From the Candy Aisle: Cinn*A*Burst/Mint*A*Burst/Fruit*A*Burst Gum

Product: Cinn*A*Burst / Mint*A*Burst / Fruit*A*Burst Gum
Years: 1992-1995ish
Company: Warner Lambert (Cadbury/Dentyne)

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!

From the Cereal Aisle - Fingos

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?

From the Beverage Aisle - 7up Gold

Product - 7up Gold
Company - 7up/Dr. Pepper
Years - 1987-1988

When I think of boring soda, I think of 7up. Now, that isn't an indictment on its taste....it does have a clean, refreshing taste that every now and again hits the spot. But lets face it, it's what your grandparents have in their fridge. It's what you give the kids when you don't want them to have caffeine. It's a good, safe, soda. Which is the reason 7up Gold was an utter and gigantic failure. It was reaching for a target demographic that wasn't even there (hip, cool people who enjoy 7up). It tried to have edge when none was needed.

What happened is that in 1987, 7up and Dr. Pepper merged into on company. Cherry 7up had just hit the market and was doing really well, so they wanted to follow that success up with another variety of 7up. But there were several reasons why that wasn't such a good idea and would lead to the soda's demise.

Flavor: Sort of an apple Cinnamon flavor, not at all what you'd expect from 7up (I'm sure the cinnamon flavor came from someone on the Dr. Pepper side...great idea, boys. If you have any more ideas, please keep them to yourself)

Color: It was a brown color. Again, not at all what you'd expect when cracking open a can of 7up (ok, when your grandparents were cracking open a can of 7up for you when you were 8)

Caffeine: Yep, it had it. Once again, to beat a dead horse (probably died drinking this swill) people who drink 7up don't expect to get any caffeine. That's why my grandparents drank it.They wanted to be able to sleep at night (or afternoon, or mid-morning.....)

Marketing: I would love to tell you that they test marketed the shit out of this stuff, and that all signs pointed to it being a smash hit, which makes it even stranger that the stuff never took off. But I can't tell you that, because it was basically rushed into production with very little testing. The company didn't want to miss the boat on the success of Cherry 7up, so they rolled it out way too quickly.

Name: Had they given this soda it's own identity, it might not have failed so hard. I'm talking a completely new brand. Instead, they kept it part of the 7up family, and instead of calling it Apple Cinnamon 7up or what-have-you, they called it GOLD. Now I don't know about you, but I don't usually drink gold, so I don't have a reference point for it's taste (actually, gold is completely tasteless and odorless, so there's that too....). So calling it Gold left the taste of the soda a mystery for consumers. And like most people, if you don't know what your buying, you don't.

The Curse: The original prototypes for the cans were made with real gold leafing, and rumor has it that gold came from the lost tombs of King Tut.  Because of this, every can created on the production line was cursed, and anyone who drank it turned into a brain hungry zombie. Remember that song Zombie by the Cranberries? That was a great song.
"In your head, in your head,
Zombie, zombie, zombie,
Hey, hey, hey, hey, oh, dou, dou, dou, dou, dou..."
Ok, I made that last one up, there was no curse. But there may as well have been, everything else was against them on this idea. (Note: 7up DID in fact release a Cranberry 7up, which was successful, so everything came full circle there and worked out for you, the reader).

Anyway, to sum up, 7up Gold failed hard. Even the CEO of the company admitted it.
In an article in the New York Times (1988), CEO John Albers stated, ''I'll be honest. It's a failure. I've been around for a long time, and you think you learn your lessons and practice intelligent marketing, but you can be sidetracked.''

And lets be honest with ourselves.....nobody really misses it. 

If you'd like to  refute that claim, feel free to post in the comments below.

 

Check out this awesome 7up Gold commercial, featuring one Kyle Gass of the famed Tenacious D -