Fan Mail for the output of the Beanie Machinie

We'll start with the plain accolades:

Shauna writes:
I like your Helly Jelly web page, its cool - even though you are making fun of my favorite jelly beans. But I guess I can forgive you. : )

What choice does she have?

Someone known only as web@netdcl.dakota.lib.mn.us writes:
funny but is there a point to all this?

Thank you, and yes.

J. Lee Bonnet wrote:
Just wanted to say THANKS--you made my day--what a FABULOUS page you've created--will pass it along to a very select group of friends!

Thank you very much, J. Lee, and who
says we don't know how to take a compliment?

AIRHEAD77 wrote:
nice jelly beans

Thanks, and try to contain your excitement, OK?

Leisha (aka, apparently, "Sexy legs") wrote:
You have this tiny clause at the bottom of the page, "this is just an elaborate joke" because if you are real you target the sweet section not just the section that you have...otherwise it is a very funny web page.

Thank you, and we're sure all of us will sleep
better tonight now that you've cleared up all
that confusion...

Dave Nederhood wrote:
Great parody page - if you ever go into production, be sure to sell your beans in barf bags for customer convenience!

Everybody's a comedian. In Dave's case, a good one.

And now Correspondence from the Confused:

Goodwin writes:
Is this page just supposed to be funny or do you actually sell these kinds of jelly beans?!

Yes, it's supposed to be funny (and succeeds, too), and no, we don't sell jelly beans. We don't even know how to make jelly beans. We do, however, have a great recipe for linguine with clam sauce, can cook a convincing Thai or Vietnamese dish or two, and make a wonderful Orange-Rosemary Chicken.

Thomas Sparks wrote:
why?

Why not?
Because we can.
We're upset we didn't get aboard the UFO in Comet Hale-Bopp's tail.
Had quit the day job and didn't have anything else to do.
Elvis would have loved it.
Just our way of encouraging the Chicago Cubs.
Nobody else had the guts to do it.
Two words: eating disorder.
Reason? We don't need no stinkin' reason.
Because we don't have our own late-night talk show.

Henry Guernsey wrote:
Hey, Looking good, how about some free samples, so I can tell all of my friends? Looking forward to tasting some of your very interesting flavors ....Hank [address deleted]

Hey Hank, we'd like to meet the friends of a guy
who thinks clam-flavored jelly beans are a good idea!

Sonya Wells wrote:
Do you offer free samples ?

Sonya, meet Hank. Hank, this is Sonya.

Sarah wrote:
I really don't understand what your program is all about.

We don't either. Why should you be different?

Brian Podolsky wrote:
Do you sell in bulk for vending machines?? IF SO PLEASE MAIL INFO TO : [address deleted]

If the essence of good satire is that
you can't tell it's satire, we ought
to be getting the Pulitzer Prize.

And now the Fringe Element weighs in:

Jeff Lawton wrote:
Like, where can I order these jelly beans? I want: 1) Cayenne 2) Sourdough Pretzel 3) Sushi

Like, now that we think about it, so do we!

rickepp wrote:
We would really like to see these on the shelves of our favorite stores. It would be a new and exciting experience for our mouths. Thanks.

Really, some of you people need to get out more.

Here's the latest set of the best flavor suggestions, and the names of them what made 'em:

