NEW YOUTUBE CHANNEL!

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.)

Also, starting today, you can check out our Youtube page: Gone But Not Forgotten Commercials!

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.

Thanks for shopping!

- Jason (Manager, stock boy, bagger)

From the Misc. Food Aisle - Mr. Wiggle

Product: Mr. Wiggle
Company: Kraft Foods
Years: Early 1965 - ?

It seems strange that there was once a time when they had to find a way to market Jell-O to kids, but once upon a time (10 years before me), this was actually the case. Kids everywhere were folding their arms, making that frumpy face that kids make when they don't want something. You know the look:

So Jell-O came out with a new line of Jello that they were sure kid would love. They combined Jello with the one thing kids love: Toys! Jello filled with marbles, plastic army men and jumping jacks turned out to be a HORRIBLE idea, so they went with plan B: Candy! (Note - the part about the toys? Yeah, I made that up. Just in case you actually believed me. In which case, you should know better.)

Mr. Wiggle was a candy flavored jello. You heard me correctly. Take the sweet, sugary taste of Jell-O, and add candy! Brilliant! Kids loved it! Parents loved that their kids loved it! Dentists just stood there, shaking their heads, saying stuff like  "Really?", and "There goes the country!"

It came in 6 flavors: Gumdrop Grape, Candycorn Orange, Jellybean Strawberry, Lollypop Lime, Rockcandy Raspberry, and Candyball Cherry. It was glorious, and, it had some pretty awesome commercials voiced by the amazing Paul Frees and Daws Butler, arguably 2 of the most famous voices of our childhoods.

On a side note, there was a big lawsuit filed in the 70's over this product. It turns out that a design agency (Young & Rubicam) pitched the idea to the Jell-O people for a jello aimed at kids, that could have a fun name, like Mr. Wiggly or Mr. Wigglee. The Jell-O people (they weren't actually MADE out of Jello, which would have been pretty cool) wasn't ready to commit to this, since they tough their original product was good enough. Then they got wind that their competitor Pillsbury was going to be coming out with their own line of kids gelatin called "Jiggly". Kraft wasn't about to let that happen, and decided to go ahead with the kids version, but instead of Mr. Wiggley, call it Mr. Wiggle, which was a COMPLETELY different thing altogether. They cut out the advertising agency and said it was really an idea they had Long before Y&T had even mentioned it to them. Lawsuits ensued. Lawyers were called. Feeling were hurt. I'm not even sure what the outcome of the lawsuit was.....beleive me, I tried to read all these court documents on the case to figure it out, but they might as well write out those court papers in Latin, because after reading several pages I forgot if I was reading a court case or trying to order Chinese food. (I got the General Tso's).

Mr. Wiggle was loved by many. It was before my time, but I would welcome it's return. Heck, it wouldn't be too far out to think they could join forces with some popular candy companies today and revive the line. Skittles/Starburst/Nerds candy would all work well. Someone.....make this happen.

From the Frozen Food Aisle: Birdseye Cool 'N Creamy Pudding

Product: Cool N' Creamy Pudding
Company: Birdseye
Years - Late 60s - early 70s

Recently I received an email from a reader/fan/ downright awesome person named Amy Bernstein-Feldman. She was inquiring about a product that she knew she remembered, but couldn't recall exactly what it was. It was a Cool Whip like Pudding from the 70's, but Amy couldn't figure out exactly what it was she was remembering.

So using my magical extinct grocery powers, I started to do some digging. And some more digging. And some more digging. I broke 3 shovels, threw out my back, and possibly uncovered an old indian burial ground, so there is a good chance I'm now cursed. But at last, I hit gold, and came across this product: Birdseye Cool 'n Creamy Pudding. It was a frozen pudding that came in a container very similar to what Cool Whip comes in today. You would thaw the pudding out, and it would be a rich, smooth consistency that was very different then other brand pudding that you could get in the store, and would last in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

It came in 3 flavors, Chocolate, Vanilla, and Butterscotch.

So it turns out that Amy wasn't crazy after all. The product did exist.

And the best part? The awesome 60's Commercials:

From the Snack Aisle: Nabisco Flings

Product: Flings
Company: Nabisco
Years: Late 1960's - 1980's (?)

