They just don't make candy like they used to.
From gum made into weird shapes to ultra-sour treats, the candy from our childhood brings
us an instant rush of nostalgia.
Here are the retro candies we miss the most.
Bazooka gum was hard as a rock, and the flavor lasted less than a minute, but what else could
you buy with the five cents in your pocket left over from lunch?
It made your jaw ache, but those few seconds of flavor, and the resulting bubbles you could
blow, were totally worth it.
Plus, there was the novelty of the comics inside, featuring the adventures of Bazooka
Joe and his trademark eyepatch.
That alone made this classic candy a favorite of kids everywhere.
"Jerry, don't do that.
That is so annoying."
"Bazooka Joe!"
Even though this classic gum, which was first sold in the '40s, is still on shelves in some
stores, it's virtually unrecognizable.
The red, white, and blue packaging has been replaced with pastel colors, and those comics
we loved have been gone since 2012.
In their place, you'll now find puzzles and brain teasers, with codes to unlock online
video games.
There was probably no candy parents hated more than Whistle Pops, the sucker that actually
was a working whistle when you first unwrapped it.
As some respite for adult ears everywhere, the holes closed up and the whistle stopped
functioning not long after it hit your tongue.
"It's a lollipop with a [whistle sound] on the top."
Though the original Whistle Pops were discontinued, Chupa Chups has reintroduced them under the
name Melody Whistle Pops.
Despite their coolness, however, they're nowhere near as widely available as they were once
upon a time.
You can still find them if you're willing to look, but we're still waiting for a wider
comeback.
In the early '90s, there was one surefire way to prove your toughness to your friends:
the Cry Baby Challenge.
The packaging claimed the extreme sourness of this bubble gum lasted about 40 seconds,
but it seemed so much longer than that when it was your cheeks taking the beating.
You ruled the playground if you put more than one in your mouth at the same time, but you
couldn't let anyone see the tears in your eyes.
Kids still love to test themselves with sour candy, but unfortunately Cry Baby is no longer
the king of the playground.
It's hard to find Cry Baby gum today, maybe because today's parents remember their own
playground pain and don't want their kids going through the same thing.
There was literally nothing satisfying about eating candy buttons.
All the fun was in mindlessly peeling the brightly colored sugar dots off the paper.
Unfortunately, that meant you usually ate about as much paper as you did candy.
Candy Buttons by Necco disappeared when the company went out of business in 2018.
The new owners are making the Candy Buttons on Necco's old equipment, but they're not
as widely available as they once were, and they're nowhere near as cool.
If you have a craving for these retro candies, your best bet is a specialty shop or vintage
candy store.
Kids today just don't have the patience for Jaw Busters, which were first sold in 1919.
Willy Wonka's Everlasting Gobstoppers had nothing on these candies.
You didn't chew them.
You didn't really suck on them, either.
You just kind of held them in your mouth until they disappeared or your cheek went numb,
whichever happened first.
Plus, the flavor tended to wear off after about five minutes, so you sometimes forgot
it was even in there until you started drooling on yourself.
Did anyone ever actually get to the end of one of these everlasting Jaw Buster candies?
We sure didn't, and we'd like them to make a comeback so we can try again.
Once upon a time, you could get two different kinds of candy cigarettes at your local drug
store.
One was pink bubble gum wrapped in paper, and the other was hard, chalky white candy.
Plus, they were usually lined up next to bubble gum cigars and shredded bubble gum that was
supposed to look like chewing tobacco.
All designed to make you feel like a grown-up as you worked on your daily sugar intake.
Of course, that was back before the big anti-smoking pushes, and before studies began to come out
linking candy cigarettes to smoking as an adult.
Although plans to ban candy cigarettes entirely in the U.S. never quite followed through,
the damage was done.
Today, only a few companies still manufacture the treat, but now under the name of Candy
Sticks.
Every time a child of the '90s saw that well-known paint can on a gas station counter, their
mom knew she was in trouble.
If they had a dime in their pocket, they were getting one of those pieces of bubble gum.
Their mouth, lips, and probably hands would be brightly colored within minutes.
And yes, that was the entire point of this candy.
It's got the word "splash" in its name for a reason.
We're pretty sure parents everywhere rejoiced when Tongue Splashers went off the market,
but you can still buy something similar today under the name Dubble Bubble Painterz.
It's just not as cool when it doesn't come in a paint can.
To be completely honest, when Ouch!
Bubble Gum was popular, it wasn't about the actual chewing of the gum.
The taste was nothing special, and some of us may have actually thrown away the gum as
soon as it was opened.
No, it wasn't the gum that was wanted.
It was the package it came in.
Those awesome tin cases made to look like bandage containers were used to store everything
from change, to rocks, to actual bandages.
