Obstacle to chocolate

It’s bizarre that this should even make it into a children’s wish list of most desired games or toys, being - as it is – the very definition of the anti-toy. Ostensibly a cross between a savings bank and a chocolate dispensing machine it actually fails to live up to the promise of either. But that is to underestimate its novelty.

Although in reality it amounted to a deferral of pleasure, no more than a tuppenny barrier between the chocolate and your mouth, there was still something of the faintly exotic in getting hold of a load more of those mini-Dairy Milks and Bournevilles than you would ever find in a box of Roses¹. In the days before washing powder tablets and digital cameras, the fascination with anything miniaturised was not to be underestimated.

The classic dispenser was designed and moulded in ‘50s-throwback red plastic (leading us to fancifully imagine that the Fonz himself would mete out his chocolate from one) with properly embossed gold Cadbury’s branding, plus it came pre-loaded with a dozen baby chocs². In theory, a 2p piece slotted in the top would, with a twist of a knob on the front, release a single, fully wrapped miniature that could then be enjoyed in isolation. In truth, and in part because not only was the chassis of the dispenser made of plastic but also the lock and keys, it took about ten seconds for greed to overcome the flimsy workings of this metaphorical chocolate chastity belt.

With the contents therefore devoured in their entirety (and not so easily replaced, at least not until the next Argos trip), what essentially remained was a moneybox and, given that it generally wouldn’t contain more than about fourteen pence, not a very good one at that.

²Chocoholics, masochists and fatties rejoice! The Chocolate Machine Money Box from Humbrol is a fair enough modern approximation of the old Peter Pan version.