causing mischief and replacing all of the candy it can find, with a very scary swap – raisins.”

In one video, “Raisin Zombies” storm a party and scare the bejesus out of tykes by absconding with the good stuff while leaving behind boxes of raisins. It’s an October surprise nobody wants: Sun-Maid plans to raise “mayhem during the famed and beloved month-long celebration called the ‘Spirit of Halloweentown.’”

I’m assuming Halloweentown is in on the prank, or the legality of this switcheroo is murky. Even if it were a hilarious stunt, Toyota couldn’t descend on a city and have rim mascots replace every Ferrari with a RAV4.

In the stages of grief, Sun-Maid is now stuck in Halloween denial.

Did execs not do a careful frame-by-frame analysis of the video they shared this week, showing Raisin Zombies in mayhem mode? I refuse to believe this was staged. The kiddie shrieks of terror were real, as was the bawling toddler at the end as a woman handed him a box of disgusting raisins.

Give that child a bubble gum cigarette, you killjoys.

I don’t get why Big Food keeps trying to force-feed us unpopular holiday offerings. Show me a person who loves Christmas fruitcake and I will show you a person who wears mismatched socks and lines up three times for Costco samples. What is that aftertaste? Why does my tongue feel like I just licked an AA battery? And don’t get me started on Thanksgiving and cranberry sauce, which makes your turkey and stuffing look like a crime scene.

Show of hands: Do you add raisins to your butter tarts or rice pudding? If so, I must ask that you NEVER READ THIS COLUMN AGAIN. You are dead to me, you sadistic pushers of petrified grapes. The only time you should encounter a raisin is in a hotel bar buried deep inside a bowl of mixed nuts.

All other raisin cameos are vile – especially at Halloween.

Sun-Maid? Let it go. It’s over. No costumed child will ever whoop with joy or fist-pump upon discovering your red box in their bag. It’s like finding salmonella-contaminated spinach during an Easter egg hunt.

Yes, you can hire slick agencies and commission all the irony PR you want. But this will never unite Halloween and raisins in holy cultural matrimony.

There’s a better chance Kanye West assumes leadership at B’nai Brith.

I love driving around the city at this time of year, love seeing the ghoulish yard displays. Ghosts, skeletons, tombstones, cobwebs, witches, Trudeau in blackface. But you know what I’ve never seen? A giant, inflatable raisin.

And that would be way scarier than anything.

Snacks are like people: it’s important to know when you are not wanted. When my daughters have friends over, I self-isolate in the basement, mostly because I don’t want to crack a lame dad joke and embarrass them.

That’s what Sun-Maid is to Halloween: an embarrassment. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s a quote-unquote healthy option. But Halloween is not about health any more than Black Friday is about price gouging.

For one night, let the kids revel in empty calories and possible tooth decay.

Let them have candy. Let them be kids.

If I ran Sun-Maid, I’d give my employees a paid vacation this month. Team, let’s keep our heads down until the pagan ritual passes and, after All Hallows’ Eve, let’s return in November, ready for fruitcake season.

Sun-Maid now says there is nothing scarier than raisins on Halloween.

It would be nice if it ripped off the mask and started acting like it.

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