Sometimes you'd even refill it with bubble gum that actually tasted good.
Hubba Bubba still makes Ouch! bubble gum, but the tin case is gone, rendering it completely
useless in the minds of many.
If you ask a child of the '90s what the best flavor of Laffy Taffy was, there's no question
they'll tell you Sparkle Cherry.
Something about that crunch of the glitter sprinkles and the sweetness of the stretchy
taffy made this a delightfully satisfying treat.
"Each chewy piece is exactly 50% laffy and 50% taffy!"
Unfortunately, while Laffy Taffy is still widely available, it's not very easy to find
Sparkle Cherry in stores anymore.
You can still order it in bulk online if you get a major craving, but it's not as affordable
as it once was.
These days, you can expect to pay around $2 for each stick of Sparkle Cherry Laffy Taffy.
Yes, Runts are still widely sold in stores, but the Runts sold in stores today are nothing
like the Runts of our childhoods.
They're still in the cute, fruit shapes we remember, but the less-observant Runts fan
might not notice that the shapes and flavors aren't all the same.
The original Runts came in orange, cherry, banana, strawberry, and lime.
Throughout the years, they've added and removed different flavors, and today they also include
apple and grape, and lime is no longer available.
These candy bars were only around for a little while.
They debuted in 1989, and they vanished in 1990.
Sure, the commercials were vaguely annoying, but we were willing to forgive for this delicious
treat.
So, what happened?
Some say the family behind parent company Mars had something against peanut butter,
so they pulled the product despite its success.
We don't know if that's true or not, but even if Mars execs don't like peanut butter, they
could have left some for the rest of us.
We still miss that combination of salty peanut butter, crispy, crunchy cookie bits, and chocolate
coating.
"PB Max: We mean peanut butter!"
Never before has marketing been so honest as it was with Garbage Can-dy.
They came in little plastic garbage cans, just like the name suggests.
When you popped the top, you found hard-but-powdery, tart-but-sweet candy in shapes like bottles,
shoes, and fish bones.
You can still get them from Canada, but they're not quite the same.
The original candy came from Topps, and was the brainchild of the same person responsible
for Garbage Pail Kids.
There definitely seemed to be a theme, and we do miss those little garbage cans.
They were handy for some post-indulgence toy storage, and while we might be more likely
to keep paper clips in them today, they were still undeniably neat.
Astro Pops had it all: they were sweet, lasted forever, and to a kid they seemed to be as
big as your head.
Plus, what kid doesn't love space?
You might not have known this when you were little, but Astro Pops had some serious space
cred.
They were invented in 1963 by some actual rocket scientists who quit their day jobs
and decided to make candy for a living.
They created special equipment to make the multi-colored, rocket-shaped pop, and completed
the career change of a lifetime.
Astro Pops were around for decades after their Space Race-era birth.
They were discontinued in 2004, but there's good news if you still have a craving.
A longtime Astro Pop fan negotiated the purchase of the rights to the candy in 2010.
After rebuilding all the specialty equipment needed to make them, Astro Pops were reborn.
You can find them in specialty candy shops now, and fingers crossed they'll be more widely
available someday.
You're familiar with Pop Rocks, right?
It's the candy that was fun as a kid and hurts your teeth as an adult.
Pop Rocks hit the shelves in 1976, and they were so popular that General Foods released
a spin-off candy called Space Dust.
Unfortunately, Space Dust was never as popular as its rocky counterpart.
It was essentially a more powdery version of Pop Rocks, but the combination of a distinctly
drug-like appearance and a name similar to Angel Dust meant that parents weren't fans
of it.
Space Dust was renamed Cosmic Candy, but the original name still haunted it.
The hype over Space Dust made it super popular for a while, but the whole thing just sort
of fizzled out.
Here's a fascinating footnote, though: there's a good reason for the space theme.
Pop Rocks creator William Mitchell also invented Tang, the orange drink made for astronauts
that was later marketed to families.
Bonkers were everything that candy should be, including fun.
If you're old enough to remember Saturday morning cartoons, you'll probably remember
the commercials.
They starred boring-looking people who eat a piece of Bonkers Candy, then get hit with
a giant piece of fruit, much to their amusement.
While it didn't exactly make sense, it definitely made an impression.
The soft, vanilla-and-fruit chews were hugely popular in the 1980s and 1990s, until even
they were eventually discontinued
Fans were devastated, but there's good news.
Bonkers Fruit Candy isn't back yet, but there's hope for a revival.
In 2018, LEAF Brands announced they were almost ready to bring this old classic back to the
market.
They not only purchased the rights to the candy, but tracked down the original inventor
to get some inside information about how Bonkers is made.
They dipped back into the old formulas, and even took a crack at redesigning the machinery
specially made to churn out Bonkers.
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