The Snickers candy bar was named after a beloved family horse. The sugar-shelled chocolates called M&Ms take their name from a combination of the initials of their inventors, Forrest Mars and Bruce Murray. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Snickers the Horse; Mars and Murray”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
Grant, do you know what well-known candy bar is named after a horse?
Well-known candy bar named after a horse?
Yeah.
The stallion?
The Marshmallion Stallion.
I don’t know.
I have no idea.
Well, no, imagine you’re standing in the checkout line and there’s all this candy in front of you.
Oh, $100,000 bar.
Right?
Because that’s like prize money.
It could.
Maybe it is.
Baby Ruth?
No, that’s a baseball player.
Mars bar?
I have no idea.
Snickers!
Oh, is it really?
Yeah.
Named after a horse’s snicker?
Oh.
Well, after a horse that was named Snickers.
Oh, I see.
Franklin Mars, the founder of the Mars Candy Empire, had a farm in Tennessee.
It was called Milky Way Farm because he had made a bunch of money off of Milky Way candy bars.
And he had a favorite horse there.
And the horse was named Snickers.
And so when it came time to name his new candy bar, he named the candy bar Snickers.
Oh, that’s nice.
How sweet is that?
For a second there, my mind went a different direction.
I’m saying like, moon pies, horse pies, maybe there’s a connection.
What?
No.
But that’s wrong.
So anyway, I learned this the other day.
And ever since, of course, I’ve been having a blast looking up the stories of how candy bars got their names.
Or different candies.
I’ll give you one more.
Yes, please.
He’s also from the Mars family.
Franklin Mars’ son was Forrest Mars, and he got this idea to make a particular candy that was chocolate with a hard shell.
And then he approached Bruce Murray.
Murray was the son of Hershey Company president William Murray and said, hey, do you want a stake in my company?
I’m going to make these little candies.
And they ended up, Mars and Murray ended up calling their candy by their initials.
Oh, M&M’s.
M&M’s.
Oh, okay.
But I have a couple more of those for you to think about, and I will save them for later in the show.
And we’re looking for your questions and stories about language and anything related to how we talk and why we talk that way and what it’s all about.
Email words@waywordradio.org.
And talk to us on Twitter @wayword.
