The Lemon Fool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liiIuzITags

Terry Scott at his best

AiY

Thanks for the memory. I was working at the Cadburys Bournville factory when Curly Wurlys first came out, and they were a bit of a laugh in their own right. The staff shop, where assorted Cadburys mis-shapes were sold off cheap (in plain wrappers), featured examples that would have made it to the walls of the Tate Modern these days. Oh my god, the mis-shapes.

You see, Curly Wurlys were a bit of a technological revolution. The first computer-controlled extruded sweet, I think, but the programming wasn't too clever at first. Your basic CW was built around a plaited stream of toffee, laid down by three nozzles which pirouetted neatly around each other like Scottish country dancers. But the early prototypes made it look as though they'd all been on the malt. There were mangled-spaghetti shapes, square shapes, animal shapes, and some that just made the factory girls giggle. (Filthy minds, some of those wimmin...)

And by the time the errors had been spotted, they were irreversibly covered in chocolate, and the only question was whether to feed them to the pigs or to the staff. Fortunately, the pigs usually lost. Willy Wonka would have laughed till he was sick.

BJ