Food
Gabbi Shaw
- Not all candy is created equal.
- For every smash success like Snickers, you have discontinued candies like Life Savers Holes.
- Whether they suffered from low sales or recipe changes, these snacks are impossible to get today.
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The Wonder Ball was outlawed due to choking hazards.
We'll never be over Wonder Balls. This chocolate ballusedto be filled with a plastic toy, but, due to choking concerns, Nestlé was forced to changethe center from toys to candy. This lasted until 2004, when Nestlé sold the Wonder Ball to the Frankford Candy & Chocolate Company, which chose to discontinue them.
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Cookies-N-Creme Bars weren't long for this world, but made a big impression.
Twix released two flavors in 1990: Cookies-n-Creme and Chocolate Fudge. However, onlyCookies-N-Creme inspireda petition and a Facebook pagebegging for its return.
Instead of the classic caramel inside, these bars featured a chocolate cookie surrounded by creme and a layer of chocolate. They wereonly around for a year.
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If you hated roasting marshmallows, Hershey S'mores bars were the candy for you.
Hershey's S'mores was the answer for anyone too lazy or too far from a campfire to make their own s'mores. The bars combined chocolate, marshmallow, and graham crackers into one prepackaged snack.
Sadly, this delicious candy bar didn't last too long, and was discontinued shortlyafter its 2003 creation, most likely due to low sales. But the internet never forgets. There'sa Quora threadasking the important question: Why did this happen? There's alsoa Facebook pagededicated to getting these bars back on shelves and into our lives once more.
White chocolate isn't for everyone, which Nestlé learned the hard way with the Alpine White bar.
The Nestlé Alpine White bar was simple — just a white chocolate bar with almonds. Confusingly, Nestlé chose to market this bar as a more sophisticated "adult" chocolate bar. The '80s were a weird time.
The bar did have a solid amount of fans, and has a Facebook page dedicated to bringing it back25 years after it was discontinued in 1993 (it came out in '86).
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PB Max was taken away from us reportedly because the company's owners didn't like the taste of peanut butter.
PB Max was part of the Mars candy family, which includes classics such as Milky Way, Twix, and Snickers. The PB Max was essentially a cookie topped with peanut butter and oats, enveloped in milk chocolate. It was extremely popular, and estimated to have brought in $50 million during its short tenure in the '90s. They were rolled out in 1990and were gone by '94.
So why did Mars discontinue such a fan-favorite? According to a former Mars executive, the Mars family allegedly hated peanut butter, and thus shut it down.
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Hershey's Bar None couldn't survive a recipe change.
Hershey announced the Bar None in1987. Itconsisted of a cocoa wafer, chocolate filling, peanuts, and chocolate coating. Despite beingextremely popular as they were, Hershey decided toadd caramel to the recipe in 1992, and break the bar in half, similar to a Twix.
They werediscontinued in 1997. Today there's a petition to bring them back, and Iconic Candy (a company dedicated to reviving extinct candy) has replicated them.
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Summit Bars melted too easily, but were the perfect messy snack.
Summit Bars were marketed as both cookies and candy, since they were a combination of both — they were two wafers topped with peanuts and covered with chocolate.
A big problem with Summit Bars was that they melted too easily — people complained about needing to keep them in their freezers. Eventually, their recipe was rehauled to mixed success in 1983, and the bars disappeared entirely by the next year.
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Space Dust was similar to Pop Rocks, but couldn't overcome an unfortunate name choice.
General Foods introduced Space Dust in 1978, two years after the debut of Pop Rocks. Space Dust is basically what would happen if someone ground up Pop Rocks.
Parentscomplained that the name was too similar to Angel Dust (a drug), and worried about its safety — the creator of Space Dust even took out a full page ad to reassure parents, but Space Dust was eventually discontinued.
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Berries and Creme Starbursts will be forever remembered for their iconic commercials.
Even if you weren't a huge fan of the taste of Berries and Creme Starbursts, you were probably a huge fan of the 2007 commercial starring the "Little Lad" who sang and danced in celebration of his love for Berries and Cream.
The ad was so successful that it received praise from Advertising Age, has its own Facebook page, and is even considered a meme. It's unclear when and why Mars decided to get rid of this viral candy — people just noticed one day that they were gone. The Mars website has no mention of Berries and Creme anymore, but does adverstise classic Starbursts, Starbursts Minis, Starbursts Gummies, and Starburst Jellybeans.
Kinder Surprise eggs have been illegal in the US for 20 years, though they are available in Europe.
Illegal in the USsince the 1930sfor fear of presenting a choking hazard, a modified version recently hit shelves.Kinder Joy eggs feature the chocolate and plastic toy packaged separately.
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Bonkers had memorable commercials where old, dour looking people were brought to hysterics after eating them.
