Slice Cola. I think we all remember it (and by "all" I mean us old people, and by "remember" I mean have a very slight recollection, mostly due to our age and our brains already being at max capacity with all this glorious pop culture stuff. Some things just have to be forgotten, such as short lived 80s sodas, and math.)
I think we all remember Orange Slice, and of course, Lemon Lime Slice (the OG), and possibly even that punishment we didn't deserve known as Apple Slice (I just threw up in my mouth a little).
But do you remember that there was a Cherry Cola Slice? I didn't. Not one bit. I tried to remember back and visualize a shopping trip with my mom......strolling down the soda aisle. That would have been back in the mid 80s.....years ago....I'd tell you exactly how long ago that was, but you know....math.
I think the funniest part of this old Newspaper ad is that they are touting how they beat Cherry Coke in a taste test. Maybe they should have been looking over their other shoulder, as Cherry Cola Slice was discontinued in 1988 due to the popularity of Cherry Pepsi.
Hind-sight is always 20-20...or 40-40.......or some other numbers?
Stupid math.
Thursday, October 3, 2019
I'm not deeeeaaaaaad............Just took a break. Happy Spooky month!
Product: Gatorade Sunbolt
Company: Quaker/Gatorade North America
Years: 1994
This product was brought to my attention by one of my favorite Podcasts, The Rad Years (check em out here, kids: https://radyears.com/ ).
Imagine a time, long ago, when there were no energy drinks. No Rockstar. No Monster. No Red Bull.
There were only 2 options if you wanted to feel awake and alert in the mornings: Get a good night sleep (Ha!) or drink a cup (or 6) of coffee. Oh, and cocaine. So there's 3 options, but not really.
Anyway, Gatorade saw that people loved their regular Gatorade, and the non-coffee drinkers were drinking it in the mornings to get all the vitamins and electrolytes as a pick me up before their big day of slam dunking basketballs and/or sitting in the cubicle next to Carl (No, I didn't see the big game last night, Carl). So they thought to themselves "Hey? Why not make a caffeinated version of what these people already love???!! It's like Gatorade....mixed with coffee! But not really. But really."
And so Sunbolt was born. It was more of a citrus drink...think Sunny D mixed with gatorade, mixed with caffeine. They also made a non-caffeinated version of the drink, for those people who actually did get a good night sleep the night before, but still wanted something to drink and for some reason couldn't track down orange juice, or regular Gatorade, or Sunny D, or water, or milk, or really, a vast array of liquids that are readily available to everyone at literally all times.
"Sure, there's other things we can drink, but were hip 20something in the mid 90's, dressing like extras from Friends. So for us, it's Sunbolt all the way, dude!!! Unless you've got any of that cocaine....If so, we'll take that."
Sunbolt was test marketed in the Baltamore/Washington DC area as well as the Philadelphia area.
It was sure to be a huge success!
(In my best Morgan Freeman voice.....ahem....)
"It was not a huge success."
GLUG....GLUG.....GLUG......
Sunbolt was marketed for about 3 months but never really expanded nationally.
It fizzled out and was soon forgotten about. But like Zima, I think that Sunbolt was 20 years ahead of it's time. The market now is saturated with caffeinated "morning drinks" for the non coffee crowd.
I'd love to go back and try Sunbolt. As a kid, I bet it was a rush to know you were getting all looped up on caffeine drinking what essentially looked like a bottle of OJ. Heck, I'd love to try it now.
Because sometimes you need to switch it up a bit, and a refreshing bottle of Sunbolt would be a nice change of pace from the the daily cups of coffee.
At least I've still got my Cocaine. (I kid...I kid...... )
Planters is jumping back into the retro/nostalgia market, bringing back Planters Cheese (I mean cheez) Balls and Planters Cheese (again, I mean cheez) Curls. Look for them in July wherever snacks are sold (so pretty much anywhere.....grocery stores, convenience stores, inconvenience stores (where they put stuff up on REALLY high shelves)).......
Are we seeing a retro revolution? Are companies finally realizing the amount of money they can make by tapping into our youth and our wallets? What other retro grocery items would you love to see return from the dead?
Ah, Sooper Kookies.
Who duesn't reemembr thees wunderfull kookies from Nahbisko?
"I doent", I'm shure yore saing.