Dear Nabisco,

Stop trying so hard. We get it already. You can turn anything, no matter what the flavor, into a delicious chip, snack, or cracker. Here at Gone But Not Forgotten Groceries, we stumble across something new (old/new) from you almost every day, and honestly, I've almost stopped keeping track. You are good at what you do, Nabisco, so why spread yourself so thin? Pick a core group of products and make those products the best damn products we have ever seen....and maybe, just maybe, you are already starting to do that. But in the 60s, 70s and 80s.......well, lets say you were snack aisle whores. You put it all out there year after year, every flavor.....every shape. "Don't like Curls? We have Sticks? Don't like Sticks, we have cones? Don't like cones? We have a goddamn chip shaped like a platypus. "Well that's random", you say? Goddamn right it is, because we're Nabisco, and we can make these chips/snacks and crackers into any M%#$@R F^&%ING shape we want? Got it......GOT IT???"
"Oh, and you can get that Platypus shaped cracker in 5 flavors, Cheese, Ranch, Papaya, Dandelion, and New Car Smell. "But New Car Smell isn't a Flavor" you say.....look, do you want me to lose my shit? Because Nabisco can lose it's shit REAL easy, and one day, when you wake up, all these shape and flavors will be gone.....and all you'll have left are Triscuits, Wheat Thins, and Chicken in a Biscuit. So don't push it, pal."

I'm almost certain Nabisco would say something like that if confronted. Maybe.

Box picture from Dan Goodsell

Flings were a chip that looked similar to today's Cheese puffs, and came in 3 flavors: Chicken, Cheese, and Ham and Swiss. These were mostly around in the late 60's/early 70's, but I did stumble upon a newspaper ad from 1984, where it appears Nabisco tried to bring back Flings, this time in a bag instead of a box.

Like the other hundreds (possibly millions, or possibly less) of Nabisco Products that have appeared on store shelves over the last 50 years, I'm going to guess that very few of you readers out there remember these. I don't. Which is pretty cool when you add it onto the vast sea of groceries that have filled up store shelves over the years...these could have been someones favorite snack to curl up with on a Saturday night. People have a weird nostalgia towards food, especially discontinued food (which is why I started this blog), so it's neat to find stuff like this that might bring someone a smile.

From the Snack Aisle - Kellogg's Pokes

Product: Pokes Snack
Company: Kellogg's
Years: 1967 - ????


"How'd you like a poke in the mouth?" I thought to myself upon seeing these packages for the first time, thinking I was being clever and a bit dirty.
But then I did a little bit of research, and I found that Kellogg's did indeed use that tagline.
"A Poke in the mouth makes a hit in the tummy", to be exact. Great (dirty) minds think alike, I guess.

 
Image/Boxes by Grickily

So this is what I know about Pokes:
1. They came in 4 flavors. Corn, Cheese and Bar-B-Q were the original 3 flavors, and Potato Pokes were added sometime shortly after.

2. These were "Tasty little Snack Baskets", which look like they just took some Chex and opened up one end....a clever snack shape I don't think I've seen before (Bugle's are pretty similar in execution)

3. The boxes are AMAZING. I mean...LOOK at them. The Potato Pokes have an Irish Potato creature on the front! The Corn Pokes have a crazy looking Indian corn creature on it! The Cheese Pokes have a smiling hunk of (alpine?) Cheese on it! The Bar-B-Q Pokes have a ........cowboy looking......what is that.....a hunk of coal? Ok, that one I'm not sure about. But the boxes reek of the late 60's, and I would love to have a set for my collection.

4. The Reason I don't have them in my collection is because they are Rare, and Expensive if you do find them. A Corn Pokes box sold on Hakes Auctions last year for $600. My wife would kick me out of the house if I spend $600 on ANY box (unless there was a diamond ring inside of it, for her).

5. I'm not sure if these were sold in the US and in Canada or only in Canada. The only advertising I could find for them was in the Montreal Gazette, and it says on the Coupon "Kellogg's Company of Canada, 1968". I know there are Kellogg's cereals that you can only get in Canada, so maybe this was along the same lines? I never had there while they were in stores, so maybe someone can confirm for me.

