It’s corn! But this one is candy

Props

Oct 27

One of my favorite reoccurring segments on Let’s Make a Deal is called Free Samples, because there is a great possibility I’m about to be tasked with making something incredibly random and cool. The premise of this “deal” is to present the trader with a miscellaneous prop filled with a large mystery quantity of something. The trader then has a choice between $5 per item on the prop or a mystery prize behind the curtain.

“Corn boy” isn’t trending anymore, but I’m not allowed to share my projects online until after they’ve air on the show! I loved this silly project, especially because it was pitched a few months after the corn boy video went viral online and I, personally, thought it was hilarious.

In this episode, our prop was a giant ear of corn, but each kernel of corn was a candy corn! I loved the idea, and I had a lot of ideas on how to execute it.

I started with a firm foam core and used an electric turkey cutter to trim it into a corncob shape. When I got the shape just right, I took it down to the paint department on my show to have them color it bright yellow. I figured this would be the best color for a candy corn cob.

As I waited for my yellow corn cob to be ready, I prepared hundreds of candy corn to be applied. I cut the tips off each candy so that I had a flat surface to adhere on the core. This was the most time consuming part of the process, even after enlisting plenty of help from anyone who stepped into my office. I frequently had to take a break from cutting and clean the stickiness off my knife.

When I felt like I had enough candies, I started gluing. I tried using the same glue I used for the Gummy Bear Lamp, but it wasn’t working well with the styrofoam core. After all my trials and errors, simple hot glue was the winner in this case!

I tried laying the candy corn “kernels” neatly, but intentionally laying a few crooked so the final product looked imperfect, like a real ear of corn!

This episode aired around Thanksgiving, so my boss dressed it on a dark tray with some Autumnal details, a pair of corn cob holders, and a stick of butter!