Whitch is funne, becuse I sayd the saim thing.
Alright, I can't do it. I can't keep spelling this article wrong on purpose.
You see, I had this whole bit I was going to do based on the purposeful misspelling of the words "Sooper Kookies", but I just can't do it. Between you, me and spellcheck, it's just really starting to hurt my head.
So instead I'm going to do some real hard research................................................
Other then a few images from Dan Goodsell and poptartsbox on Flickr (check em both out!) I couldn't find much of anything. I did media searches over the last 50 years on newspapers, hoping to dig up an advert or something, but didn't find squat. Not a mention. All I know is they came in at least 3 flavors: Fudge Cream, Chocolate Cream, and Vanilla Cream. They were sort of a pop-tart, more or less. And that's about all I know.
They remynd me uv a cros beetween kookies and.......I can't do it. I just.....can't.....do it.
So I'm gonna pull the ol' "throw it back on the readers" trick, where I hope you can help me fill in the blanks.
Anyone remember these? Were there other flavors? Did they last more then one year?
Let me know in the comments below! Until then I'll file these under another mystery product without much history top be found.
Attention customers: Were running a special in our deli department this week - buy one pound of mashed potatoes with homestyle gravy, get a second pound for half off! This is a great bargain for all you potato lovers out there (and gravy lovers too, I suppose, which is in itself, is kind of weird.)
It's a whole truckload of awesome retro commercials from the 60's - 90's! Food! Cars! Video Games! PSAs! Cereal! A little bit of everything! Even Taco Ranch from Pillsbury!
So stop on by and check it out - I'll be adding new commercials daily as I work my way through my hundreds of hours of vintage video tapes of TV shows recorded with the original commercials.
We thank you for being not only a customer, but also a friend.
Product: Toasta Frozen Pizza
Company: Toasta Food Company
Years: 1971-?
So here's a product that I can't find much about, at all. I found this add while browsing some old newspapers. It seems that in the early to mid 70's there was a boom for at home personal pizza or some variation of them. There were Nabisco Poppins, Kellogg's had their Presto Pizzas, Buitoni had their Toasterinos, but here is one that I can only assume was a company (unsuccessfully) jumping on the bandwagon (though seeing that these were from the early 70's and the others came a little later, maybe this product was just ahead of it's time instead.)
Like I said, I don't know much about this product, except that TV Host and actor Art Linkletter was signed on as a celebrity sponsor of them, and even stared in a TV commercial for them (which I could not locate.....yet......)
Product: Slimmons Snacks (Various)
Company: The Richard Simmons Living Trust
Years: 1996-?
Only 6 years after the trainwreck known as Richard Simmon's Salad Spray (which I covered here), Mr. Simmons decided it was time to work out a new product and hopefully make some money while at the same time making people healthier. So in 1996, he rolled out his line of "Slimmons" snacks.
I must admit, I had never heard of these until this last weekend while stumbling across an image of the Buttery Toffee Popcorn online:
But as I dug a little deeper, I realized that Slimmons wasn't just popcorn, but an entire line of different healthy snacks (9 different items according to internet news clippings).
I dug around and found that one other item was Devil's Food Cookies, and my friend Jason Liebig over at CollectingCandy.com actually had a box:
But that's only 2 items of a supposed 9. There is also a photo of the Sourdough Pretzels floating around online......But what were the other items? This is what I could dig up:
1. Buttery Toffee Popcorn
2. Devil's Food Cookies
3. Sourdough Pretzels
4. Some sort of Cheese Flavored Puffed Corn (looking for image)
5. Some sort of chocolate candy bar (looking for image)
6. Rice Cakes (looking for image)
7. ???
8. ???
9. ???
From what I can gather these did not last very long in the market, and some items may have been regional. So I'm asking all you Honorary Stock Boys and Girls to help me out. If you know of any other Slimmon's treats, or better yet have a scan or an image of the packages, let me know!
Ugh.........fine. Here we go again. Thanks, early 90's. Thanks a lot.
YOU WANT SOME EXTREME CHEWING GUM!!!?????
I can't do it. We've already been over how everything in the early 90's was "Extreme".
Or as the kids were calling it, "Xtreme" with an X.
Or as Gary Sherone was saying: "Hey guys, lets call ourselves Extreme, but we really won't be? Irony is cool, right?"
