The Free Candy Van originates with a photo of a Ford Econoline painted a dark red with the words “free candy” written on it in white lettering. The concept started long before one particular van got famous, the idea being that creeps lure children into unmarked vans by offering free candy. This story isn’t necessarily based on a real incident, but the world is undoubtedly full of creeps who stoop so low as to manipulate children with sugar.
Meme basics:
- Meme Creator: Unknown
- Meme Type: Image Macro / Exploitable Format
- First Appearance: Circa 2006
- Origin Source: Unknown
- Peak Popularity: 2009
What is a free candy van?
Many associate a photo of a dark red Ford Econoline with the free candy van concept. It is beat-up and rusty, and it looks a whole lot worse with the “advertising” on it.
There are multiple versions of the free candy van on Know Your Meme, dating back to the mid-2000s. In 2009, an image of the van was used in a Jay Leno segment about a neighbor being a “perv.” That iteration looks the most like this:
Where did the free candy van come from?
There are a few different alleged origins of the Free Candy van. KYM user Jesda Gulati alleged in 2011 that they knew the true origin of the most famous Candy Van.
The original red free candy van is from Spokane, Washington. It was a Ford Econoline that my friend Bo Snyder bought from his employer after they retired it from their campus fleet. I believe it was used for janitorial and landscaping work. His son Tyler drove it for a while to and from high school.
One night, some pranksters wrote Free Candy on the side with shoe polish. Tyler’s girlfriend’s parents were not happy with this, so it was cleaned off. I suspect the neighbors were displeased as well. I lived with Tyler’s family at the time back in 2003, where I was a tenant, so I can verify that this is all true.
Pictures of the van first appeared at tivocommunity.com where Bo, the van’s owner, posted pictures of it. Then the images spread to NICOClub.com and the rest of the internet.
They added that as of 2011, it still ran.
But a year earlier, in 2010, user bobotech posted a story on a Lincolns vs. Cadillac forum about the van claiming it was his:
That is the story of the van. Stupid thing still runs great after all these years. I just can’t get rid of it because its so famous. Oh yeah, the current free candy writing is not the original writing but was redone over the barely visible original markings from 2004.
The whole story behind it was back in 2004, my 16 year old kid was using that van to go to school and back. Horrible van but reliable as heck. Nasty inside and nasty outside. The roof is gray because the university that owned it before my buddy who gave it to me painted it with a waterproof paint but it didn’t work, still leaked.
The van was rolled back when the university owned it so they tried to seal up the leaks caused by the roll. The side of the van which says Free Candy was actually sheet metal that was screwed into the side of it to cover the broken windows. They then painted it sort of.
So back in 2004 my kid was using it as his daily driver. One day, some kids vandalized it by painting the Free Candy on the side of it. Well he left it like that since it was so funny to drive. …The legend was born after someone posted the link to the forum which was open at the time to College Humor. The rest is history.
He included a video of what looks like the van from Leno’s segment.
There also seems to be a reference to this particular candy van:
Which might be the same van with new or old writing, if Bobotech is telling the truth.
What other versions of the van are there?
Though a dark red Ford with spray-painted writing became the mascot of free candy vans, there are plenty of other vans with the same words written on them out there. In 2015, an Australian man named Ron Jacobs went viral for driving around in a white van that said Free Candy in graphics that looked a lot like blood, for example. He was on his way to Burning Man.
“I was just living in the van and I was just hearing it explode all around me,” Jacobs told the BBC. “I woke up one morning, some guy just screams out, ‘I saw you on the internet, I love your van!'”
He also said that he was stopped by cops eight times while driving the van, leading him to conclude it “a mirror of American society.”
“The whole experience I’ve had has just been me, a tourist, living American everyday life as their… public enemy number one, and it’s just been such an experience.”
In 2022, MR_bad-_- shared an image on Reddit’s r/memes of the new candy van, which is now charging $3. Why? Inflation.
Should you get in the free candy van?
No.
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