A chronology of Candy Land characters
Posted by brilokuloj on Jan 15, 2025

Straight from the world of things that aren’t important at all, I’ve come to answer a question you’ve never asked: is there a graph of every Candy Land character that tallies their appearances across board redesigns?
The answer is yes. Because I made it.
1984 | 1999 | 2002 | 2010 | 2013 | 2014 | 2021 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Plumpy | ✅ | ✅ | |||||
Mama Gingertree | ✅ | ||||||
Mr. Mint | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
Duke of Swirl | ✅ | ||||||
Lord Licorice | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
Jolly | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |||
Gramma Nutt | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ||
Gramma Gooey | ✅ | ||||||
Duchess E. Claire | ✅ | ||||||
Gloppy | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |||
Princess Lolly | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Queen Frostine | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
King Kandy | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
At first glance, this information seems useless. That is because this information is completely useless!
What’s really interesting about this to me is that the Candy Land Royalty is the only guaranteed constant. Even Mr. Mint was briefly replaced by the “Duke of Swirl” (who the fuck?) in 2010, and Lord Licorice has been phased out for 2021… but the Princess, Queen, and King all live on.
You may be wondering why there are only boards post-1984 listed here, if you know that Candy Land has been around since 1949. This is because Candy Land didn’t have characters until Hasbro bought Milton Bradley in 1984. Before that, there was no Candy Castle, and the objective of the game was to return home - a goal intended to bring a sense of comfort, as the original Candy Land was invented to entertain children suffering from polio. The introduction of the castle marks a turn towards the fantastical, which remains the main plot to this day.
In short, Candy Land may have once been a comforting presence in our culture, but it’s been a fascist dictatorship since the 80s - no wonder it’s such a beloved American icon!
Another potential source of concern is that Plumpy hasn’t appeared since 1999. Let’s hope it was of old age and the royals didn’t just quietly “dispose” of him.
For all of the time and labor they’ve put into making a redesign every 6 or so years, you’d think they’d eventually figure out how to put gameplay in it. But then it wouldn’t be Candy Land anymore.
Categories: gaming
Tagged: board games candy land