The unsettling object at the top of this post is a prototype for a particularly strange and disgusting candy called “The Barfo Family Candy.” That’s right, it was an entirely family of candy dispensers (including the family dog) that puked up the gooey candy contained within each of them. Awesomely weird. It was released by the Topps bubblegum company back in 1990:

“The armless & legless torsos featuring an unhappy, nauseated, white bread family, with their heads mounted on accordion-like shaped bodies containing a delightful glop- like gel/”candy” (ingredients: sugar, water, glycerin, gelatin, citric acid, potassium sorbate, artificial flavors, artificial colors), are still fondly recalled by vomit novelty toy and candy afficianotos.

Barfo was a collaborative effort of Topps’ new product development department, the original notion hatched by veteran candy man Abe Morgenstern, who arrived at Topps one morning in Brooklyn with a Thanksgiving turkey baster demanding to know: “How can we turn this into a candy container?” Mark Newgarden suggested a vomiting head, and The rest is history. As journalist Patrick Rosenkranz chronicled in “The Bubble Gum Wars”: “The concept that couldn’t be ignored, The Barfo Family quickly became a legend in their own time.”

Head over to Drew Friedman’s awesome blog to view more images and learn lots more about the Barfo Family.

Are you the sort of person who really wants to make an impression on Halloween but doesn’t want to put in a lot of effort? Or perhaps you’re like us and feel that Halloween is worth celebrating all year round and that pretty much any outfit can be enhanced with a gruesome accent or two. Either way, this awesome jewelry looks like just the ticket. 

[via Technabob]

This gruesome display might turn your stomach until you find out how irresistibly delicious it all is. Just in time for Halloween, Jessy Ellenberger of Oakland, California, created this awesome Human Torso Appetizer plate (aka the “ManWich”) using “puff pastry to create the majority of the organs, white bean dip and hummus for the lungs, pâté for the liver (how apropos), smoked salmon for the skin, cream cheese for the (cheeseball) stomach, a dark red beet for the heart, a salami for the colon, and then tops it off with a tiny pickle for the gallbladder.”

“…I chose to do lungs, a heart, liver, gallbladder, stomach, colon and intestines. Some organs are missing, I know. ;) But I couldn’t get it all in there AND make it look nice!

I also decided to do little bits of spine coming out the top and bottom of the torso. I made tiny ribs out of the puff pastry too.”

Are you hungry yet? The only thing missing is a decanter of blood-red wine. A perfect spread to share with your friends on All Hallows’ Eve.

Check out the Instructables tutorial here.

[via Laughing Squid]

Bowl of Worms Anyone?

If you’re looking for a good gross-out prank or perhaps something to spice up your annual performance of How to Eat Fried Worms, check out these awesome edible worms that were made by Pennsylvania-based cpacker1 using little more than bendy straws and raspberry Jell-O.

Sure to be tastier than real worms, though we’ll admit they might be less nutritious, this wriggly treat looks perfect for Halloween (which is right around the corner), April Fool’s Day, or just a fun way to cheer up a friend or family member who recently had their tonsils removed. 

cpacker1 created an easy Instructables tutorial for How to make a bowl of Jell-O Worms using bendy drinking straws and raspberry-flavored Jell-O. “The results are great but be sure to read the tutorial’s comments section for tips on how to make the process go more smoothly.”

[via Laughing Squid]

Here in Seattle we’ve got a 50’ long x 15’ tall alley wall that’s completely covered in bubble gum. It’s exactly what it sounds like: people take the gum right out of their mouths and stick it on the wall, sometimes on top of inches worth of other people’s wads of gum. The Gum Wall began to grow in the early 90s and is still going strong today. Some contributors aren’t content to simply stick a wad of gum to the wall and instead make make tiny works of art with their gum. But one thing we’ve never seen in the alley is a giant sculpture made of bubble gum:

“Approximately 3,000 students from two vocational art universities in the Netherlands joined together to create this enormous model of a man joyously raising his fists in victory as part of a campaign developed by international communications agency KesselsKramer. It’s an interesting, albeit gross, project that required the scholars to gnaw at a piece of gum and then stick it atop the remnants of their fellow classmates’ piece as a sign of unity. If that isn’t unity and teamwork, I don’t know what is.”

[via My Modern Metropolis]