Fangs for the memories, candy corn!

To some, they're about as exciting as getting a sandwich bag full of pennies as a Halloween treat or a tree draped with toilet paper as a trick.

To others, they're the nicotine of the confectionery world.

Regardless of one's personal preference, candy corn — those little yellow, orange and white sugar kernels kids stick to their teeth to look like vampires — is a Halloween staple.

Every fall, revelers scarf down tons of the stuff. According to the National Confectioners Association, companies will make nearly 9 billion pieces, or more than 35 million pounds, of candy corn this year.

And like candy canes at Christmas and Peeps at Easter, many crave the corn simply because it's a tradition.

"They're nostalgic," said Mike Dotson, 23, of San Diego, recently, as he and friend Carrie Musselwhite, 17, of Bonney Lake, visited Sweetie's candy shop at Pike Place Market. "It's being a kid and going to your grandparents' house and finding those weird little candies."

Indeed, the chronicle of candy corn dates back almost as far as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Bill Kelley, 63, the fourth-generation owner of The Jelly Belly Candy Co. (formerly Goelitz Brothers Candy Co.), first heard it as a young man, while working at the company's facilities in north Chicago.

Candy corn, he said, was invented by candy maker George Runninger at the Wunderle Candy Co. of Philadelphia in the 1880s. It was intended to resemble a kernel of field corn.

The Goelitz brothers began mass production of the candy at their north Chicago facility around 1898. The candy was considered revolutionary by some in the industry because of its three colors.

Original candy-corn makers required great strength and endurance. "Runners," carrying 50-pound buckets of hot fondant, a substance similar to icing, had to make three separate passes over kernel-shaped cornstarch molds.

As technology progressed, human runners were replaced by machines. Today, 25,000 pounds of candy corn can be made in eight hours. Candy corn is still made with essentially the same ingredients: sugar, corn syrup, water and food coloring.

Because there's no patent on candy corn, said Kelley, about a half-dozen companies make the candy. This year, Brach's Confection's, the nation's top candy-corn maker, is celebrating its 100th anniversary of making the product and expects to sell more than 2 billion kernels by the end of the Halloween season. Both Jelly Belly and Brach's officials say candy-corn sales helped carry their companies during the tough economic times of World War I, World War II and the Depression.

Nowadays, there's candy corn for other holidays, like Reindeer corn (red, green and white) for Christmas, Indian corn (chocolate and vanilla) for Thanksgiving, Cupid corn (red, pink and white) for Valentine's Day and Bunny corn (pastels) for Easter. But Jelly Belly estimates Halloween accounts for 75 percent of annual candy-corn production.

Some people, though, just can't stand candy corn.

Serge Mkrtchyan, a sophomore at Nathan Hale High School in Lake City, said he prefers Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Jolly Ranchers and Blow Pops at Halloween.

"Candy corn just tastes like sugar and falls apart in your mouth," he said. "It's just nasty. It's just straight sweetness."

Josh Benson, 26, also visiting Sweetie's, said he hasn't been able to stand the smell of candy corn since he gorged on a bag of it when he was 5.

"I'll bite off the white tip, that's about it," said Benson, from Prosser.

Candy-corn makers don't see the product going belly up anytime soon, though, and bank on tradition to buoy sales.

"You grew up with it," said Brach's CEO Terry O'Brien. "It's been around six generations so far and it's one of those things that's handed down."

Said Jelly Belly's Kelley: "It's a great American tradition. It's part of Halloween, like pumpkins. It takes a lot of people back to their childhood."

Bonney Lake's Musselwhite said she still eats them like she did when she was younger: one color at a time.

She also always associates candy corn with fall, Halloween and Thanksgiving, using them as decorations on gingerbread houses.

Kiné Camara, another Nathan Hale sophomore, says she buys a bag every year and thinks she always will.

"It's a little chewy and sugary and mmm ... ," she said. "You bite into it and ahh ... . Candy corn's the bomb. I'm going to give it to my kids every Halloween."

J.J. Jensen: 206-464-2761 or jjensen@seattletimes.com. Times researcher Gene Balk contributed to this report.