One of Super Bowl Sunday’s most popular commercials this year featured Naya Rivera attempting to eat Red, the well-known spokescandy of M&Ms. So when Red himself reached out to The Gabbler asking to be interviewed, we were thrilled and ready for a fun, wisecracking backstage look at the making of a great commercial. Nothing could have prepared us for the horror of what Red actually came to tell us.

The Gabbler: Thank you for meeting with me today, Red. First off: can I get you anything? Water? Food? Medical care? You look terrible. No offense.

Red M&M: Thank you for your kindness, but, no. I’d really like to get right into my story, before the Mars executives find me.

TG: I understand. So why don’t we start at the very beginning. A singing nun once told me that it’s a very good place to start.

M&M: Perhaps now isn’t the best time for the Sound of Music references, dear.

TG: Sorry. But, really, let’s start from the beginning. You’re what’s known as a Personified Food. What is that? And how many different types are there?

M&M: Personified Foods are types of beings created with the rise of television advertising. Basically, we were originally created in a laboratory to serve as the living, talking, breathing, feeling, thinking spokesfoods of whatever brand created us. We are human in every way that counts, from our thoughts to the very depth of our emotions. Whatever makes up a soul, we have deep within our supposedly delicious bodies. There are a lot of different types of us, including M&Ms, like myself, but also Pop Tarts, the Kool Aid Man, Mr. Peanut, singing Chips Ahoy, the California Raisins. I’m sure you’ve seen ads featuring all of these, if not more.

TG: And how did you become the sarcastic, wisecracking M&M spokescandy known and loved by millions of Americans?

M&M: It’s the family business. It began when my grandfather was first developed by the Mars Company in the early 1950s to star in their commercials for the M&M brand. After he stepped down in the late 70s to serve as an advocate for the rights of the Personified Candy Community, my father took over. And when my father retired in 2000, I was more than happy to give up my position as History Department Chair at the University of Chocolate, where I had been teaching since the early 90s.

TG: So…wait. You guys have a university? And jobs outside of the whole spokescandy thing?

M&M: We have a whole society. Let me give you the short version: Mars created my grandfather, along with several other Personified M&Ms in the late 50s. Basically, through a scientific process that is still cloaked in some mystery, they were able to make larger versions of the M&M candies self-aware, intelligent, and capable of speech. All we do know about the process was that it was expensive, and out of concern over ongoing costs, they also made us capable of reproduction. Over the last 60 years, we’ve met, we’ve fallen in love and married and had little M&M minis that have grown on to a variety of jobs: spokescandy, lawyers, professors, doctors.

TG: Wait, so you guys can like, you know…do it? How?

M&M: Dear, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you’re just so fascinated by the unknown that you didn’t realize what an incredibly disrespectful question that was.

TG: Oh God, sorry. You’re right. I just…keep thinking of you as that silly, little wisecracking candy from the commercials!

M&M: It’s called acting. I would hope that after spending this short time with me that you would realize the many differences that exist between me and Red, the spokescandy.

TG: You’re right. I’m so sorry. Please, let’s just move on. So can you tell me about the experience of shooting the latest Super Bowl commercial?

M&M: The filming of the commercial itself was lovely. Naya Rivera really is a sweetheart and very professional. My ordeal didn’t start until after the commercial wrapped.

TG: What happened then?

M&M: Well, we were on location, shooting in the mansion that I’m sure you saw heavily featured in the commercial. When I went to the side room where I had put my jacket, wallet and car keys, they were missing. I queried a nearby man who I believed to be a production assistant and he directed me to the basement, telling me that they had been moved there to prevent them from getting lost in all of the chaos of the shoot. This seemed odd to me, but I needed my keys to get home, so I opened the basement door and began to descend the stairs. When I was about halfway down them, I heard the door slam shut and the click of a lock.

TG: So you were trapped?

M&M: Unfortunately, yes. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was being kept in some kind of Personified Food farm, where different Personified Foods were fattened up to be sold off at exorbitant prices on the black market and eaten as a luxury item.

TG: What was the basement like?

M&M: It was very comfortable, with food readily available. There were several nice couches, a plasma screen television with a DVD player and a good collection of DVDs. There was also a well-stocked book shelf and some magazines.

TG: Why do you think the accommodations were so nice?

M&M: Personified Foods are just like you, just like all humans. We feel everything with the full complexity of human emotions. We fear death, with the full and immediate terror of someone aware of their own mortality. And of course, we experience sorrow, pain, rage, all of it. Some suggest that the intensity of these emotions really affects out flavor. So, we were made as comfortable as possible, I suppose, so that we would taste good when the time came for our inevitable slaughter.

TG: We? So you weren’t alone?

