Remember These Snack Foods from the '90s?
By Kim Holmes, Bon Appétit
Anyone who grew up in the 1990s knows just how good kids had it back then: legit Saturday morning cartoons, pogs, L.A. Lights, Oregon Trail for the Apple II, and of course, the raddest snack foods known to mankind. Containing enough sugar to power a small city and colors not found in nature, these snacks probably weren't the healthiest options out there, but man, were they ever good. Here are 20 snacks that make us nostalgic for the Clinton era. Check out our list and let us know what snacks you miss from the 90s.
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Dunkaroos: Let's be honest: all we cared about was the frosting. The cookies just got in the way.
Surge: An "extreme" soft drink that was somehow an even more unnatural yellow color than Mountain Dew. The can looked like something straight out of Nickelodeon's What Would You Do?, which was of course, a major selling point. With an in-your-face tag line like "Feed the Rush," we felt totally hardcore chugging can after can at home on Saturday night watching SNICK. Coca Cola discontinued the drink in 2002. It is truly missed.
Doritos 3D: These tasted and looked like the offspring of a Bugel and Dorito, which is to say, they didn't taste as good as a Dorito.
Butterfinger BBs: With Bart Simpson as its spokescartoon, this bite-size candy tried to appeal to the wannabe prankster in all of us. Ultimately, we only ended up pranking ourselves when the obnoxiously crispity-crunchity-peanut-buttery candy sealed our mouths shut.
Airheads: These chewy, tangy snacks had the consistency of Silly Putty and came in flavors like cherry, lemonade, watermelon, green apple, strawberry, blue raspberry, cola, and the always-prized "white mystery."
SnackWells Devil's Food Cookies: These dry cakes were dipped in marshmallow and chocolate and tasted like cardboard, but who cared: We could eat an entire box in one sitting because they were fat free. Naturally, we were baffled when we had to shop for clothes in the husky section. We blame genetics.
Bubble Tape: The gum for sugar-crazed kids who could never be satisfied with one measly stick. Never mind that it lost its flavor the moment you started chewing it, there was a full six feet of it. The sheer mind boggling length of Bubble Tape (twice your height! Two Fruit by the Foots!) kept us coming back for more.
Pop Qwiz: Artificially colored food is superior to food in its natural-hued state. Fact.
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Bagel Bites: "Pizza in the mornin' / pizza in the evenin' / pizza at suppertime...when pizza's on a bagel, you can eat pizza anytime!" We still can't believe our parents let us get away with this.
Gushers: The king of "fruit" snacks. Gushers were so amazing that they didn't even have to take on the shape of an animal, spaceship, or cartoon character. If you had a pack of these in your lunchbox, life was good.
Oreo O's: Eating Oreo O's for breakfast just felt...wrong. Luckily, we got over that feeling pretty quickly. Although Oreo O's (otherwise known as "The Greatest Thing Ever") were discontinued in the U.S. in 2007, they are apparently still being sold in South Korea. Someone book us a flight to Seoul, stat!
Push Pops: Without question the most unsanitary candy of the '90s, Push Pops came in a lipstick-like tube that theoretically allowed you to save your candy for later. Sadly, the second the candy came in contact with saliva, it glued itself to the inside of the tube, rendering the entire contraption completely useless. This in no way affected our desire for Push Pops.
Planters P.B. Crisps: We still miss these sweet, peanut-shaped wafers, filled with creamy peanut butter. Apparently we're not alone: There are numerous online petitions and groups dedicated to bringing back P.B. Crisps. Alas, Kraft has no plans to re-release them. Nuts.
Sodalicious: These "fruit snacks" came in Root Beer, Cream Soda, Orange, Cherry, Cherry Cola, Cola, Lemon-Lime, and Grape flavors and were shaped like tiny soda bottles and mugs. That's sort of like calling a Slim Jim a "vegetable snack," but hey, we'll take it.
Orbitz: This short-lived soft drink contained small balls of colored gelatin suspended in fruit-flavored soda. Marketed as a "texturally enhanced alternative beverage" from Planet Orbitz, its cough-syrup taste was too out-of-this-world for most earthlings.
To see more snack foods from the 1990s, visit bonappetit.com.
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