Simon Simpkins, a father of two, said he was shocked at the “pornographic” poses when he bought the sour candy for his children Benjamin and Ofelia.
Mr Simpkins, of Pontefract, West Yorks, told The Sun: “The lemon and lime are locked in what appears to be a carnal encounter.
“The lime, who I assume to be the gentleman in this coupling, has a particularly lurid expression on his face. I demanded to see the shop manager and, during a heated exchange, my wife became quite distressed and had to sit down in the car park.”
Haribo said the sweets, which feature illustrations of lemon, lime and cherry characters, said the “fun” packaging was introduced in Germany in 2002.
A spokesman said: “This jovial MAOAM man is very popular with fans, both young and old.”
Telegraph (thanks, KirstyJ)
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I’m sorry, but that guy is an absolute tit!
He’s kids wouldn’t see it as pornographic. Maybe it is his own warped mind. Either way, there’s much worse in the world to worry about. Jesh.
This is obviously made up, right? I mean, NOBODY talks like that any more – and the kids called Benjamin and Ofelia (especially pretentiously mispelled) CAN’T be true.
If it is, I’m so sad that there are still people like this in the world :S
I have enough mates who are graphic designers to know that they often have a wee chuckle doing stuff like this. Captain Pugwash has a lot to answer for!
You kind of have to ask questions about the man that complained. I can obviously see why he complained but come on, what do his kids know about it?
Heheh I have been eating these for years and never noticed the pictures, which could look quite naughty! I dont think he should have had a go at the shop manager though!
Hah! Way to anthropomorphize. “Carnal Encounter”. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that the chap is devout in some manner.
Hahaha. Kids and grown-ups love it so.
Could this be a marketing ploy? Strange that the incident took place in Pontefract, which happens to be Haribo’s UK HQ…
it actually tells us all about the father.
If he sees something weird in it…. he probably isn’t too sane in his head for a start..
Some people can find porn in anything…
Oh, nice palindrome by the way.
People have always had a problem with fucking fruits.
Oh dear some people really do need to get a grip on reality, a kid isn’t going to notice what’s on the wrapper, they’ll be too interested in eating the sweets.
Hello, palindrome
“She put de lime in de coconut, she drank ‘em bot’ up..”
first disney, now haribo… who can we trust?!
Haha! We’ve all been saying this for years.
Funny stuff.
Haha I never noticed that!
I dont see what the problem is, kids dont notice that sort of thing
I know a lot of the kids shows I used to watch were filled with inuendo. I never noticed and turned out just fine
Is it just me or do some people just get stupider everyday?
Complaining to the shop manager?
That’ll get you nowhere. The shops don’t have control over sweetie packaging, it’s just supply and demand. People demand, shops supply.
It’s not rocket science.
God forbid they should ever bring out a banana flavour one
The lime on the left has obviously just “lost his cherry”. He must be some kind of fruit smoothie
I bet they light up a candy cigarette afterwards!
I think the likelihood of someone interpreting that packaging as pornographic is directly proportional to the amount of pornography that they look at. So there should really be no harm in it.
“my wife became quite distressed and had to sit down in the car park.”
If this is true that is brilliant. An perfect caricature. She was probably embarrassed that you were berating the SHOP MANAGER for a cartoon of a bean-man frolicing with a lemon.
As for the look on his face. A character licking their lips while looking at a piece of fruit drawn on the side of a fruit sweet? It couldn’t possibly be communicating how good it tastes? No the green man is excited about performing cunnilingus on a lemon, that must be it.
if the pictures might stir a giggle in the more worldly-wise viewer, so what?
Oh, they are obviously just wrestling and really, really enjoying it…
interesting that this chap is from Pontefract, home of Haribo and of HariboWorld (which isnt as exciting as it sounds, although you can buy a tie with jelly teddies on it)… my suspicion synapse is firing.
Hey, it’s all happening in West Yorkshire today isn’t it? I’m moving!
Wow, what an unhappy and unfulfilled gentleman this must be.
Pornography is something that is depicted with the intention of causing arousal and excitement, which I somehow doubt was the aim of the sweetie makers. So it’s his fault for seeing rudeness there. Possibly that’s the source of his displeasure, after all, noone wants to discover they have a fetish for frisky fruit porn, do they?
Most distressing.