And as Alanis Morissette would say a few years later "No, Gary...that's not Ironic."
Cinnaburst gum was Warner Lambert giving the middle finger to Wrigley's Big Red Chewing gum.
It was more.....as the kids say....Xtreme. It had these things in it called "Flavor Crystals" that really amped up the spiciness. It was a notch spicier then Big Red as I remember, but it had a gimmick, and as we have learned from past products with gimmicks (I'm looking in your direction, Orbitz...) people get excited then lose interest really fast.
It did drum up enough interest that Warner Lambert spun off the brand into a few other flavors to compete with other popular gum brands.
The first, Mint*A*Burst
Mint*A*Burst also had flavor Crystals, was extreme, and was created to go head to head with Double Mint gum. Which is a bold move......you don't mess with those twins.
Fruit*A*Burst was also had Flavor Crystals (Fruity Crystals), was Extreme, but only as extreme as a fruity gum can get. I mean, you don't really have much to work with. Cinnamon and Mint I can see, but I've never heard anyone say "This Fruit Flavor is too much for my mouth!!!" Make it stop!", which may be why the Fruit*A*Burst didn't carry the warning about not being suitable for adults, because it was so tame even adults could enjoy it.
And therein lies the downfall of the Bust gums.
Everyone knows that once adults start to do something it looses it's coolness for kids.
So a kid must have witnessed an adult put a stick of Fruit*A*Burst gum in his or her mouth, and the entire house of cards came tumbling down.
Yeah, I'm gonna go with that theory.
Also a weird side note: Remember the old story about how you could eat the wrappers to enhance the "Flavor Crystals" taste? Did anyone ever fall for that?
Because I sure did. And it did nothing other then make me feel stupid for eating a piece of foil lined paper.
Enjoy these random pictures from various Burst Commercials!
Product: Dizzy Grizzlie Cookies
Company: Nabisco
Years: 1996-199?
Teddy Grahams were a good cookie. Bite sized, snack-able, delicious.
But they weren't one thing.
They were not.......EXTREME!!!! (Loud screeching guitar solo).
Yes, like many of the products in the mid 90's, Nabisco felt the need to take their successful snack cookie and crank it up to 11. They made the cookies larger, frosted them, and for good measures, added sprinkles.
Extreme enough for you? No? Well, the bears aren't just calmly standing around anymore like those "lame" Teddy Grahams were.....these new bears are TO THE EXTREME! (loud screeching guitar solo).
Skateboarding!
BMXing!
Rollerblading!
They're so EXTREME they grabbed you by the throat and yelled "HEY, YOU THINK YOU ARE EXTREME ENOUGH TO EAT THESE COOKIES, KID!!????!"
"ARE YOU???!!!!!" (Even louder Guitar solos).
I was not extreme enough for these cookies back in the day. I remember seeing them on the shelf and thinking that I was more of an indoor kid...you know......eating regular Teddy Grahams while playing Super Nintendo instead of eating Dizzy Grizzlies and base jumping off the nearest cliff.
And lots of kids must have though the same, because these were only around for a few years.
Great, now that Van Halen song is going to be stuck in my head again.
Pepsi announced yesterday that starting August 8th in the US (and July 7th in Canada) retailers nationwide will start carrying 20 OZ bottles of Crystal Pepsi for a limited time.
Last year, Pepsi gave away a very limited amount of this clear failed soda from the early 90's as a giveaway, but this will be the first time in over 20 years you will see it on the shelves. It will only be available for 8 weeks, so stock up before it goes away forever.
Again.
Or until Pepsi wants to make another cash grab like this.
Because really, it's all this is. Pepsi is cashing in the success of all the retro products that have found new life recently. Ecto Cooler......Hostess Suzi-Q's.....even the awesome 80's candy Bonkers is poised to make a return.
But the limited release is nothing but a cash register sound to resellers/scalpers, who will buy up all the stock and resell it online for huge profit. Heck, I saw cases of the recently re-released Ecto Cooler selling for staggering amounts on eBay, and I fear that unless Pepsi really makes sure the Crystal Pepsi is available in large quantities throughout the nation, we will see a similar thing happen. Which sucks.
Well, it sucks for people who actually liked this stuff.
I wasn't a fan in the early 90's, but I'd give it another chance. In the name of science•.
