15 Discontinued Snacks We'd Trade Our Souls For

Crystal Pepsi promised all the classic cola taste in a clear, caffeine-free beverage that captured the quirky aesthetic of early nineties marketing. Launched in 1992, it enjoyed an initial surge of curiosity before public enthusiasm quickly cooled off. The drink was officially pulled in 1993, though nostalgia campaigns brought it back for limited promotional runs decades later.

Sources: Wikipedia

Orbitz intrigued fruit juice lovers with colorful edible jelly spheres floating freely inside its lava-lamp style bottle. Released by the Clearly Canadian company in 1997, the beverage was as much a visual novelty as a liquid treat. Poor sales and consumer hesitation over drinking suspended gel balls led to its quick departure from shelves the following year.

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Butterfinger BB's converted the iconic crunchy peanut butter candy bar into bite-sized spherical snacks coated in chocolate. Promoted heavily by Bart Simpson starting in 1992, the movie theater favorite was legendary for melting instantly on your fingers. Nestlé pulled the product in 2006 due to manufacturing and melting issues, despite a passionate fan following.

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Dunkaroos defined cafeteria snack trading in the nineties with its combination of kangaroo-branded cookies and sweet frosting dip. Manufactured by General Mills starting in 1990, kids loved custom-dipping every cookie into rainbow sprinkles or chocolate spread. US distribution quietly fizzled out around 2012 before a high-profile nostalgic comeback in 2020.

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Surge entered the soda arena in 1997 as Coca-Cola's high-octane, bright green answer to Mountain Dew. Packed with heavy citrus flavor and extra caffeine, it became an extreme sports staple supported by high-energy TV commercials. Dropping sales led to its initial retirement in 2003, though intense fan petitions prompted Amazon and regional retail re-releases years later.

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Jell-O Pudding Pops brought frozen, velvety pudding on a stick to freezer aisles across North America throughout the eighties. Their distinct icy exterior coating gave way to smooth chocolate, vanilla, or swirl centers that sold in massive quantities. Rising production costs and shifting corporate licensing arrangements caused them to vanish from stores by the early nineties.

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Squeezit made fruit drink consumption an interactive sport with its squeezable plastic bottles topped by twist-off plastic character heads. General Mills introduced the brightly colored juice drinks in 1985, featuring playful flavor characters on every bottle. As lunchbox trends shifted toward healthier options, sales steadily declined until the line was discontinued in 2001.

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Wonder Ball delivered maximum excitement by surrounding small candies or trinkets inside a thin hollow milk chocolate shell. Originally launched in the late nineties, the treat had consumers humming its catchy broadcast commercials while cracking open the chocolate sphere. Safety concerns over choking hazards led to reformulations, and the product eventually faded out before sporadic small-batch revivals.

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Hi-C Ecto Cooler took over grocery store shelves in 1989 as a promotional tie-in for the animated Ghostbusters franchise. Featuring the green ghost Slimer on the box, the neon green orange-tangerine drink outlived its original tie-in mandate by a decade. Coca-Cola rebranded the flavor in 2001 before discontinuing it entirely, returning only for brief Ghostbusters movie promotional events.

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Altoids Sours shook up the candy aisle in 2001 by trading traditional breath mints for mouth-puckering sour hard candies packed in round tins. Flavors like citrus and mango delivered a powerful sour punch that won over adventurous snackers everywhere. Low sales and reports of mouth irritation led Mars and Wrigley to discontinue the line in 2010.

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Oreo O's turned America's favorite sandwich cookie into a crunchy chocolate ring breakfast cereal in 1997. Created through a joint venture between Post Cereals and Kraft Foods, it allowed kids to start their morning with legit cookie crunch. Corporate split-ups led to its US retirement in 2007, though fan demand prompted a nationwide resurrection in 2017.

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Vault burst onto the scene in 2005 as a hybrid citrus soda designed to drink like a soft drink while packing the kick of an energy drink. Coca-Cola aggressively marketed the heavily caffeinated green beverage to teens and young adults with memorable action-packed ads. The brand was phased out in 2011 when the company decided to re-focus attention on Mello Yello.

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Hershey's Swoops hit snack aisles in 2003 offering chocolate sculpted into Pringles-style curved potato chip shapes inside rigid plastic containers. Available in varieties like Reese's Peanut Butter and York Peppermint Pattie, they offered a satisfying snap in every slice. Consumer confusion over whether they were chips or candy contributed to weak sales, causing them to disappear by 2006.

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Pepsi Blue launched in 2002 as a bright electric blue berry-flavored cola intended to captivate young soda drinkers. Positioned as a berry cola fusion, it generated major buzz with heavy TV commercials and extreme sports sponsorships. Taste test backlash and declining sales forced PepsiCo to discontinue the drink in North America by 2004, though it returned for a brief summer release in 2021.

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Planters P.B. Crisps debuted in 1992 featuring crisp graham wafer shells shaped like peanut pods and filled with smooth peanut butter cream. The addictively crunchy texture made them an immediate pantry hit throughout the mid-nineties. Planters inexplicably discontinued the snack line in 1995, leaving behind a dedicated cult following that continually petitions for its return.

Sources: Wikipedia