Incidentally, would any child ever think it was pornographic? I can’t imagine a child making that connection because firstly, they shouldn’t know about stuff like fruit porn just yet, that’s for later in life, and secondly, they’re probably more concerned with the sweets than the wrapper.
I expect he enjoys a good Christmas pantomine, though!
Oh dear…someone has a bit too much time! Who seriously pays that much attention to sweet wrappers?!
I’ve been eating those sweets for years and the thought never even crossed my mind…looking at it now, the green figure isn’t even a lime is it?
Maninalift – I’m totally with you about the wife becoming distressed…
the shopkeeper has no control over what goes on the wrapper, the kids are most likely oblivious to what’s going on unless they’re at that curious age anyway and the only person making a prat of himself is Simon Simpkins who has now had a loud and frank discussion about munch-bunch porno in the middle of a cornershop in front of his entire family.
I think his wife showed remarkable restraint under the circumstances. If I was married to someone that embarrassing, this would be the moment I’d attempt to club myself to death with a bottle of vodka from the booze shelf…
i cant believe this has only just been widely noticed! me and my younger brother used to laugh all the time about the “little fruits doing it” on the moam packet when they first came out lol the pictures can easily be interpreted as sexual, but i dont think they were intended that way… and this guy is taking it waaaaaaaaaaay to far.
I’m more concerned that my 8 year old son tends to eat these with the wrapper on cos he can’t be bothered unwrapping the sweet. I doubt he’s noticed that there’s even a picture on it! This type of do-gooder needs to get a life. He’ll be complaining next that chocolate should have clearer names cos he gets embarrased when people ask for “snickers” bars and he mistakes em for “knickers”… heaven knows what he thinks of “Willy Wonka” bars.. Lets hope he never realises what that nearly says
Someone pointed this out to me a while back actually, The lime & cherries pic looks proper perverted !
Who the hell examines sweet wrappers as closely as this guy? or does he see porn everywhere? I bet the legs on his tables and chairs at home are covered over at home!
Benjamin is a good biblical name for this guy’s son!
If this story is true, there is so much wrong with this guy and his wife!
Halloween is coming up and I usually buy loads of these sweets to give to the local kids. Do I detect a marketing ploy to flog more sweets?
Maybe I will have to put censored stickers over the wrapers in case I get in trouble for handing out porn to kids at Halloween!!!
I bought the same sweets for my six year old a week ago and I laughed when he put them on the counter, the lady in the shop looked at me and I turned the pack to face her and she looked at it and then laughed too. I guess Simon\’s not the only one that noticed the MOAN, sorry MAOAM, candy wrapper was a bit dodgy when viewed with adult eyes.
What’s the point if the kids are not noticing the wrapper..they will someday. Kid’s sweet and sexual wrappers…the manufactureres are insane!!!!
@ flapjack – you make me laugh!
Granted the pics are a bit lurid but any person who take things like this up with the vendor, not the manufacturer is a tit (I am moderating my language- HARD), but anybody who’d name there kids ‘Benjamin and Ofelia’ should have been sterilised at birth.
What a plonker.
he he he … fruit porn
I have a mate that once shagged an orange so maybe the little green maoam man is onto something.
The same guy did also once put nutella on his bits and let his dog lick it off too. He had issues.
Aha, now i understand why i always start to moan after eating Maoam…darn hidden subliminals!
HAHAA!!
“The lime, who I assume to be the gentleman in this coupling, has a particularly lurid expression on his face”
omg LOL!
He’s just pissed off that he’s probably had to have “the talk” with… Benjamin and Ofelia *snort*;
“Daddy, what is Mr. Lime doing to Ms. Lemon?” xD
The outcome would make a pretty cool fruit though. Lemon + Lime = Limon? Leme?
also “my wife became quite distressed and had to sit down in the car park”
fruit porn…
she\’s obviously having flashbacks.
Brings a whole new meaning to ‘Fruit Cock-tail’!
Just as well they didn’t buy a finger of fudge, Curly-Wurlys or a Walnut whip
In all honesty, alot of you are being blind, hasn’t occured to you that the packaging must of been intentionally made like that.. I’m sure the graphic designer for this packaging didn’t make them THAT rude without reason. Comon, honestly, think about it..
And to say a child wouldn’t notice it.. No shit,
if you guys had done your research you’d know all about subliminal messaging in marketing.
Sexual orientation has always been advertised even in childrens programmes to adverts and products..
