14 Discontinued Fruit Snacks We'd Love To Bring Back
We've already ranked the most popular snacks in America, and there was a time when at least a few of these fruit snacks definitely would've been on the list ... if they hadn't been discontinued. If you're anything like us, you occasionally wake up in a cold sweat, the creepy commercial for Two-T-Fruits running through your mind like a nostalgic nightmare. Or maybe the mere sight of the opaque white pegasus gummy in a pack of Berry Bears snacks brings you back to a simpler time. The more we think back on the fruit snacks of yesteryear, the more we want them back — even the gross ones.
There was a time in our lives when we wanted nothing more than to chow down on fruit snacks with the strangest names you can imagine: Boogers, Twizzlers Twerpz, Fruit String Thing, Creepy Crawlers, and a host of other nutty names. So why did they all suddenly disappear? We remember all the wacky fruit snack variations fondly, but sometime between our childhoods and today, they were all discontinued. We still have Shark Bites and Scooby-Doo fruit snacks to cherish, but so many others have been lost to time. Let's take a moment to honor the fruit snacks that have fallen into obscurity.
Fruit String Thing
The name "Fruit String Thing" may be vague, but that's because the food itself is difficult to describe. It was basically a bunch of edible fruit-flavored strings that kids would make into fun shapes and designs. Fruit String Thing debuted in 1994, right as the "wacky fruit snacks" craze was ramping up. It has since become one of the more nostalgic childhood snacks, but not because it stood the test of time. The downfall of Fruit String Thing can be traced back to how it was presented to kids.
"Tie it, twist it, braid it, swing it..." The advertisement on the box gave these and many other suggestions of how kids could play with their gummy, stringy food. But actually playing with Fruit String Thing could've been more work than it was worth. As The Daily Meal concluded in its article on the subject, it's possible that the thin strings just couldn't compete with the more substantial, flavorful, and fun Fruit by the Foot. Regardless of the reason, Fruit String Thing was discontinued in 2005. Still, the nostalgic snack has its champions. On Reddit, u/4cool6school wrote that Fruit String Thing was "one of the cornerstones of my childhood lunchbox contents."
Yogos
In the early 2000s, parents walked down their grocery store's snack aisle and were bombarded by chewy, gummy, corn syrup-laden snacks that barely qualified as food, let alone as a healthy midday snack for kids. So when their eyes landed on the words "fruit" and "yogurt", parents must have been relieved. Fruit and yogurt are healthy choices on their own, so they must be even healthier when paired together, right? Alas, this was not necessarily the case with Yogos. Yogos were marketed as a "yogurty-covered fruit flavored snack," but what that really means is "fruit-flavored chewy candy covered in sugary yogurt." And as Tasting Table reported, the main ingredient in Yogos was, unsurprisingly, sugar.
The high sugar content made the snacks undeniably delicious, but this wasn't enough to keep the fruit snacks in production. Yogos went the way of the dodo in 2010. Nostalgic fans of the snack have rallied to bring it back, and over 17,000 people have signed a petition in favor of reviving Yogos. But even though the snack has a passionate fan base, Kellogg's has been clear: Yogos aren't coming back anytime soon. You could make a homemade version of the snack by coating raisins in yogurt. But it's just not the same...
Twizzlers Twerpz
The concept was simple: Cut Twizzlers into bite-sized pieces, fill them with a chewy fruit-flavored center, and voila! The movie theater snack of your dreams. Calling these juicy little morsels "Twerpz" only made them sillier for their target demographic — kids with sugar cravings. With all this in mind, there were probably high hopes for Twizzler Twerpz. But considering how they were discontinued only five years after their release, the reaction must not have been what Big Twizzler wanted. Maybe the failure was the fruit snack/candy's identity crisis. The association with Twizzlers made it seem like candy, but the chewy fruity center was closer to standard fruit snack texture, making for a confusing experience.
Don't get us wrong; the snack has its fans on Reddit to this day. "I miss these more than most things I've lost," u/TuxKusanagi wrote. u/Sad-Profession-7877 agreed, saying, "These were my favorite candy in the entire world and now they are discontinued and I think about them at least once a month." Now that's love.