What	Who	Our Comments
Pickle/Pimento Loaf	Leigh	A fairly revolting idea.
Pork Pie	Damaul	Vile.
Avocado	Judy John Grund (who supplied the image)	Not entirely nasty, but weird.
Garlic	Judy The Yahoo! Reviewers Gail Ball	Pretty foul. (Cathie Kessler up at the U. of Toronto suggests that garlic beans can actually be purchased somewhere. Anyone know anything about this?)
Mayonnaise	David M. Kathy Slade Dave Nederhood Teresa Fleisher J. Moore	Yuck. But popular....
Herbes-Fine	David Hervol	Not revolting, but very pretentious.
Beer	Gary Zeiss Doug Hamm	Probably a pretty good idea, when you think of it.
Tripe	Steele Cooley	Exceedingly nasty.
Tofu	Eva Chou	It would just take on the flavor of whatever other bean you ate with it.
Creamed Corn	Teresa Fleisher	Gag
Lard	John Polcari Mary & Kevin	Incomprehensibly revolting.
Spinach	Linden and Marie-Claire Charlton	Probably not as good as it sounds...
Charcoal	Giovanni M. DeSimone	Ugh.
Worchestershire sauce	Gail Ball	Probably goes well with the Pork Pie bean...
Vegemite	John McBee	We don't even know what it is...
Onion	"SparkyBot" Matthew Bowlby Bruce Foust Teresa Fleisher Sheila Kamath Kathy Slade	Very popular, too, we see. And probably just the thing to pop in for a treat right before a date...!
Beef Jerky	The Helly Jelly Staff	Not just nasty, but chewy, too.
Squid	Theodore P. Chiappelli (can we call you Ted?)	Another chewy one, no doubt.
Rice Cake	Jack Mortimer	What could be more tasteless than rice cake?
Kangaroo	Chuck Dattolo	We can see it now--a whole line of endangered jelly beans!
Vinegar	jen (Schonewolf/Willey) Joseph Sickel	Yuck. We're upset we didn't think of it first.
Vitamin E	Joseph (Joey) Sickel	He suggests this because of the confusion factor. We agree.
Boiled Chicken Heart	Jill Hanson	Frankly, we like 'em pan-fried....
Meat Loaf	Amber Korrer	Depends on the recipe, but this wouldn't be all that wonderful, would it? It's difficult to come up with meat-flavored beans, but this one works for us.
Eggplant	Erin and Jamie	Especially if it's that overly-greasy fried eggplant at the bad Italian place around the corner! Bravo!
Cow Tongue	Regina Driver	Well, at least one of us here likes tongue, but overall we'd have to agree that this would be pretty bad as a bean. Especially those giant honking taste buds.
Sauerkraut	Steven L. Preston	Horrible. An atrocity. Couldn't feed it to a dog. Well, actually, our first dog loved sauerkraut.
Turnip	Katie (using Steven Eagle's e-mail)	Bleah. Wouldn't try more than one of these.
Caviar	J. Moore	Sort of a marginal flavor to start with...too salty. Makes a terrible bean. But a nice black color!

And finally, Eugene Ori suggested something that we can't repeat on a family-oriented site. But thanks anyway, Eugene!

And thanks to everybody that's taken a shot at creating new, more foul flavors than what we've got already. If you see some flavors you mailed in but that we didn't credit, let us know, and we'll correct the problem.

Not all the mailed-in flavors qualify here, for various reasons. If you didn't see some of your flavors here it's probably because of one or more of the following reasons:

Too similar to an existing flavor (no need for roast beef and boiled beef)
Too similar to or a duplicate of a flavor produced by a real jelly bean company.
Not nasty enough.
Not nasty at all. For example, we've had several suggestions for whisky.
Well, what would be so nasty about that? Likewise maple syrup...
Uses the name of a trademarked product, for example "Oreo®" or "Cheez Whiz®;" we're not using trademarks for obvious legal reasons.
The flavor isn't something humans would ordinarily eat: this includes suggestions for gasoline and plastic.
Only suggested as an ingredient in a recipe; not unique or vile enough to stand alone.
Too vague: just what flavor is "bug?"

Some day we hope to have enough time to get the new beans cranked out of the Beanie Machinie...we try to answer all mail but we're getting swamped and not everybody gets a reply anymore. Sorry about that, but who would have guessed this would be so popular?

Also, from now on, if you don't include a name, we can't use your suggestion. Unless your actual name is discernible from reading the e-mail header, we're just going to have to leave your suggestion out, no matter how brilliant (or how ill we get thinking about it!).

Recipes

Still working on these...it's a lot more involved to evaluate these. There seem to be more recipe suggestions than bean flavor suggestions!

Oreo is a trademark of Nabisco. Cheez Whiz is a trademark of the Kraft Company.