Dunkaroos – The Cookie Dunking Champions
Few snacks capture the essence of ’90s childhood quite like Dunkaroos. These tiny cookies with their irresistible frosting dip were a ’90s lunchbox legend. Disappeared in 2012, they left us craving. But good news – they’re back! Since 2020, Dunkaroos have been gracing store shelves of Walmart. The magic wasn’t just in the cookies themselves, but in that ritual of dunking each miniature treat into the rainbow sprinkled frosting.
What made these so special was the perfect ratio problem. There was always a bit too much frosting for the number of cookies, so the last few cookies in the pack were loaded with sprinkle-laced frosting. Kids developed strategies around this imbalance, saving frosting or rationing it carefully throughout the snack experience.
Planters P.B. Crisps – Peanut Butter Perfection
Launched in the mid-90s, these wafer-like crisps filled with peanut butter, and sometimes chocolate or peanut butter & jelly, quickly became a snack-time favorite. Despite their popularity, they disappeared in the late ’90s or early 2000s, leaving behind a trail of memory. The shape was genius – actual peanut-shaped snacks that delivered exactly what they promised visually.
Imagine a peanut-shaped snack filled with creamy peanut butter – that’s PB Crisps. They were crunchy, sweet, and so satisfying. I had totally forgotten about these until I made this list, and now I wish they’d make a comeback. The combination of that light, airy crunch with the rich peanut butter center created a texture experience that hasn’t been replicated since. These crunchy peanut-shaped snacks were filled with sweet peanut butter creme. A perfect combo of salty and sweet, PB Crisps were discontinued in the late ’90s, but fans still beg for their return.
Butterfinger BBs – Bite-Sized Bliss
These tiny, delicious Butterfinger candies came out in 1992 and were super popular, thanks to ads with “The Simpsons.” But there was a problem: they melted too quickly and got sticky. Over time, not as many people bought them, so Nestlé, the candy company, stopped making them. The BBs weren’t just miniature candy bars – they were perfectly round spheres that rolled around in your mouth before that signature Butterfinger crunch kicked in.
Butterfinger BB’s, the same as the candy bar but in mini-ball form, made for the perfect movie theater snack. The bite-sized candy was discontinued in 2006, just three years before Butterfinger Bites were released. Still, avid fans of the BB’s agree that the Bites don’t provide the same teeth-sticking, chocolate-coated finger experience. The melting issue that plagued them was actually part of their charm – that sticky, messy chocolate coating on your fingers was half the fun.
Pizzarias – Pizza-Flavored Chips Done Right
Pizzarias were crunchy chips with the shape and texture of a tortilla chip and all the cheesy flavor of a classic pizza slice. They were made from pizza dough that gave the chips a distinct texture and quality and were coated with a Dorito-like cheese powder that stuck to your fingers as you snacked. What set these apart wasn’t just the pizza flavoring – it was that they actually started with pizza dough as the base.
Pizzarias were innovative snack chips made by Keebler. They were launched in 1991 with great success, earning $75 million in wholesale revenue in their first year and garnering industry awards. The crackers were discontinued in the late 1990s after the sale and breakup of Keebler. Corporate restructuring killed what could have been a snack food empire. The texture was unlike anything else on the market – crunchier than regular tortilla chips but with that distinctive pizza dough foundation that made every bite taste like a tiny slice of pizza.
Pop-Tarts Crunch Cereal – Breakfast Dessert Dreams
Throwback to the year of 1994, Kellogg’s did a cereal type of Pop-Tarts called Pop-Tarts Crunch, with small Pop-Tart-like bits in Strawberry and Brown Sugar Cinnamon flavor. It was lovely, but it did not last for long and was gone by ’95 since not enough people bought them. The concept was brilliant – taking America’s favorite toaster pastry and turning it into a breakfast cereal that you could eat with milk.
The cereal pieces looked like miniature Pop-Tarts, complete with frosting and that distinctive rectangular shape. So, In 2018, Kellogg’s made a fresh Pop-Tarts cereal, a remake of the old cereal, to provide Pop-Tarts lovers happiness and a rewarding gift. However, original fans insist the modern version doesn’t capture the exact magic of those original ’90s pieces.
