who dropped a mars bar in the pool?

Its weird what we thought we knew about chocolate as kids.

All sorts of myths and legends abounded, legends like kids getting drunk from eating three bars of Old Jamaica or that the milk left over from a bowl of coco pops actually tasted better than Nesquik!

To kick off what I can actually recall I'll start with Flake, the crumbliest chocolate in the world. It was almost impossible to eat it all as being so crumbly it mostly fell onto your hand or arm and melted instantly.

The myth in the boys' playground was that only gorgeous girls ate flakes and that if you bought one for your 'bird' she would be made instantly 'fit' using the parlance of the day.

Rumours abounded about the exotic location used in the TV ads for Bounty bars. It was Blackpool. It was Heysham Head. It was definitely Carnforth Sands. It was actually a beach called Vai on the beautiful Greek Island of Crete, a fun fact I only found out as an adult when I visited and Vai continues to be bountiful as here on TV in 2011:

Revels were another chocolate morsel oft the nub of boyish pranks as they were more often than not referred to as rabbit droppings. The original chocolate covered peanut, Treets, never suffered such indignities as they were so damn good.

Yorkie is another bar misunderstood by most. A vigorous TV campaign depicting the chunky chocolate being scoffed by a truck driver has forever linked the brand to wagons and lumberjack shirts. It is true that a large mouth with strong chompers is needed to sever one of the huge pieces off the block but Yorkie isn't only the preserve of hungry truckers. A hammer and chisel will do the job just as well for anyone!

Probably the most myths surround that War God in a wrapper, the King that is the Mars Bar. Its well-known by every kid that a Mars a day helped you work, rest and play so it was Doctors' Orders really!

For some reason the Mars Bar made people do things with it. It must have been its relative plainness that induced a pioneering spirit in Mars users. It was in effect abused.

In Scotland most famously the humble Mars Bar was often deep fried in batter, although I have never experienced this northern treat. Have you?

In the comedy movie Caddyshack a Mars type-bar was seen 'floating' in a Golf Club swimming pool, much to the disgust of the swimmers. Upon being found in the drained basin and eaten wet by caretaker Bill Murray the Golf Club Chairwoman promptly feints in one the funniest scenes I've ever seen on film. 

I have to admit though that the bar in question may not have been an actual Mars as they may not be found in the US. It may have been something like Oh Henry, Butterfinger or maybe something nutty! 

It is in fact a Babe Ruth having watched the clip again!

Easily the most controversial of all Mars abuses, stretching the 'play' bit to a whole new level, was that portrayed in the steamy Last Tango in Paris, where Marlon Brando redefined eating chocolate but I will leave it at that as this is a family blog.

I shall end with the undisputed bad sheep of bars, the goblin king of half-eaten blocks that can only be Cooking Chocolate. With no well-known brands springing to mind, cooking chocolate ignored branding being the very epitome of yukky non-chocolateness. 

Cooking chocolate was fine in cakes and cookies but if you were starving for the sweet stuff in January when all the selection boxes were empty and nothing else was in the cupboard it was no joke. Cooking chocolate may have sated your hunger at first but after a second row it became clear that this wasn't Dairy Milk in a cheap wrapper. It was all those crumbs of Flake you dropped on the floor, scooped up in a dustpan, mixed with  baby talc and re-melted to form second hand slabs of milk dust! Yuk!

What do you recall about chocolate? Which brands abound in your country? Are there any myths?