Fruit Wrinkles
Fruit Wrinkles were Fruit Corners' attempt at making raisins sound appealing to kids. Softer than a jelly bean but with a similar texture, Fruit Wrinkles were supposed to be a compellingly "healthy" alternative to the wackier fruit snacks of the '80s and '90s. Their "edge", according to the consumer "quotes" on an average box of Fruit Wrinkles, was how they were both healthy and delicious. "I knew my kids would like these Fruit Wrinkles because they're made with real fruit. And my kids love fruit," one "mom" was quoted as saying.
It sounds like a marketing ploy, but former Fruit Wrinkles eaters have stormed Reddit to defend the snack. "I would kill for some Fruit Wrinkles right now," u/Disastrous-Bee-1557 wrote. Another Reddit user claimed to remember a Fruit Wrinkles commercial. "There was a brief TV campaign for them centered around adults catching you eating them and being shocked that they were so ugly," u/epidemicsaints recalled. "Lots of rabbit poop jokes, they looked like raisins." Whether it was because of the unusual texture or the "healthy" ingredients, Fruit Wrinkles couldn't compete with the more entertaining fruit snacks of the time.
Bonkers
These Nabisco fruit chews epitomized the kooky, crazy sugar rush that was kids' food in the '80s. Bonkers looked like if Starbursts got jacked at the gym. The colorful hues and chewy texture are quite tempting. And yes, it's technically candy, but the fruit flavoring and a distinct chewiness central to the product make it a fruit snack/candy hybrid in our book. All we know for sure is that Bonkers wasn't gum. In a popular Bonkers commercial, a woman stared seriously at the viewer and said, "My son thought Bonkers was gum. He knows it's candy now." The snack came in many colors, but the chewy outside shell was vanilla flavored while the inside filling was lemon-lime, orange, cherry, watermelon, or grape flavored, among others.
Despite the popular commercials, Bonkers didn't stick around for long (except in your teeth). By the late '90s, Bonkers had fallen out of favor. Another company, Leaf Brands, hoped to revive the nostalgic fruit chews in the 2010s, but the revitalized Bonkers never materialized. In fact, the trademark was officially abandoned in 2015, dashing hopes of a Bonkers reunion. All we can do is hope that someone, somewhere finds a way to bring Bonkers back into our lives.
Boogers
The name 'boogers' is hilariously disgusting, so naturally, Boogers fruit-flavored candy debuted with a bang in the late '80s. "The more the parents scream, the more the kids want the candy," the candy's inventor, Tom Berquist, told Time in 1989. It's genius, if gross, and kids just loved being able to say "I'm eating boogers!" while shoveling greenish-gray fruit-flavored gummies into their mouths. The gummy's mascot was, unsurprisingly, a grinning booger, which only made Boogers more boundary-pushing. There was no need to advertise Booger candy as a healthy snack because they obviously weren't. They were boogers.
A few specific flavors were "Goopy Grape", "Lumpy Lemon", "Clingy Cherry", and "Wobble Melon". Sounds appetizing, no? While this may have appealed to kids, by the late '90s, Boogers had outstayed their welcome. The fruit-flavored candy was discontinued, and the trademark expired in 1998, according to Trademarkia. Maybe the thought of eating boogers no longer made kids laugh. Or, more likely, Boogers couldn't keep up with every other candy and fruit snack brand that didn't make its product look like mucus. Flix Candy makes a decent dupe if you're nostalgic for the disgusting little fruit-chews. But for the original experience, you'll have to invent a time machine.
Sodalicious Gummies
When asked to choose between Coca-Cola and fruit leather, kids will pick soda every time. That's why General Mills tried to combine the two in the '90s. From root beer to orange to cola, Sodalicious Gummies offered all the flavors of soda in the form of fruit snacks. What made them extra special was the fizzy coating on the outside, which was meant to mimic carbonation and enhance the overall flavor. With so many cool features, Sodalicious Gummies had to be a huge success, right? Nope. By 1998 General Mills had pulled the soda-flavored gummy snacks off shelves for good.