Bonkers were created by Nabisco in the '80s. They were a chewy candy with a fruit-flavored center, andbest-known for their commercials and their slogan, "Bonkers! Bonks you out." Bonkers were phased out by the '90s — after the commercials stopped running, their popularity waned.
In 2015, another candy company, Leaf Brands, announced that they had bought the rights to Bonkers, and were in the process of tracking down the original formula in order to recreate the original. As of 2018, Bonkers are still not for sale, but Leaf is moving closertowards making them available to the public.
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Life Savers Holes were Wrigley's attempt at not wasting a perfectly good piece of candy.
Life Savers Holes were introduced in the '90s, and were basically Life Savers, but in a non-ring form.
Life Savers Holes were plagued with problems. After being on the market for the second half of 1990, they were recalled for being choking hazards in January 1991. They re-appeared four months laterwith new packaging, but were eventually taken off shelves forever.
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Wonka Donutz were marketed towards "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," but much like the movie, didn't become a classic.
The only thing Wonka Donutz had in common with actual doughnuts were their shape. The Wonka version was a doughnut-shaped chocolate ring with a truffle-like interior and sprinkles.
The Donutz were released in 2005 to coincide with the "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" remake, but didn't stick around for much longer due to a lack of sales — though this petition suggests at least one person was passionate about them.
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Butterfinger BB's were promoted by Bart Simpson as a brand new way to eat Butterfingers.
According to a petition to bring Butterfinger BB's back, they were introduced to us sometime in the '90s.Roughly the shape and size of a marble, a Butterfinger BB had everything that a Butterfinger bar had, but distilled into one perfect bite.
Nestlé brought them back in 2009 as Butterfinger Bites, but, according to a petition hoping to bring back BB's, they just aren't the same.
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Garbage Can-dy had a punny name, but it was hard to sell candy shaped like trash.
Garbage Can-dy was created by Topps, which is the brand behind classic tongue-in-cheek schoolyard trading cards like Wacky Packages andGarbage Pail Kids. Garbage Can-dy, a candy that literally only appeals to children, wereplastic garbage cansfilled with sugary candy that was shaped like things you'd find in the trash — cans, bottles, and fish bones.
This candy was popular in the '80s, but production likely never picked up again after Toppsclosed its Pennsylvania factoryin 1996 due to low profits.
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Max Headroom candy is a great example of '80s nostalgia taken to a whole new level.
These Max Headroom candy dispensers are as '80s as it gets.Max Headroomwas "The World's first computer-generated TV host," even though he was actually a regular actor. His "artificial" look was achieved with prosthetic makeup and hand-drawn backgrounds.
Topps (the brand behind Garbage Pail Kids and Wacky Packages) decided to capitalize on the Headroom craze and createda candy dispenser shaped like his head, filled with sugary candy. Obviously, Headroom was more of a fad than a cultural phenomenon, and when his popularity faded, so did the need for Max Headroom candies. The candy (and his show) were only around from 1987 to 1988.
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Seven Up Bars were discontinued after Pearson's "sold the name exclusively to some unknown bottling company," aka 7 Up soda.
Years before "7 Up" meant soda, it meant candy. The Pearson candy companycreated Seven Up bars in 1951 — thename stemmed from the fact that the bars were split into seven bites, each featuring a different filling (cherry, coconut, caramel, fudge, jelly, maple, and Brazil nut).
Pearson's chose to discontinue the Seven Up in 1979 after selling the name to a bottling company, leading to the famed soda of the same name. But Pearson's website may give you hope:its timeline states that they "will never, ever make this candy again. Never. Unless we do."
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Marathon Bars moved across the pond and changed their name to Curly Wurly.
The allure of the Marathon bar came from its size — it was a full eight inches of caramel-covered chocolate (the wrapper even had a ruler, so you'd know). The Marathon gave kids the most bang for their buck because they'd last a verylong time.
The Mars Candy Company only made Marathon bars for eight short years (1971 to 1983) before taking them off the shelves for good due to underwhelming sales.
Thankfully, Cadbury makes their own version of the Marathon bar, called the Curly Wurly. But unless you're interested in importing your candy from the UK, you'll never see the Marathon bar again.
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Candilicious was Bubblicious' attempt at branching out of the bubble bum game.
Candilicious chews are essentially the same thing as Starbursts, but created by famed bubblegum company Bubblicious in 1988. Sadly, they were off the shelves soon after due to low sales, and now only live on in YouTube videos of the vintage commercials.
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Jumbo Nerds were the same as regular Nerds, but bigger.
As the name suggests, Jumbo Nerds were bigger, but also came in more flavors. That's why it's surprising that Jumbo Nerds didn't catch on — especially since Nerds are still one of the more popular candies on the market today.
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