FOODS THAT VANISHED

Remember those snack foods from our childhood? where did they go??? They just vanished like our youthful appearance lol.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Well, good morning. It is June the 8th, 2026, and straight from the Highley Caffeinated studio, this is According to Willie B, and I will be your host for the next half hour. Give or take a minute or two. Well, I am so glad to be back on my feet and be past the whole pneumonia thing. I'm telling you, that was the longest stint of anything I ever want to have to endure. I still to this day, even though I've been over it now for almost two weeks, still having some issues with a little cough sneaking in every now and then. But we're gonna try to keep it down to a bare minimum, if not just completely cut it out altogether. I've been trying to work on it to make sure that I can get through the entire podcast without it. And uh have been some had little tricks that seem to be working, so we'll see how it goes. Uh, I can't promise that there won't be a word salad or two along the way, but you know, we're trying to be healthy nowadays anyway, so a little word salad never hurt anybody, right? All right, so today I had such great feedback on the uh candy bars issue uh podcast last week, and uh it was such a fun podcast to do, but there were so many more foods that weren't candy bars that have disappeared, and I thought, oh, what a nostalgic episode. I have to do foods from the 70s and 80s that have disappeared, and please, please reach out and let me know if there was a food from the 70s, 80s, 90s, whatever, that is no longer around, and you're like, why? Where did it go? It was really good. So we're gonna, without everything else, we're gonna get into it and check out some foods from the 70s and 80s that just poof vanished into thin air. Now, the thing about the 70s and 80s, it brought us a decade of disco and bell bottoms, but it also gave us something else worth remembering, which was food. Food, what did I tell you? Food is always tied to memories. Now, food can be wild, experimental, and sometimes bizarre food that basically defined our generation uh in American households. They weren't just snacks, they were experiences, they were uh conversation starters, and they were stuff that were you gathered around the kitchen table and you just and we were enamored with uh this little snack food that happened to pop out from from nowhere. So let's let's take a look at them. So the first one up, I want to know. Now I remember this one, and when I started doing my research for this podcast, I thought to myself, you know, there's some of these foods that I had totally forgotten about, and it's it's funny how our brain plays that trick. They were so good, you how could you possibly have forgotten it? But as I researched different foods, it it all the that I could actually taste the different foods that I had forgotten about, and this one was one of my absolute favorites out of all the foods I'm gonna talk about today that are no longer here. This one, and if I if somebody okay, if somebody tells me, oh well, you can get a banana flavored moon pie, which is really good, but it's a moon pie. Totally different, totally different snack. This was called the banana flip. It was like a sponge cake in taco shape, and it had this banana cream filling, and it was absolutely the best thing you ever put in your mouth. They were oh, that just I miss them so bad. And now I had totally forgotten about it. But now I want one, and they no longer make them, so I I don't know what I'm gonna do. Maybe I can find a recipe on the internet to try to make my own. I don't know, but they were that good. Uh, but it was to me, it was just a snack that was pure genius. And the the brand that made it was Nichols and Mickey's. I don't think they're uh in business any longer, and that could be why the banana flip is no longer available. But man, it was just like you know, if a if a banana and a taco had a baby, that's what it would have been like. I I know that's weird, but hey, this thing was that good. Um if if a kid had one in their lunchbox at school, oh man, you would trade, you would trade a week's worth of lunches for one of those things. Oh, my lightning style. I'm not sure where that background sound is coming from, but got that taken care of. See, I told you that wasn't a word salad, but there's always glitches, right? Makes it lets you know that I'm real, that I'm not AI. How could I possibly be AI? All right, so this one was one of my favorite snack foods, if you will. And this one was called tidbits. Uh and it was a it kind of looked like uh these little uh cracker sticks, and they had the perfect amount of cheese flavor and salt, they weren't really salty. And now, to give you what we have nowadays, the only things that that even remotely come close to it is goldfish. That's all we have is goldfish. And I'm like, goldfish are just not the same, they don't have that same cheese punch that the tidbits have. And if you remember them, you you agree with me, let me know. There was one other snack mix that Nabisco came out with, and both of these the tidbits and the doodads. Do you remember the doodads? And now all we have is Giradeld. What is it? Um not Giradelli. Uh it's that. Um, oh my mind is going blank here, but you know what I'm talking about? The snack mix. And