Maybe General Mills' efforts to replicate the taste and feel of soda didn't translate the way they'd hoped. It's also possible that parents weren't impressed with the nutritional content (or lack thereof) of the fruit snacks. But since we can't find the nutritional facts for the discontinued candy, this is all speculation. Some fans fought for Sodalicious Gummies to make a comeback, but the Change.org petition closed with fewer than 1,000 signatures in 2016. Perhaps it's time to say goodbye to Sodalicious Gummies and hello to wine gummies, your favorite wine in a chewy, bite-sized snack.
Berry Bears
With their multicolored, multi-textured, multi-everything vibe, Berry Bears were all the flash and excess of the '80s in a pouch of fruit snacks. "[Berry Bears were] the girls answer to Shark Bites," u/Bonecrusher_82 wrote on Reddit. It's possible that part of what made Berry Bears fruit snacks so successful was their actual lore. The '90s and 2000s were all about pop culture fruit snacks, from Scooby-Doo to Garfield to *NSYNC. But in the '80s, the fact that Berry Bears told a story about a family of bears, both on the packaging and in TV commercials, was uniquely compelling. What got kids hooked was when the bear-shaped fruit snacks added the white, opaque, pegasus-shaped fruit snack to the mix. The pegasus, named Flight the Magic Horse, became a fan favorite if modern-day fan reactions are any indication.
@HamburgerJack on X wrote that the pegasus pieces "tasted like MAGIC (mostly sugar) BUT ALSO MAGIC." @Anonymi27283273 stated the obvious: "Loved these. Never understood why bears and flying horses are bundled together." But isn't the baffling storytelling half the fun? We think so, but Berry Bears were still discontinued in the '90s. Not everyone was as enamored with the Berry Bears' lore as the rest of us.
Two-T-Fruits
Only the sharpest memories will remember Two-T-Fruits, the fruit snack that @AlexClearfield on X said was "like a cousin of Fruit String Thing." But where Fruit String Thing was thin and stringy, Two-T-Fruits was thick and tube-like. What made Two-T-Fruit special was what happened when you bit into the snack. Instead of being a hollow tube, Two-T-Fruit lived up to the "two" in its name and surprised the eater with a vibrant fruit-flavored center. "Two fruits are more fun than one," an ad for the fruit snack proclaimed, and we tend to agree. But since the snacks were only sold from the late '80s to around 1990, we may be in the minority.
"These were good, but the way they inched around in the commercial like worms was pretty creepy," u/athensohpopsmall wrote on Reddit. "Also the inside layer would shoot out and waggle around like a tongue." Not the most appealing description. We know Two-T-Fruits existed — its trademark was abandoned between 1988-1990 — but finding other information online is challenging. All we know for sure is that the fruit snack briefly made its mark in the '80s before disappearing forever. It's no wonder Two-T-Fruits aren't one of the few nostalgic '90s-era snacks you can still buy today.
Brach's Hot Hits *NSYNC fruit snacks
We wish we never had to say "Bye Bye Bye" (sorry) to these uber-nostalgic fruit snacks from 2000-2001. To be clear, the fruit snacks weren't shaped like the actual *NSYNC boys — a fruit snack could never capture JC's soulful eyes — but were shaped like the candy conversation hearts that Brach's was already known for. Part of the fun was finding a bag with all five boy band members included. Kids would be tearin' up the boxes just for a chance to see the name "Justin" splashed across one of the fruit snack hearts. But did the flavor of the fruit snacks live up to the fervor?
For some *NSYNC fans at the time, the actual taste of the fruit snacks wasn't a priority. "Memory unlocked! Wow! I remember thinking they'd be like Gushers, but they weren't," u/GenYMama wrote on Reddit. Brach's fruit snacks may have been ahead of the curve when it joined forces with the famous boy band in 2000; just the box that the fruit snacks came in is a collectible for *NSYNC super fans.
Darkwing Duck fruit snacks
It's safe to say that Darkwing Duck fruit snacks are no longer sold in your local grocery store. The '90s was a Golden Age for cartoons, and it was also the height of Disney's wacky IP merchandising. This is where Darkwing Duck fruit snacks shined. The cartoon, which ran from 1991 to 1992, was a blip compared to Disney's longer-running duck cartoon, DuckTales. But that didn't stop Disney from turning the superhero duck into a fruit snack through the brand Fruit Parade. On the back of the fruit snack box, the Fruit Parade brand advertised two other types of '90s-era fruit snacks: TaleSpin and Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers.