Jell-O Pudding Pops – The Frozen Favorite
Remember Jell-O Pudding Pops? They were those delicious frozen snacks from the ’70s and ’80s, super popular because of commercials with Bill Cosby. Sadly, they stopped making them. These weren’t just regular popsicles – they had that signature creamy, smooth texture that only pudding could provide when frozen.
These icy, creamy treats were all the rage in the ’80s, and increased in popularity as we entered the ’90s…but they eventually ceased to turn a profit. General Foods licensed the Jell-O brand to Popsicle, who made their own version of the original Pudding Pop, but they just weren’t the same as the original. Ultimately, Pudding Pops were pulled out of the freezer section forever, though KraftHeinz does have a DIY recipe listed on their website. The licensing drama killed what could have been a permanent frozen treat fixture.
Surge Soda – The Extreme Energy Rush
Back in the ’90s, Coca-Cola made Surge, a super lemony soda that was all about being bold and “extreme.” It was supposed to be as cool as Mountain Dew. For a while, everyone loved it, but then, not so much. Coca-Cola changed how they talked about Surge, and some fake rumors made people think it wasn’t good to drink. Surge represented everything the ’90s stood for – loud, bold, and unapologetically intense.
Surge soda was the original soda-energy drink combo. The soda was banned in most schools for being filled with way too much sugar, but we wish we could taste this drink one more time. The school bans only added to its rebellious appeal. Kids would smuggle Surge cans like contraband, making that fluorescent green liquid taste even more forbidden and exciting.
Ecto Cooler – Ghostly Green Goodness
So, did I ever tell you about this drink Ecto-Cooler that Hi-C used to make? It was a green, lemony drink that came out in 1987 with Slimer the Ghost on the box . In the 1990s, people stopped talking about Ghostbusters, so they stopped making Ecto-Cooler. The timing was everything – when Ghostbusters mania faded, so did the drink’s popularity.
And then in 2016, they made another Ghostbusters movie and everyone remembered how much they loved Ecto-Cooler, so Hi-C started making it again . So I’m just saying, if enough people wish something would come back, maybe it will. The 2016 comeback proved that nostalgia is a powerful force, though many fans claimed the revived version didn’t quite match their memory of the original formula.
Fruitopia – Psychedelic Fruit Fantasy
In the mid-1990s, Coca-Cola unleashed Fruitopia to the world. You may have even had a Fruitopia branded vending machine in your school. But, did we ever question the names of the flavors, like “Strawberry Passion Awareness,” “Citrus Consciousness,” and “Lemonade Love and Hope?” Atlas Obscura reminds us that Fruitopia was so prevalent in ’90s pop culture that it was referenced on a Simpsons episode. The drink names read like meditation mantras mixed with fruit flavors.
Fruitopia wasn’t just a beverage – it was an experience wrapped in tie-dye packaging and new-age philosophy. The marketing campaign featured swirling colors and trippy animations that made drinking fruit punch feel like a spiritual journey. The flavors themselves were intensely fruity, almost artificial in their boldness, which perfectly matched the psychedelic branding.
WOW Chips – The Olestra Experiment
The fat-free chips were fried in Olestra, a synthetic calorie-free fat branded as Olean, instead of the usual vegetable oil. Commercials for WOW boasted that Olean fried chips had none of the fat of traditional fried potato chips with all the familiar salty, crispy taste. Frito Lay released WOW versions of its Ruffles, Lays, and Doritos brands and collected a whopping $347 million in sales in the first year. The initial success was phenomenal – people were desperate for guilt-free chips.
But, it didn’t take long for consumer complaints to start pouring in. The wonder chips were found to cause digestive distress in many people, a direct side-effect of Olestra. According to a review by Lawson KD, Middleton SJ, and Hassall CD, Olestra can’t be absorbed by the digestive system, it creates a laxative effect which can manifest as anything from mild cramping to severe diarrhea. Unlike other iconic products of the 1990s, WOW chips are one snack no one wants to make a comeback.