I couldn't find a lot of info on these, like many of the slightly less popular brands of the 60's-70's. But an important addition to the shelves of Gone But Not Forgotten Groceries none the less.

Leave a comment if you remember these awesome yet slightly creepy looking snacks! 

From the Beverage Aisle: PDQ

Product: PDQ
Company: Ovaltine
Years: 60's-80's

For the record, there is absolutely nothing wrong with regular ol' white milk. It's good, and good for you, but there are a bunch of companies out there that just want to spice up your milk drinking experience. Some are still around (such as Nestle Quik and Hershey's syrup), and some are but a memory (Milk Mate and Pinch N' Sip), so I was surprised when an internet friend of mine was selling something I didn't know anything about: PDQ.

Photo by Grickly

PDQ was created by Ovaltine in the mid to late 60s. It wasn't a powder like many of the other similar products, but instead was more of a small pebble/chip of the flavoring that would dissolve in milk. It came in Chocolate, Strawberry, and the seasonal Egg Nog. I wish that last line was a typo, but it wasn't. They actually made Egg Nog Milk flavoring.

Part of the appeal of this product is that you could also use it as a topping on ice cream ("Who want's some Egg Nog Flavored Ice Cream!!!" said the worst parents ever.)

 
Something else you might remember of these bottles was that they would often have a collectable label or lid, such as Endangered Species/Cars/and Marvel Superheros in the early 80s.

Like many of the items I blog about, I'm surprised this one somehow made it past my kid "unhealthy food" radar. Nestle Quik was always in my house growing up, so I'm guessing it was just never brought to my attention. It sort of looks like a jar of coffee grounds to me. Maybe that's why I didn't care.

Plus, as a side note, I'm surprised they used the abbreviation P.D.Q., since that stands for "Pretty Damn Quick". I guess you could argue that it stands for "Pretty Darn Quick", but you would be wrong. And I guess it's better then the first name they pitched, "PMFGDQ".

You figure it out.

Photo by Grickly

From the Cereal Aisle: Rice Cream Flakes

Product: Rice Cream Flakes
Company: Nabisco
Years: 1968-????




This has to be hands down one of the more interesting ideas I've ever seen for a breakfast Cereal. It was the late 60's, and the country was all about free love, drugs, and doing what felt good. And what felt good to one Nabisco employee was to eat ice cream for breakfast. Not just any ice cream, mind you, but freeze dried ice cream. "THE FUTURE IS NOW!!!!" I imagine employees chanting as they carefully formulated this concoction known as Rice Cream Flakes, the smash hit from Nabisco that was going to be the future of breakfast for kids and adults across this great nation of ours.

The cereal itself was a rice cereal, but the kicker is that they covered the flakes with this Freeze Dried Ice cream they purchased from Oregon Freeze Dried Foods. There were 3 varieties, Chocolate, Vanilla, and Strawberry. Everyone smiled and cheered! VIVA LA ICE CREAM!!!! Let's put it into mass production! USA! USA!USA!

Oh, 2 small problems. It's 1968, and there aren't that many companies out there producing the volume of Freeze Dried Ice Cream that Nabisco needed for mass production of this. And the one company they had been using, Oregon Freeze Dried Foods, was shutting down.

So what should have been a national smash hit in the cereal game turned out to be nothing more then a successful regional test market that left people wanting more, but there was no more to be had. None more Rice Cream Flakes.

Anyone else thinking it's time to bring these back?

From the Beverage Aisle: King Stir

Product: King Stir
Company: Pacific Hawaiian Products
Years: I'm guessing late 60's. Complete Guess, though.

Image by grickly

King Stir.....the Bubbly drink mix on swizzle sticks.

Here's another product that was just a bit before my time, but I recently saw this item posted on Flickr by Grickly, and I fell in love with it. The magical swirl in the glass.....the candy coated swizzle sticks.....the legless king.....love I tell you. Love it.

I know very little about this other then that the packaging rocks, so any and all info to help fill in the Bio would be welcomed. It was made in Fullerton, CA in what I'm guessing was the mid to late 60's by a company called Pacific Hawaiian Product. It came in Orange and Lemon Lime (Imitation Flavors) and I'm betting it came in more.

