The same candy shelf that produced Kazoozles also offered forth Nerds Rope.  I'm a fan of Nerds, and Nerds Rope has been out for ages, but I had never tried it.  Something about the idea struck me as too juvenile, even for me.  I never could stand that bubble gum tape, which was just regular bubble gum, except in an unusual format, and with a 20,000% price mark-up.

As a staunch advocate of Nerds, I was a little annoyed that Nerds Rope was apparently only available in "rainbow."  Meaning "a crazy mix of Nerds."  One big factor for the appeal of Nerds is the ability to choose your flavor.  Mixing all the Nerds flavors together breaks the canonical fact of Nerds.

I did a bit of Googling when I got home and learned that there are a few flavor-specific varieties of Nerds Rope.  But it's obviously not the big flagship product.  I suspect, based on the limited number of varieties, that this isn't a very popular seller in the Wonka candy line-up.

When I opened the package, the first thing that came out was a bunch of loose Nerds.  This is one of the salient features of the Rope: the Nerds keep falling off it.  If you're eating it as an adult, I suggest deploying a plate or napkin.  I'm still picking stray Nerds out from under my keyboard.

The rope in question is a stretchy, gummy sort of thing, a thin string of gelatin which is just barely visible inside the rope.  It seems to be cherry flavored, but maybe that's just an illusion caused by its bright red coloring.  

I'm actually impressed by how much you can flex and deform a Nerds Rope without having Nerds fall off.  I examined and toyed with my Nerds Rope far more than any sane person would have, and I have decided that this topographic flexibility is due to the strategic placement of the Nerds.  They have to have an optimal amount of space in between each Nerd, of approximately one millimeter.  

Too close together, and the Nerds bang up against each other and pop off when you flex the Rope.  That's what causes the Nerd shedding behavior.  This is usually seen only early on - after you've messed with it a bit, all the Nerds fall off that are going to, and you can move it around quite a lot without losing a Nerd.  The gelatin forming the center of the rope takes quite a lot of abuse, as well.  I was able to give a section five full twists before the rope finally fractured and parted.

I can only imagine the level of food science engineering that went into the design of the Nerds Rope.  Pity it isn't more popular, to help earn back all that trouble they went to in the design process.  

The Nerds Rope is definitely meant to be played with as much as eaten.  The wrapper suggests that you "Chew it!  Twist it!  Pull it!"  You can do all those things, and eat it too.