I I'm just I'm they're okay. There's just not the same as the doodads. Now let me tell you, I don't know how much MSG was in doodads, but your tongue would be numb for 30 minutes. But they were so good, and probably so bad for you, but man, they were good. They had the different two different uh chicks mixed in there, uh, had peanuts in there. Oh man, it was just the greatest. I'm sorry, it just really was. Um and and you know, I I don't know. It it's your your memory plays tricks on you when you get older and you're like, okay, was it as really good as we thought it was? All right, here's you another one. Now, I personally didn't remember this one, but maybe it was only available in certain parts of the country. And it was called, and it was made by Pillsbury, and it was called Space Food Sticks. Now they came in chocolate, and I think there was a peanut butter, and uh, I think there might have been a caramel. I uh I I just don't remember them, and but they they were from what I could research, they were really chewy, and I'm just like I really don't remember. I do the research I did, they they did look like dog treats, though. So maybe that's why they're not around anymore, but I I I don't know. And they you know, the from the research I got, it said, Oh, the kids felt like they were astronauts. Maybe that's why some kids didn't grow up to be astronauts because they had that snack and they're like, Yeah, I don't think so. If this is what I have to eat, um, all right. Do you remember this one? This was a general meals. This one was not around very long. Um, it was called it's a cereal called Baron Von Redberry. Now I remember the commercial. I never ate the cereal, but I remember the commercials for it. And every Saturday morning during cartoons, Baron Von Redberry. He had his little commercial, and and yeah, it was uh they say it tasted like fruit punch. I I I don't know. I don't know that I want cereal that tastes like fruit punch. Um, it just it just wasn't my thing. Now, I do remember this one. This was also a General Mills, and excuse me, I'm so sorry. Uh the crazy cow cereal, and it was basically your 70s version of count chocolate, count chocolate, if you will. It I and to this day, even as I was I was a kid, I I just didn't want something turning the milk to something else unless it was just more sugar. Uh case in point, frosted flakes. Um, you can take regular milk and take two percent milk and turn it into a very um diabetes-causing dilemma uh just by the amount of sugar that rubs off in the milk. But it's you know, as a kid it was good. Now, today's in today's day, I can't I can't do that. Now, the thing about soda companies, soda companies have always been famous for pulling the rug out from under us. Uh Pepsi came out with, and I think this was um probably in the late 80s, early 90s, came out with Pepsi Blue. Oh man, did they advertise the crap out of that? And it was actually pretty good. It wasn't it wasn't bad at all. They also from and this one was only available for four years. This one was uh called Aspen, and it was a clear apple soda from Pepsi, and we only had it for four four years. I remember it, I wasn't a huge fan of it. I'll tell you the one that I was a huge fan of that disappeared, and that was the orange slice. Do you remember orange slice? That was probably one of the best tasting orange sodas that came along since the early 70s of the Neehigh and the Fanta uh sodas. But uh today I just don't care for sodas because they just they just don't uh I don't know, they just don't taste the same as they did when I was a kid. Maybe it's me, maybe it's the soda. I do know that they change, like we talked about in that one episode, they change ingredients and they um are getting away with all the high fructose corn syrup and things like that instead of cane sugar, and it it really changes the taste of these sodas. Okay, so you remember this one. This one was from Kraft, and it started back in 1971 with it. It came in chocolate, vanilla, banana, cinnamon, and you could spread it on anything. It was called Kugel with a K. K-O-O-G-L-E. It was a peanut, a cinnamon peanut spread, and it was an imitation of peanut butter. It basically took peanut butter from a healthy standpoint and made it horrible, but it was it was actually pretty good on crackers. I didn't like it on bread, but on crackers, yeah, it tasted pretty good. Um, do you remember one called Pizza Spins? Now, this one was actually around for seven years. I don't remember it being around that long, but it was these little corn chips um that had a pizza flavor. And from what I remember, the pizza flavor was not very strong. There was just something about the snack that we just we craved as a kid. I do remember that. I don't know what we thought was so special about them, but we we did uh they were almost like currency with kids, especially when we were uh in grade school. Now, this one, this next one I do miss, and it's not that I don't like Pop Tarts. I do like a Pop Tart every now and then. But Nabisco used to make one called Toastette. Now, this was basically the same thing as a Pop Tart, only it didn't have that, let's call it an armored shield of sugary coating. It just had a like a sugar sprinkle uh on top of it, and the pastry was really flaky, and the fruit filling actually tasted like fruit filling, not some caramelized sugar gel. And