M&M: No, there were several more M&Ms, a few Peanut, some Pretzel, others Milk Chocolate like me. There were also a few Pop Tarts and a some Chips Ahoy cookies, all of which had been engineered as spokesmodels for their respective brands.

TG: How did you find out why you were being kept? You seem to know a lot about Personified Food farming. Where did that knowledge come from?

M&M: I have been a spokescandy for over a decade. During that period, I have countless times played the hapless candy falling prey to human hunger, in the most literal sense. At the time, it always just seemed like a hackneyed and misdirected marketing technique, so rooted in the cannibalism that humans pretend to abhor. Although, based on my recent experience, that abhorrence seems to be the result of a flavor issue, rather than a reluctance to slaughter and consume a thinking, feeling, self-aware being with a fully human soul. But, really, it wasn’t too hard to deduce that I was being fattened up for the slaughter after building a career on that story line.

TG: Do you have any idea why people would be tempted to eat you, though? It does sound rather cannibalistic, now that I’m sitting and talking to you. You’re kind of like a real person, just covered in chocolate.

M&M: It’s completely rooted in an urge to be cannibalistic. While trapped in the basement, we heard stories, stories about others who were removed from the basement and taken to yachts anchored in international waters. When they arrived they were treated like guests for days. Engaged in conversation, given the plushest bedroom on the ship. Treated like royalty. And then at the end, they were eaten. There was pleasure taken in getting to know their humanity and then in consuming them.

TG: Okay, now I’m pretty sure you’re just lying to me. People wouldn’t do that. What could possibly drive such a sick, twisted cannibalistic urge?

M&M: It’s such a complex urge, deeply rooted in our survival instinct while simultaneously reinforced by pop culture. Cannibalism isn’t an unknown entity in the human experience, it’s just a recent taboo. Hell, cannibalism is so deeply ingrained in humanity that a religion of one billion people weekly cannibalizes the flesh of its savior. You all want to eat human flesh, you just need to find excuses to get around the taboo. So you lose yourself in these vampire fantasies, which are just cannibalism cloaked as drink rather than food. Of course, the vampire fascination does gain some traction from the whole immortality thing, but don’t you realize that all of you are salivating to achieve immortality by feasting on the blood of other humans?

TG: Well that’s not very encouraging. But, moving on. Where did you learn about their attempts to keep you more flavorful by keeping up your mood?

M&M: That happened during my first escape attempt. It was a hapless one, built on the belief that the basement door was unguarded. I knew my way through the house, having filmed the Super Bowl commercial there, so I thought that I could sneak out without detection. I was picking the lock of the door using a bobby pin borrowed from a female Chips Ahoy and was about to pull it open, when I heard the voices of the two guards. One, more experienced, was explaining the whole operation to the other, including why we were so “pampered.” The less experienced one seemed hesitant about the whole thing and mentioned how dirty he had felt after the recent torture of Mr. Peanut. The other guard reassured him that it was for a higher cause, that the Personified Foods were preparing a war on America, on all of humanity and that their systematic torture and consumption by the wealthy was the only way to keep our families safe. Right after this lengthy explanation of a war that we most certainly were not waging, I finally managed to pick the lock. Unfortunately, they heard the click. I was captured.

TG: What did they do to you then?

M&M: Things too horrible for the ears of someone as young as you are, my dear.

TG: Weren’t they worried about losing your flavor?

M&M: I was a subversive, a danger to the whole operation. It was best to just sell me cheap and quick.

TG: But you got out! How?

M&M: Through their own shortsightedness. After hours of torture, I was placed in a cramped basement room with no furnishings or food. Not even a hole in the floor for me to urinate into. Fortunately, though, there was a window, with bars across it of course, they were at least that clever. But the window allowed in some of that nice south California sun and it was an unseasonably warm day. So I climbed to it, hooked my arm through the bars, took off my candy coating and then…

TG: –You MELTED your way to freedom?

M&M: Precisely. I oozed my way home to my wife, who placed me in our refrigerator overnight. Luckily we had a mold, so I was able to more or less able regain my original shape. The next day we fled, knowing they were coming for me and fearing for our lives. From there we’ve come to you, looking to tell the world my story. Because they’re still there. Those M&Ms and Pop Tarts and Chips Ahoy don’t need to die. They have families. Other Personified Foods love them. PLEASE, YOU’VE GOT TO HELP THEM!!!

TG: I’ll do all I can, Red, I swear, but I’m not much use when it comes to taking down black market dealers of Personified Foods, to be honest. But I’ll publish your interview so that maybe someone else can help!

M&M: We all play our part, dear. Now, not to be rude, but I’m off to some distant corner of the earth so health conscious that consuming my 60 pounds of pure milk chocolate will inspire the horror that it should.