{
    "id": 1070935,
    "title": "Sweets in famous books and films",
    "slug": "sweets-in-famous-books-and-films",
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    "url": "https://sweeties.net/wiki/sweets-in-famous-books-and-films/",
    "modified": "2026-09-26T13:07:06+01:00",
    "excerpt": "Turkish delight in Narnia, Reese's Pieces in E.T., Bertie Bott's beans in Harry Potter and a BBC row over Blackpool rock: famous sweets in books and films.",
    "content_text": "Sweets make handy props in stories: a treat, a temptation, a bribe. A few fictional sweets became real, and a few real sweets saw sales jump overnight.\nIn books\nBrighton rock, 1938. Graham Greene's thriller about the teenage gang leader Pinkie takes its title from the seaside rock of Brighton, with the town's name running all the way through it: see Brighton rockTurkish delight, 1950. In C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the White Witch uses enchanted Turkish delight to win the loyalty of Edmund Pevensie. Sales of Turkish delight rose after the 2005 film of the book: see how sweets from abroad came to BritainWonka Bars, 1964. Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory grew out of his schooldays tasting new Cadbury chocolates, and Wonka sweets later became real: see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and real sweet factoriesEvery Flavour Beans. The Harry Potter books gave the world Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, and Jelly Belly now makes them, with flavours such as vomit, earwax, skunk spray and rotten egg: see strange sweet flavours from around the world\nIn films\nOne film sweet was nearly a different one. In 1982 Mars turned down an offer to feature M&M's in Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra Terrestrial. Hershey accepted the offer for Reese's Pieces, a fairly new sweet at the time. With the film's huge success, sales of Reese's Pieces rose dramatically, perhaps by as much as 300%.\nThe 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory went further still: it was paid for by Quaker Oats to launch a real Wonka Bar.\nOn television\nIn Doctor Who, the Fourth Doctor's habit of offering jelly babies to strangers became one of the character's trademarks: see Doctor Who and his Jelly Babies\nIn songs\nBlackpool rock. George Formby recorded With My Little Stick of Blackpool Rock in 1937, and in 1946 a BBC manager wrote that certain lines must not be broadcast: see Blackpool rockJelly Babies. Pop fans turned sweets into missiles when Beatles fans pelted the band with Jelly Babies in 1963: see the Beatles and the Jelly Babies",
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