Things like this do seem funny, but there’s always a bigger picture, there’s always a reason.
And you’re all blindly disregarding it. “well i didn’t notice it so.. meh”
lol@Flap…you have been studying the subject!
Zamurazi – OK I admit if you work in a boring job like illustrating sweet wrappers you’d probably want to incorporate dodgy subliminal images just to relieve the soul-crushing tedium. I worked in a santa’s grotto manufacturing warehouse where the lead sculptor would deliberately try to turn his snowy mountaintops into something vaguely phallic just because there’s only so much saccharine cuteness you can take on these jobs without going nuts.
But if kids are going to notice it, they probably weren’t that naive to begin with, and if they don’t notice it, it’s shooting youself in the foot to start drawing their attention to it. If dad wanted to make his point heard he should’ve simply written a snotty letter to Haribo, not had it out with the shopkeeper then and there in front of the kids.
@ Zamurazi – I think you need to loosen up a bit…
Maybe a Turkish Delight?
AHAHAHA!! Its a childs wrapper for gods sake!!!
Hey, this guy called his kids Benjamin and Ofelia. What did you expect?
1. what’s wrong about sexual encounters? Isn’t it a normal natural function?
2. A “carnal encounter” means an encounter of the flesh, as far as I am concerned fruit (or vegetable for that reason) can’t be carnal, or else a “carnivore” and a “vegeterian” would actually be synonyms.
3. I imagine that the same logic can apply to my books being firmly stack next to eachother on my shelves. they seem to rather enjoy it and this would make any library seem like an orgy scene.
Just the fact that faces and limbs are added to inanimate objects to make them more apealing doesn’t make them mammals.
And also, again, really: What ‘s so wrong about a sexual encounter between a lemon and a lime? Subliminally promoting interspecies coitus?
God knows what he’d say about THIS…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck14LKBI9GM
the man who coplained is a absolute cunt if there was a picture of a cock going in to a fanny fair enough buts its 2 fruits to a child it just looks like there having fun this man really really really needs to get a grip
I saw this in The Sun weeks ago and I did smile. There’s no too ways about it, it IS quite funny! But some of the comments I’ve read here are even funnier!
LC x
well this proves it- people will find smut everywhere- get your minds out the gutter folks!
Also…What did he expect? They’re passion fruit flavour ; )
This guy needs to get his eyes tested and get with the programme – we eat Maoam at work all the time and noticed a long long time ago that the pictures could be seen as a little rude. How come he has only just noticed this?! I think it’s only meant as a bit of fun and the kids wouldn’t notice anyway.
if they think thats bad they obviously haven’t seen that clip of rainbow from the 80′s with the twangers. and that was for preschoolers.
Someone pointed this out ages ago and the packaging is a little dodgy. O_o But you don’t complain to the shop manager! What on earth is he/she supposed to do about it?!
Enuff with the Lemons already, lol…what´s up with this blog and lemons? for g sake?
Thats so funny
To be honest, I didn’t even see anything in them untill my friend pointed it out ot me, but nobody looks at wrappers that closely really.
‘My wife became quite distressed and had to sit down in the car park’!!! ROFL.
No, Zamurazi is totally right about subliminal messaging. This is clearly an attempt to create a massive fetish in this vulnerable generation of innocent children. When they hit their teens, they’ll have this urge to dress as fruit and… well, you know. Anyway, the point is, fruit costume manufacturers will be rolling in it. I bet their facial expressions will match Mr Lime’s quite closely, too.
Hes complaining to THE SUN about PORN. You couldn\’t write this sh!t!
LOL, it’s harmless he obviously has a ‘dirty’ mind. Looks like a few little pieces of fruit having a nice time with each other.
Haha, me and my friends used to laugh at these sweets a few years back because of the rude pictures!
Little kids wouldn’t really notice, but it gave us a laugh when we were 16.
what kind of man sees filth in sweet wrapers takes alot of the brain to shout about something your clueless about
SGC – Yep that’s the power of suggestion alright… I already feel like a total fruit
I would not have thought of sexual actions seeing this image but hey .. apparently some see this different (or not). I don’t know how fruit does have sex, but i thought i was not that way. And kids .. they probably just see fruity things having fun, rolling around.
Can just picture it:
Mr Simpleton ‘ Excuse me young chap, I would like to make conversation with the proprietor of this establishment.’
