The other day I remembered something cool from way back when. Does anyone remember the gum that they sold back in the late 80’s that came in flavors of popular drinks such as A & W Root Beer and Cherry 7up (there were about two ore three other flavors, but I don’t remember what they were). The gum pieces came in half inch squares, and on the inside was sweet flavored syrup that tasted like what ever flavor it was. I haven’t seen it for years, so I am assuming they took it off the market a long time ago.
So what candy do you all remember that has been discontinued?
Wig-Wag.
I loved wig-wags. They were, for lack of a better description, a few long strips of caramel covered in chocolate. Kinda braided together but not really.
Mmmm now I want to go to the saturday matinee and see a really bad Disney movie, eat popcorn and wig-wags and pop through a piece of red licorice.
One of the best gifts I’ve ever given is a box of “groovy candies.” This company used to be called “Hard to Find Candy From the 60s” and that’s exactly what it was: a box of candy like the types you’re writing about.
They have a website, and I realize it’s frowned upon to put a commercial link up, but I’m not telling you to buy from this company; the website alone is a trip down Candy Memory lane. I have no affiliation with this company other than having bought from them in the past.
I really miss Marathon bars. They were about a foot long and were braids of chocolate and caramel. Mmmmmmmmmm…
Took hours to eat one.
I also loved Black Cows. Sort of a Sugar Daddy prototype, only it had a thin coating of dark chocolate over the caramel. This too took about a month to finish.
And woe to the idiot child who tried to bite into one her mother had put in the 'fridge… OUCH!!! It’d have been easier to have bitten into a cement slab.
I never tried it, but back in the early 80s there was a chocolate weight-loss candy called “AYDS”–it was some sort of appetite suppressant. Talk about bad timing for picking that name.
Sold in the New York area, at least, in th 1960s. It disappeared sometime in the 1970s, I think.
It came in flat “bars” that measured about 2" X 6" x 1/4" (I think there were small “rolls” of the traditional shape, as well). As the TV commercials told you, you took it in your open hand and SMACKed it down on a hard surface to fracture it into irregular bite-sized bits. (This didn’t work well on really hot summer day, when it partially melted.) The wrapper was painted aluminum foil, and if you didn’t get it all off of a partially melted bar you found out when you bit down on it. It came in a variety of flavors – banana, chocolate, various fruit flavors – but, purist that I was, I alwats ate vanilla. It would probably pull out all of my fillings if I tried to eat some today. But I haven’t seemn it in over a quarter of a century.
In the late 70s, my brother and I were into Reggie Bars – named for and advertised by Reggie Jackson. I don’t even think we liked the candy that much, but if Reggie Jackson told us to eat them, why, who were we to do otherwise?
I remember these, too, but they go much further back than the early 80’s. My next door neighbor was just about addicted to these things when I was nine or ten, so I’m thinking they came out in the late 60’s or early 70’s.
I think drinking coffee with them got going, IIRC.
Marathon Bars sound like they are the same thing as Wig-Wags. Thank you, SilkyThreat. Mmmm. Gotta go see if they’re at the site.
And my mom took those “Ayds” things in the mid-70s, you had to take them with coffee. Me being about five at the time, I had to try them… they were icky.
When I was in kindergarden I used to have this soda flavored gummy snacks. I dont think these are the same as in the first post. They came in a box with little pouches that contained a mixed assortment of coca cola,sprite,etc flavored gummy bottles . They were about 1 inch tall and had a powdered coating. I havent seen them in years:(
Also not a candy but does anybody remember Pop Tarts Cereal? I used to eat those like theres no tomorrow. I also havent seen those.
In the mid 80’s there were two things I loved to eat, neither of which lasted long.
One was the Heaven(or Heavenly) bar, which was a think bar of cholate that had air beaten into it, so it had the oddest texture to it. nestle makes something similar now, but it’s hard to find.
The other thing, which wasn’t quite candy, was a type of granola bar with this vanilla nouget center…boy were those ever good.
That would be the “Aero” bar. They do indeed have an amazing texture, and you really can’t avoid them when in Canada. Have matt_mcl or some other doper from the frozen north send you some.