So yeah, I know about .5% of the history of this. But I know 100% that the package is amazing.

And I'd really like to know what's up with the legless king. Combine Accident? Or is he a ghost king?

From the Snack Aisle: Nabisco Chit Chat Crackers

Product: Chit Chat Barbecue Crackers
Company: Nabisco
Years: 1964-?

Short post today. I've got a bad head cold and feel pretty crummy. I need a bowl of chicken soup and some crackers to make it go away.

That's my segway into the post. Crackers. Yup, pretty crummy I tell you.

 Nabisco makes crackers, that's their thing. And I'm guessing over the last 50+ years they've had hundreds of crackers I've never heard of and have never seen. That's why it's always fun to stumble upon a long gone flavor, such as the Chit Chat Crackers.

What a 60's sounding name.

I just picture people sitting around their horribly decorated apartments talking about how awesome the last episode of "Gidget" was. Then someone would say "hey, lets go down to the drive in and get some burgers!", to which someone else would respond "We don't have to, I've got a box of new Chit Chat Crackers, by Nabisco!", to which the first guy would then respond in a really whiny Richie-from-Happy-Days-voice "But I wanted a Cheeseburger!"
Then they'd all start to dance. Probably the Twist......no, no...the Mashed Potato.Yeah. That's it.

So, yeah, I don't really know much about these crackers. Other then the Nabisco trademark of the name "Chit Chat" expired back in 2005 and is still available if you're bored and/or starting a fledgling cracker company.

That's all I got today. I need to go blow nose and drink a bottle of NyQuil.

And don't lie, you've never heard of these crackers either.

From the Misc. Products Aisle: Vote Toothpaste

Product: Vote Toothpaste
Company: Bristol Myers
Years: 1966 - 70's (?)

Hey everyone.

This is kind of awkward for me to even be bringing up, but it's just that....how do I put this nicely.....all these Gone But Not Forgotten Groceries you've been eating have done a number on your breath.

I mean, you've been eating Bakewiches, you've been eating Libbyland Dinners.......and every time you breathe on me a little part of me dies. Mostly my nose part.

So I went and got you something.

Yep. I got you a tube of Vote Toothpaste. This isn't some weak kids toothpaste either....it's the adult toothpaste that comes in the new plastic tube. Yes, you heard me correctly. Those old Metal tubes are a thing of the past with Vote. This is 1968, embrace the future already.

I know what you're thinking: Why "Vote"? Well, because it's your civic duty as an American Citizen.

Aw, I'm just messin' with you.

And I'm dodging the question, because why it's called VOTE is a mystery to me too. We could ask around and see if anyone has the inside scoop. Yeah, I think we should do that.

But for now, I just want you to do one thing. Brush those nasty looking teeth.

It's your civic duty as an American Citizen (and your civic duty as someone sitting so close to me).

From the Snack Aisle: French Frauds

Product: French Frauds
Company: Pillsbury
Years: 1968-?

Image by Gregg Koenig

Here's an interesting one that I can't find much info on. In the late 60's, Pillsbury made a snack called French Frauds, a baked snack made to look like french fries and onion rings. I don't imagine they were around long, as there doesn't seem to be much of a record of them, other then a few packages that have survived and a few ads in newspapers introducing them. There were 2 varieties: French Fries and Onion Rings.

As the package says, "Give French Frauds as Tips to Doormen, waiters, and hatcheck girls. They'll really appreciate getting something besides money for a change and they'll always remember what a sport you are."
Also, "What can you do with French Frauds - Hold a contest to see who can make the most noise while eating French Frauds. Award 10 points for crunches, 5 points for munches, and disqualify anyone who rustles the package."
And my personal favorite, "Serve Beef Stroganoff and tossed salad for appetizers, then serve French Frauds and water as the main course. Conversation is sure to be lively at dinner with this idea."

I think I'm starting to see why French Frauds failed to catch on.
Because people who ate them were assholes. Give them as a tip? Serve them to your guests as a meal? What kind of a cruel bastard would do this stuff?

But they did have one thing going for them: Some pretty cool artwork. Here are a couple unused designs from the Onion Ringers package:

But other then that, Fail check, aisle 9.