Mars has much to answer for.

About this time last year, I penned a blog post about the changes that the candy company was making to its M&M spokescandies, not differentiating between male and female characters anymore, changing their personalities and even giving their footwear a makeover. At the time, I pointed out that we didn’t need candy to be changed by political correctness and they should leave well enough alone.

Apparently, there were plenty of other people who agreed with me in 2022, because I just saw the big announcement via Twitter that they’re “pausing” their spokescandies in commercials and bringing in Maya Rudolph. The company acknowledged that it sparked outrage by the changes and expressed remorse that it “broke the internet” because of its actions.

There are a couple of ways to look at this. The first is that Mars took something that was broken and tried to fix it. Upon discovering that the fixing really did break something, it decided to sweep up the shards and toss them in the trash.

The second way to look at this latest action is that first Mars lobotomized its spokescandies, and now it’s murdering them. It’s taking them out in the back pasture and killing them like a rabid dog.

Don’t get me wrong. Maya Rudolph is a good person and somewhat entertaining, but the M&Ms marketing plan with amusing round candies has worked just fine for decades. I was a fan of M&Ms before I saw commercials of them, but seeing what new campaigns and commercials that Mars could come up with over the years has been a constant source of amusement for me.

Change is inevitable with everything. If you don’t spice things up a little bit, the new thing becomes old and stale quickly. While I didn’t like the changes made to the M&Ms, I wasn’t asking for them to be banished from the realm, either.

However, my issue is changing things on a massive scale, and by that, I mean taking characters and completely altering their personalities. Adding characters was fine to me—I particularly enjoyed the purple M&M they added in 2022—but having the green M&M “throw shine and not shade” and other changes is like having Batman tiptoe through the tulips. It just doesn’t work.

The smart thing that Mars should have done was to bring in Rudolph but not shove the spokescandies out. Combining their quirky personalities with Rudolph’s brand of humor would have made the commercials even better. Instead, the colorful animated candies get the boot just before the Super Bowl, when companies tend to produce their most amazing and attention-grabbing commercials.

Mars has obviously spun out of orbit.

In an interesting twist, though, A&W Restaurants took advantage of M&M’s announcement by making changes to its bear mascot, Rooty. A&W announced via Twitter that Rooty would not be put in permanent hibernation, but the bear would be required to wear pants.

Unsurprisingly, A&W’s announcement also sent Fox News hosts into a tizzy, just like when M&Ms embarked on its spokescandy makeover the year before. It was kind of funny when A&W tweeted later that it was joke, showing that some members of the mainstream media have no sense of humor.

I wish the M&M announcement had also been tongue in cheek. While there are indications that the spokescandies might make a return someday, I feel Mars has made a dangerous mistake with its move, and its sweet brand is going to suffer as a result.