to me, the toastettes were almost like something if you tried to make that at home. If you tried to make a homemade Pop Tart, that's to me that's what toastettes tasted like. And I was sad to see uh those go because they they really were great. And then when we got Pop Tart, uh and and some people say, oh no, uh this beats the Pop Tarts hands down. No, I'm sorry, it doesn't, but that's you know what, that's a matter of opinion, right? I'm sure it's probably 50-50 out there where some people say, Oh no, it's this is this is absolutely the best, but obviously not enough of us love them because they disappeared. All right, this one I do not remember, and um I'm wondering if any of you do remember this one. It was from Kellogg's and it was called Danish Go Rounds, and then it was later renamed to Danish Rings. The reason being the Danish Go Rounds, they Kellogg's had a huge problem with them breaking, so they later came out with a different design and different uh texture, and they called it Danish Rings, and then they held together a little better. This next one I actually remember it I wasn't a huge fan of it, and not that it was bad, it just I don't know, it just wasn't my wasn't my favorite cup of tea, I guess. But it was called the Reggie Bar, and it was after the the baseball player Reggie Jackson, and you know it just I don't know. I mean it was peanuts, caramel, and chocolate, which we have other candy bars on the market that are peanuts, caramel, and chocolate. But it just I don't know, it's just was something I think it had a lot for me, had a lot to do with the ratio of each ingredient, and it just was a but it in some areas of the US it was extremely popular. Um but it it finally it finally hit the dirt in 1981, and uh yeah, it was called Out at the Plate and No Pun intended. Oh, but it you know, it it was a good candy bar, but this one I do remember, and I'm sure if you still have teeth left in your head, you're gonna remember this one as well. This one was from Mars Candy Company, and it was called the Marathon Bar. Now, what this was was chocolate-covered caramel, and it was like braided, it was almost like they took three strands of chocolate-covered caramel and braided it, and they had a ruler. This was the iconic part. They had a ruler printed on the back of the package so that you could always see that they did not shrink the size of the candy bar, it was always eight inches long. So it but the thing about it was that caramel that they use, uh a marathon bar was just that. It would last you a while because you could take one bite of it and you would chew until your jaws hurt. But um, it was it was a good it was a good candy bar if you could just live up to the challenge of chewing the thing. Um, but it it it you know it it finally disappeared in 1981 as well. Now this one, I'm sorry. The packaging alone tells me no thank you. It was made by Nabisco and it was called tuna twist. And what it was was you would could take tuna fish and you could add this packet of ingredients and it would basically stretch your tuna fish. So you could take four sandwiches and then you add this ingredient and then it would make it into six sandwiches. And there were three flavors onion, cheddar, and Italian. Now, I you know, here's the thing. I mean, tuna fish is tuna fish, but you start adding some weird flavors into that. I I I'm sorry, I I just gotta say no. Uh you know, it was something that moms loved it, kids tolerated it. But the textured vegetable protein actually made people sick, so tuna twist uh disappeared quickly. This one I remember being on the shelves in a grocery store just because of the packaging. I remember seeing the packaging, but I wasn't a big fan of it, and it was just during those days I wasn't a big fan of instant foods, and this was from Betty Crocker, and it was called Mugga Lunch, which in today's terms is what a couple noodles, right? So the problem is that Betty Crocker came out with this in 1976. Now, how did you have to prepare that in 1976? You had to boil water, not microwave. And then that's what happened when the microwave finally came along. That's when they invented a couple noodles, and it was much faster. But four if you if you remember waiting four minutes for something back in the early 70s, yeah, that was four agonizing minutes. It was like waiting, you know, 45 minutes for a TV dinner. You know, we just had more patience then. But then when a microwave came along, we're like, you know, oh, this is much faster. Maybe that's where our patience has gone. All right, what about this one? This I was not a fan of this, but I know that a lot of people were, and they still have a different product. Uh uh, what is it called? Easy cheese, uh something like that. But this was called from Nabisco, and it was called Snack Mate. It was, you guessed it, cheese and an aerosol can. Now, what could go wrong with cheese and an aerosol can? That just sounds like the perfect picture of health. It was actually launched in 1966, but then in the 70s, it owned the 70s, it became the thing to have. It was in every pantry across America. But, you know, now there's easy cheese, and I don't know if we can call that progress or not, but all right, here's one that I actually miss, and this is ironic that I miss it because in my entire life, I may have bought something from this store maybe once or twice, and