Shop worker ‘ You what? Oh you want to speak to the boss?’
Owner of shop ‘ Yes what do you want?’
Mr Simpleton ‘ I am rather shocked at the explicit pictures deplicted upon this sweet wrapper, my innocent children Benjiman Bartholemew Jr III and Ofilia Beatrice Magdelena have just had their innocent minds corrupted by this sweet. I demand that you remove them from sale at this establishment at once, or else I will take out my leather glove and slap you across the face.’
Mrs Simpleton ‘ Simon I am feeling rather giddy and am coming all over in a hot flush!’
Mr Simpleton ‘ Cordellia, you had better go and sit down in the car park, I will call Jeeves and ask
him to pick you up.’
Shop owner ‘ You are mad, now get out of my shop and don’t come back you bunch of loonies!’
Mr Simpleton ‘ You haven’t heard the end of this old chap, I will be writting a letter to my MP as well Mary Whitehouse. Come on Benjamin and Ofilia, lets leave this shop of ill repute and never darken it’s doorstep again.’
Benjamin and Ofilia ‘ Oh Dad, there you go again embaressing us again in public, why do you think we don’t like you taking us into town!!!’
Haha am I the only one who would quite like a little cartoon inter-fruit porn on my sweets? That would cheer me up before I even took the wrapper off.
Yeah I totally agree with the comments about Mrs Simpkins, and feel a little sorry for her, too. She’s probably just quietly praying to herself that he doesn’t realise “fruit” could be a euphemism for food of a homosexual persuasion.
On the plus side, at least you can guarantee the lemon, lime and cherry are all getting their 5 a day. Bit odd the other cherry is just watching though…
The story alone was funny enough; now we’ve got all these fantastic comments!
Yes! I worked out how to do the emoticons!
Pleased!
I believe you will find this particular act of fruitiness in the Karma Citrus – it’s a lemon-entry position that some find a-peel-ing?
Ahermmm…
But the fruit do look like they’re shagging. Why would that be good on a sweet wrapper?
Oh oh oh! What Gaz said reminded me:
http://www.ecartilage.co.uk/wellcome_poem_2.swf
from a collaboration I did for the Wellcome Collection last year.
Click “Truth Wellcome’s” then “Sex Truth” (and obviously then explore as much as you want). Okay, blatant self-promotion, but it’s relevant!
I like the fact that if you have a cherry Maoam, you’re guareteed to see a three way!!!!
i think this says more about the man then the sweet wrappers. i love maoams and have NEVER seen the fruits on the wrapper in that way! what a weirdo! i Lol’d at “my wife became quite distressed and had to sit down in the car park.” hahaha! imagine her aghast sweeping her brow with her hand.
theyre obviously not right in the head for spelling Ophelia wrong anyway.
HaHa! It’s all in the eyes of the beholder…
Lol, me and my friends have noticed that for years and wondered why no-one said anything about it
It’s just amazingly funny 
Look – it’s simple. The fruits are obviously fucking. Has no-one ever watched Saturday morning kids tv if they don’t see that the target audience won’t understand the ‘subtleties’ of the ‘something for the grown-ups’ layer?
And also what Dmaco said. How sheltered a life does the woman have to have lived if she needed to sit down in the car park after getting so distressed about it? Madness. Utter bloody madness
that man needs to be prosecuted for such a dirty mind towards his kids!
I never noticed this until I read this.I have been eating these sweets for YEARS, but I never thought about it.After all,it’s just fruit?
When you put your mind to it,I guess you can find a dirty image in everything.
To be honest,at first sight I would say the fruits are eating eachother,but now I find this very funny
I’m shocked for this guy to have such dirty and sexual imagination.
I feel sorry for this guy.
The fruits are just innocently playing with each other like any normal kids!!
Like 2 puppies playing and teasing with each other.
I don’t see anything pornographic from these Maoam packaging design.
I find it joyful and happy and perfect for kids by giving them excitement of wanting to open the wrapper quickly to enjoy the taste of this product.
Haribo must’ve had a great laugh reading his bizarre complaints as well as feeling sorry for his dirty sexual mind.
‘A carnal encounter?’ What a charmer, his wife is so lucky. “Don’t forget dear, we’re scheduled for a carnal encounter this evening.”
I hope the next sweets in the MAOAM range will have the lemon squirting its juice.