*I was just contacted by science, and it told me to leave it's name out of it.
Hey Gone But Not Forgotten Groceriers! (wait, is that a thing?)
Every once in a while you come across an item that is so forgotten about that even the mighty internet is of no help to you.
I googled Choco Boom, and it told me I had cancer. (Come on Web MD....you're better then that).
I also found one other person, The Urban Archeologist (http://www.urbanarcheologist.net/) who didn't know what this stuff was either after finding several empty cans.
Image by the Urban Archeologist - http://www.urbanarcheologist.net/
But yeah, I don't have much on this one. It's another weird mystery that I wish I could solve but can't. So what do I know?
It's a product put out by Nestle's in the early 70's.....a chocolate flavored drink. Think Yoo-hoo. Yeah, you got it....
The only other thing I know is that if they did in fact make liquid dynamite, under no circumstances drink it. I mean, come on...use some common sense.....you'd be blown up.
BOOM!
Choco Boom.
Legendary DJ Bruce Marrow of WABC/WNBC face (Cruisin' Brucie as he was called) was sort of the spokesperson as you can see by the comic book ad below, so maybe I should contact him and get to the bottom of this.
I have a feeling this mystery has only begun......hopefully more to come......
Just a quick update for those who didn't already know, but Hi-C is bringing back Ecto Cooler with the release of the new Ghostbusters movie! It's back people!
It's back......I knew it would come back.... *wipesawaytears*
Product: Fingos
Company: General Mills
Years: 1993-1994
I was doing some research on Fingos for this post, when my son walked up and asked "What are Fingos?".
I told him "It was an old cereal that was made so you could eat it with your hand."
His 8 year old mind thought for a second, then he says "All cereals can be eaten by hand if you don't add milk."
And he's right.
Which I guess is why this product flopped. You didn't need to market a cereal that can be eaten by hand since ALL cereals can be eaten by hand.
Fingo's was a strange offering from General Mills. It came in 2 flavors, Honey Oats and Cinnamon, and there was also a variety pack called "Fingos Singles" that had smaller snack packs of each flavor.
But nobody bought it, because they could see through the gimmick.
It also didn't help that "Fing" is the Hungarian word for passing gas, and the word "Fingos" translated to "He Farts a lot" in that language.
Which come to think of it, probably would have actually helped with sales, had they made that public. Well, it would have helped with sales among 6-13 year old boys, anyway.
Also, part of their sales slogan was "Anytime, anywhere", which sort of makes me feel like they are threatening to fight me.
Wanna go, Fingos? Huh? Let's go....you and me.....RIGHT NOW! (wait, what's that smell...)
Anyway, they didn't last, but this strange, flatulant, eager to fight cereal still deserves a spot on our shelves.
It was a swing and a miss for General Mills, but perhaps it was just a little before it's time, as there have been several other snackable cereal offerings similar to this in the recent years.
So do you remember eating these back in the early 90s?
"I'm Sir Celery, I'm Ms. Parsley, We are the Onion Twins...
We're...in....Tuna Twist, a tuna taste, fresh as the garden"
Let me just start off by coming clean: I think Tuna is disgusting. It smells bad, it tastes bad, and the seafood industry wants you to believe that it's this wonderful high class product, when it's actually, in my opinion, the seafood version of Spam. Cheap, canned, and oh so gross. (There goes my big Tuna/Spam sponsorship money......)
I have to say, though, that I was intrigued the other day when I stumbled upon a product that I had never heard of in my life, called Tuna Twist. The product, made by Nabisco in 1976, was a "meal extender", which is a fancy term for "this is all the food we have in the house until next payday, so we need to make it last". Basically, it was seasoning packets that was to be added to tuna salad that somehow magically made your pound of tuna turn into a pound and a half.
Witchcraft? We can't be certain.
Actually, the packets contained textured vegetable protein. Remember this. It will be important later on.
Tuna Twist came in 3 flavors: Onion, Cheddar, and Italian.
"We are giving the consumer a way of adding variety to her tuna. Most housewives just don't take the time to do things like take an onion, dice it, and add it to the tuna, themselves". Stated a Nabisco Representative - From a newspaper article from July 27 1976.
This product was launched in the summer of 1976, and was going to be the new big thing in stores and kitchens around the country. Heck, they even had a commercial with dancing vegetables.....