Unfortunately, we know very little about Darkwing Duck fruit snacks. Even the brand, Fruit Parade, seems to have faded into obscurity. The Fruit Parade trademark was canceled in 2004, so any hope of procuring a fresh box of Darkwing Duck fruit snacks is long gone. Is it naive to hope that Disney will capitalize on the current nostalgia trend and re-release some Darkwing Duck fruit snacks? Probably. We'll even accept a box of TaleSpin fruit snacks at this point.
Nickelodeon Crazy Colors fruit roll-up snacks
In the '90s, a kid's average Saturday morning probably involved waking up early, grabbing a snack, and watching Nicktoons for hours. And chances are, the "healthy snack" one chose was a Nickelodeon-themed fruit roll-up. Nickelodeon's brand encouraged kids to be expressive, energetic, and adventurous, three qualities that translate well to the world of '90s kids snacks. Nickelodeon's Crazy Colors Fruit Roll-Up snacks was one of the more inventive fruit snacks on the market.
The snack came in a variety of ombre colors and was imprinted with the shapes of popular Nickelodeon cartoon characters. You could carefully poke out the character shapes of Doug, Rocko, Ren, and Stimpy. But if you were anything like us, you just crammed the colorful fruit roll-up into your mouth. Ah, to be a kid again. Betty Crocker (and its parent company, General Mills) produced the wacky fruit roll-up snacks we remember from our childhood. Nickelodeon's Crazy Colors Fruit Roll-Up snacks came in a bunch of weird and wonderful flavors, from Berry Banana to Slimy, Grimy Green. As much as we'd love to enjoy a sticky Crazy Colors Fruit Roll-Up again, this particular line was discontinued in 1996.
Garfield & Friends fruit snacks
"Garfield & Friends" was such a popular cartoon that it was made into at least two types of fruit snacks. One version was a straightforward fruit snack in the shape of each character, including Garfield, Odie, and even a creepy clown from one of the commercials. General Mills also produced a fruit roll-up version of the snack. You could peel out Garfield characters from the gummy roll-up, and some boxes even came with a Garfield-colored striped roll. The character-shaped fruit snacks were discontinued around 1993, but the experience of eating them has never faded for some fans.
"There was something about the texture here that was so good! I can honestly still smell them, it's baked into my memory," @Snack_Memories wrote on X of the blob fruit snacks. Don't let Garfield's crabby attitude fool you: These snacks were meant to put a smile on kids' faces. "Remember when they had the blue Binky the Clown pieces? We always counted to see who had the most in their pack at lunch," u/One-Imagination-2274 commented on Reddit. If only we could relive the high of having the most blue fruit snacks at the lunch table ...
Incredible Edibles and Creepy Crawlers
You've heard of the Easy Bake Oven, but what about Incredible Edibles? In the '60s, kids making their own fruit snacks with a "toy" was cutting-edge. The Mattel toy was simple: you'd pour the edible "Gobble-DeGoop" (that's seriously the official term) into the mold, heat it in the Sooper-Gooper heating unit, let it cool, and voila! You could make all kinds of fruit snacks with the Incredible Edibles fruit snack maker, from fruit-flavored insects to butterscotch-flavored flowers to mint-flavored sea creatures. There's no word on how the "Gobble-DeGoop" tasted, but does it really matter when you can make gummy spiders from a heating unit with big googly eyeballs?
It's hard to say when Incredible Edibles was discontinued, but we know that a later version, Mattel's Creepy Crawlers, disappeared around 1970. Other versions followed, from the Creepy Crawler Bug Maker to Tyco's Doctor Dreadful's Food Lab. You can still get your hands on an original Incredible Edibles maker on eBay, but there's no guarantee you won't burn them in the process; the Creepy Crawlers toy oven could get extremely hot and emit dangerous fumes. It's possible that a similar issue was experienced with the Incredible Edibles heating unit.