it was usually at Christmas time. Hickory Farms. Now, this is back when malls were the big thing, right? And you always saw that hickory farms store in the bigger malls, and then during Christmas, if your mall wasn't big enough to have a hickory farm standalone, they always had one of those little areas in the center of the mall walkway, and they would set up a little makeshift store. They had some of the coolest stuff, but here's what to me, here's what made Hickory Farms as uh to be the success that they were. They were very innovative in packaging. Now, what I mean by that, you remember you could buy one of their packages, one of their trays or baskets or whatever it was, and it looked like you were getting a mountain of different. Things to snack on and eat. But when you got it home and you opened it up, you realized it was basically the Easter basket for an adult. Because by the time you got the cardboard and the Easter grass out of there, it didn't have much left as far as actual treats. So, but you know what? They were very successful in what they did, and we cannot deny that. Uh, you know, the thing about uh something about back in the 70s, foil. Foil everything. If if it came in foil, it that was the thing to have. Do you remember the pudding cups that came in the little tin cans? I'm so sorry, folks. I I try to keep these coughs down to a minimum, but I guess I talked to the doctor, and they says, Well, this is part of it, you're just gonna have to get past it. I'm like, okay, well, hopefully I'll live long enough to get past it. Um, but you know, the ding-dongs, you remember the chocolate ding dongs. Oh man, those things were delicious. Uh, the pudding in tin cans, TV dinners came in aluminum trays. I think about the main thing we see in aluminum now is we still see the old Jiffy Pop. Jiffy Pop is still around in some stores. Um, but Swanson TV dinners, if you remember, that was in a foil tray. And you know, it was like the the food version of the game operation because you did not want any of your foods touching, and that aluminum dividers did the best that they could of keeping it separated. But if a one of your green peas ever got in your cherry cobbler, oh heaven forbid, man. All right, do you remember these? I don't my brain can't wrap around this one, but this one was out by Pillsbury, and it was mid-70s, and it was called Figurines. Now, this was like a basically almost like a diet breakfast bar, if you will. It's kind of they didn't have all the diet um ingredients in them back then. It was just supposedly lower calorie, and it was a breakfast bar, and it actually came in chocolate, vanilla, and cinnamon, and that was their attempt at having something healthier for breakfast. And then people today get on me about uh bacon and eggs and a biscuit. I'm sorry, I bet my bacon, eggs, and biscuit is healthier than those figurine bars, but I I digress. I stand, I stand by my thought process. I vaguely remember this next one. I never tried it. I would be interesting, I would be interested to hear if anybody else did. And it was called PDQ, and it was first stood for pretty darn quick drink mix. Uh, it was chocolate or strawberry. Um, it was Ovalteen's competitor, if you will. Now, to this day, I still not a big uh now I will say Nesquick, yeah, that stuff is the bomb. I will still drink a glass of Nesquick in a heartbeat today, even as an adult. But yeah, PDQ, that was not my thing. Ovultine, not so much. But to me, you just can't beat a good old glass of cold milk with some Hershey's chocolate syrup. Now, and when I make chocolate milk, I'm I'll just go ahead and confess to this. I make chocolate milk like a five-year-old. In other words, six parts chocolate, one part milk. But hey, it's like the other day I had a salad. Yes, yours truly ate a salad and it had chicken on it. Now, it was chopped-up chicken tenders fried, and several people told me if you'd gotten a grilled chicken, it would be healthier. I'm like, it's already healthy because it's a salad. They're like, yes, but it's not you you negate the the health benefits of the salad because you got fried chicken on it. If I put fried chicken tenders on a plate, this is this is my thought process. This is how I ration things. If I buy a plate that has only chicken tenders on that plate, that does not look healthy. My brain says, hey, this is not healthy, but it's tasty. If I get a salad and it has fried chicken tenders on it, now my brain looks at that and says, Oh, this is a salad, it's healthy. Enjoy, dig in, and just enjoy. But I digress. But you know, I I would love to hear uh what your uh foods are that you remember from 70s, 80s, 90s, whatever, that are no longer around today that you miss. Because I promise you, if you start doing some research, you're gonna find foods and you're going to go, Oh, I remember that. And there you go. Now you're gonna have that taste in the back of your mind, and you can't get it out because the food no longer exists. So there's that. And if anybody has a recipe for the banana flip, oh, I think I might almost pay for that one. So let me know about that. But until I see you next week, do not forget to caffeinate and conquer. I will continue to work on this cough and get this remedied where we don't have to listen to the coughs. But until I see you next week, I greatly appreciate listening and have a great day. Bye bye.