But it turned out there was a problem.
That textured vegetable protein I mentioned earlier? Yeah....about that...
..it was making people sick. Lots of people.
So only a few months after it's launch, there was a recall on the product, and Tuna Twist was pulled from all store shelves. Considering that I couldn't find any advertisements or coupons from any year other then 1976, I'm pretty sure it never returned.
Did it ever come back? That's where I need your help. Do you remember eating Tuna Twist later then 1976? And can you be certain it was in fact, Nabisco Tuna Twist, and not some knockoff that came later.
You know, a product that had a name like Tuna Tonight! (and Tomorrow night...and the night after that....), or "Totally Tuna! (made with 92% Vegetable Protein). If you remember it, let me know below.
And as for the commercial - here you go. Watch 4 tuna sandwiches turn into 6!
(She's a witch! Burn her!)
Boo!
(Did you know it's impossible to scare someone using text?)
So it turns out that Good Humor wasn't the only company offering a scary treat to kids in the 70's and 80's. Welch's also had a product in the mid 70's called Monster Freez'ems. They came in 4 different flavors: Grape, Orange, Cherry, and Lemon-Lime, or as my kids would call it, "That's it?"
My kids are spoiled rotten, you guys.
OK, so maybe technically these shouldn't be in the Frozen food section. You actually buy these unfrozen, and you pour the juice into these little monster molds that come with it, place the stick in it, then freeze it. After some time, bam: You've got yourself some ghoulishly delightful treats. So I guess these could be in the Misc. Products aisle, but since they are consumed in a frozen state (Minnesota?), I'm leaving them with the other Frozen Foods.
Like the 3-D monster Pops, I wasn't able to dig up (Ha! Halloween puns FTW!) much info on these items. So if you have more info, fill in the blanks for us!
Product: 3D Monster Pops
Company: Good Humor
Years: It's a mystery.....
Image not my own - if this is yours let me know so I can give you credit!
So here's a strange little treat that I honestly had never heard of, but there has been a small buzz around the internet (as it seems many people DO remember these). Problem is, nobody really knows much about them. Contacting Good Humor resulted in the usual "We don't keep track of our stuff" response, and online other then fuzzy memories and the box art there isn't much to go on.
These were orange, cherry and grape popsicles shaped like your favorite monsters: Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster and other devilish creatures. A Mummy perhaps? A Skeleton? We just don't really know.
I do think these are totally rad, though (totally) - and knew they had to be on the shelves here. But as far as more info, that's where you loyal shoppers come in. If you know anything about these (fuzzy memories and all), let me know! Like what part of the country (or world) did you eat these in? What years did you remember them from? How were they? Did they give you nightmares? Cavities? I need your help!
Comment below if you remember these and want them back in stores!
And don't confuse these with Welch's Monster Freez'ems - another 70's/80's product I will be adding to the shelves here.
Product: Circus Fun Cereal
Company: General Mills
Years: 1986-?
Coulrophobia [kool-ruh-foh-bee-uh] - noun - An abnormal fear of clowns. There have been several cereals over the years who had clowns for mascots. Kaboom...Sugar Krinkles...Sugar Smacks....and each one ended the same way. MURDER.
OK, I'm making that up. Most just ended up giving people a delicious breakfast.And I guess Circus Fun did the same.It hit the shelves in 1986, and like the multitudes of other sugary kid friendly cereals to hit the shelves in the mid 80's, it only lasted a few years before being discontinued.
Circus fun had a lot going on in that box.....several different shapes (Hoops and balls), several different marshmallows (horses, elephants, lions, bears, tigers), and one underlying motive: MURDER. (OK, mostly shapes and marshmallows with very little murder.) I remember eating this as a kid, and I loved it. It was like Fruit Loops, Kix, Trix and Lucky Charms all got together (Bow-chicka wa-wa...) and this was the offspring it produced. It was very sweet, very delicious, and as long as you didn't have coulrophobia you probably enjoyed it.If you did have coulrophobia, however, the commercials probably freaked you out.
It really was a pretty good cereal, and I am just kidding when it comes to the clowns, and all the MURDER......I think this cereal just fell victim to the over saturation of similar cereals in the 80's, and went away when people started to get a more healthy outlook on breakfast for their kids.Which is a shame..... Because they all float in milk down here..........
