Top 10 Nostalgic Snacks
By Andy Bartsch
If there’s one thing your old buddy Andy loves in this world, it’s food. My scale can back me up on that. Another thing I love is nostalgia, and what’s more nostalgic than the snack foods that are (mostly) no longer on the shelves but we still have a yearning for decades later? These are the ones I personally miss the most. I should also add I was diagnosed with diabetes in the mid 90s, and as a result I didn’t get to eat a ton of sweets after that. So you won’t see some obvious things like Surge on this list.
10. Dunkaroos
What sounds better than cookies with frosting? How about an animated kangaroo handing them out in plastic blue trays? These trays were divided into two sections: One for the cookies, the other with vanilla or chocolate frosting you could dunk the cookies in. Of course my biggest complaint was there never enough frosting! I would use it all up on the first two cookies and then what am I left with? Just cookies! Who want’s that? Speaking of cookies...
9. Cookies & Cream Twix
Believe it or not, there was once a time when Twix came in flavors other than caramel. There was also peanut butter (which I think you can still get), chocolate fudge, and cookies and cream. Peanut butter was fine, but how many other candy bars have chocolate and peanut butter in them? Too many! I never had the chocolate fudge before. In fact, I didn’t even know there was a chocolate fudge Twix until I did research for this article. How would that taste, anyway? It’s already made of chocolate! What’s the point? But the cookies and cream Twix, that was a given! And it was delicious!
8. Pop Qwiz
Colored microwave popcorn! Yeah, that’s all it was. It wasn’t really all that special. In fact, I don’t remember it tasting that well. Even when it perfectly microwaved, it still tasted like burnt Styrofoam peanuts. But I’ll be damned if the advertising didn’t make me want to go back out and get another box! Just look at the commercial! It’s soaking with 90s nostalgia! The only thing missing is a fish-eye lens, and someone in sunglasses crossing their arms while saying, “Grown-ups just don’t get it!”
7. Grizzly Chomps
You know what sounds like a good idea for a snack? Cupcakes that an animated bear in a Hawaiian shirt already took a bite out of! They weren’t too bad. In fact, there wasn’t anything that special about them other than the perfectly shaped bite marks on them. So why put them on the list? Because Mike Lunsford told me to.
6. Ecto Cooler
If you’re going to make a list of nostalgic foods that need to make a comeback, you had damn well better put Ecto Cooler on it! I would gladly destroy my blood sugar levels for a cold glass of Ecto Cooler! When The Real Ghostbusters ended, Hi-C knew they couldn’t give up such a hot selling item, so they repackaged it as Shoutin’ Orange Tangerine, complete with a set of screaming green lips on the box. Unfortunately, without Slimer on the box people weren’t that interested, because Shoutin’ Orange Tangerine was discontinued in the mid 90s. But not all hope is lost, for the recipe for Ecto Cooler (NOT Shoutin’ Orange Tangerine) can easily be found with the use of a simple Google search.
5. Shark Bites
Here's a fun tip: When you do a Google image search for "Shark Bites", unless you're looking for pictures of people with chunks of their bodies missing, make sure you specify that you're looking for a FRUIT SNACK!
If someone had told me sharks tasted like this, I would be hunting down Jaws’s endangered ass right now! Yeah, there wasn’t anything that made these fruit snacks stand out from the others, but the idea of chowin’ down on a shark sounded too... “jawesome”!
4. Koala Yummies
I’m kind of cheating here, because these are still fairly easy to find under a few different names (one of which is Hello Panda), but these delicious cookie snacks from Japan were my jam back in ‘92! Had I known then what I know about koalas now, I probably would have never tried them! Oh yeah, koalas are sooo cute! Yeah, they LOOK cute, but do a NATGEO search on them!
Seriously, I’ll wait...
"Go ahead... Look it up... Find out what we eat... I dare you!"
Lost your appetite, didn’t you? Can you believe they EAT THAT STUFF? And they’re filled with-- UGH!!! Panda’s are awesome! You cannot dis a pandy burr! Look at how cute they are! When I become a millionaire I’m getting myself a panda. I’m gonna name it Mitch, put glasses on it and teach him to tell jokes.
3. Pudding Roll Ups
Yes, there was once a time when you could eat chocolate pudding fruit roll-ups! Why are these discontinued? Even tiny Seth Green dressed as Bogart endorses them! Bring them back, Betty Crocker!
2. WWF Ice Cream Bars
An ice cream sammich on a stick! How could it be any better? Well get rid of those pesky chocolate chips and put a picture of the Ultimate Warrior on them! The Warrior commands you to go to the ice cream truck, and demand cold, delicious treats that were brought down from the heavens! THEN, once you consume the elixir will you finally be one with the Warrior!!!
1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pies
My personal favorite! When Hostess went bankrupt and announced their return as, “The sweetest comeback ever” and did NOT bring back TMNT pies, I called major shenanigans! A Hostess pie with vanilla pudding and green flaky crust! They didn’t even have the courtesy to get rid of the green crust and simply sell it as a vanilla pudding pie. For shame, Hostess! It’s pulling crap like this that made you go bankrupt in the first place! The TMNT are as popular as they were in the late 80s! Now is the perfect time to being back the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pies! If not... Well, let’s just say I have a quartet of green friends who know how cut dudes down! No, not the Turtles. They’re fictional characters. Just a bunch of crazy guys with a lot of body paint.
Was there anything I missed? Of course there is! Let us know in the comments what snack foods you miss from your childhoods! Be sure to also share this article with all your buddies on your favorite social media website!