SnackWell’s Devil’s Food Cookie Cakes – Diet Culture Icons
Right on cue, SnackWell’s burst onto the scene with fat-free Devil’s Food Cookie Cakes, promising we could have our cake and slim down, too. The signature bright green boxes of SnackWell’s cookies were a staple in diet-conscious pantries throughout the ’90s. The light chocolate cake rounds had a thin layer of marshmallow creme covered in a thin chocolatey coating. Most importantly to some, these cookies contained not a single gram of fat in their original incarnation.
Between 1993 and 1996, the SnackWell’s sold about $161 million worth of Devil’s Food Cookie Cakes. Whether the massive success was due to the quality of the product or its branding as a nutritionally superior choice to other processed cookies, is up for debate. The green packaging became a status symbol in health-conscious households, representing the perfect marriage of indulgence and restraint that defined ’90s diet culture.
Shark Bites Fruit Snacks – The White Shark Hunt
These gummy snacks were shaped like sharks and came in an array of pastel colors. The rare white shark gummy was like finding gold. I remember trading snacks with friends just to get one. The white shark became playground currency – kids would negotiate elaborate trades just for that elusive translucent treat.
If you set the white, opaque shark gummies aside every time you tore into a pack of these fruit snacks, you know exactly what’s up. Betty Crocker continued to sell these for a while, but once they vowed to no longer include artificial flavors or colors in any of their products (aka bye-bye white sharks), people lost interest, and they were discontinued. Ironically, removing artificial ingredients killed the very thing that made Shark Bites special.
Magic Middles – The Fudge-Filled Fantasy
Magic Middles were beloved shortbread cookies with fudge centers. These snacks were introduced by Keebler in the late 1980s, gaining popularity throughout the early 1990s. They were discontinued after Keebler was acquired by Kellogg’s in 2001. The magic wasn’t just in the name – biting into that buttery shortbread to discover the molten fudge center was like finding treasure.
A shortbread cookie filled with fudge, Keebler Magic Middles were the coveted cookies in lunchrooms across America in the 1980s and ’90s. A peanut butter flavor was available, too. The Magic Middles cookies were great for dunking in milk and have enough fanfare that there’s a Facebook group dedicated to bringing them back. The Facebook group proves that even decades later, the memory of that perfect fudge-to-cookie ratio haunts former fans.
Trix Yogurt – Rainbow in a Cup
Trix Yogurt wasn’t just a snack – it was a color explosion. The swirled, vibrant colors made it feel like dessert disguised as something healthy. It’s one of those snacks that’s just fun to think about. The marketing genius was positioning this sugar-packed treat as a healthy alternative to candy, when it was basically fruity sugar with a yogurt base.
With vibrant swirls of neon colors, Trix Yogurt was a rainbow in a cup. It was fun, sugary, and totally ’90s. Despite calls to bring it back, it remains a relic of the past. The swirled colors would mix as you ate, creating new psychedelic combinations that kept kids entertained throughout the entire snacking experience. It was less about the taste and more about the visual spectacle.
The Nostalgia Economy
In the age of social media, the collective nostalgia for discontinued ’90s-era snacks has been powerful enough to incentivize some brands to bring back a few discontinued favorites from that decade. In 2020 Dunkaroos made a triumphant comeback to store shelves and Creme Savers weren’t far behind. The power of internet nostalgia has proven that memories can literally be monetized.
The ’90s was a booming time for processed snacks as production became less expensive and consumer demand for cheap, convenient, kid-friendly foods grew. It was an era when kids subsisted on Lunchables, yogurt squeeze tubes, and Bugles and – according to all the ’90s nostalgia posts splashed across social media – loved it. These snacks weren’t just food – they were cultural artifacts that defined childhood for an entire generation. The human brain is hardwired to remember the foods we eat and the contexts in which we eat them. That’s why the smell of a freshly unwrapped Fruit Roll-Up has the ability to transport you back to your elementary school cafeteria, and the taste of a cherry Ring-Pop triggers feelings of nostalgia for childhood. In the end, maybe that’s why we miss these discontinued treats so desperately – they’re not just snacks, but edible time machines to simpler days.
