Jimmy Kimmel makes kids cry in viral Halloween YouTube challenge

US late-night talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel, on Halloween, issued a bold challenge to parents in the US: “Tell your kids you ate all their candy and post the reactions on YouTube”.

Whilst he, and the parents who took him up on the challenge, certainly must have known the reaction would be strong, that it would prove to be so funny was probably unexpected.

For the average American kid, Halloween is possibly the most important nights of the year.

It’s not the chance to dress in cute outfits that will have parents and adults “oohing and aahing” and snapping away “capturing memories” with their smartphones that gets them all worked up, but the expected loot of candy, as Americans call it.

After an evening’s “hard work” of traipsing up and down a neighbourhood Trick-Or-Treating, the morning clearly dawned for these kids with the delicious prospect of gorging out on candy. They, however, were not prepared to be told “I ate all your candy”.

As Kimmel says introducing the video, which has quickly gone viral, being viewed more than one-million times in just a day of being online, “I didn’t expect so much crying”.

While there is a lot of crying, there’s also a fair amount of exposition from the kids.

One, when asked if he hadn’t had enough candy the night before, emphatically replies, “NO! I only had like one bite of candy! Are you serious?”

The most memorable line of the entire clip, however, goes to his brother, who exclaims, “You sneaky mom!” Were he a bit older, he may have put it differently.