We Miss Our Discontinued Candy: Bygone Sweets

It probably doesn't bode especially well for our generation that we can get all wistful and misty-eyed over some nutritionally void sugar-laden snacks, but sometimes we just can't help ourselves in these matters. It's tragic in its own small way that today's children will never taste the glorious sugary sweets that so sustained us in our youth. By "sustained" of course I mean it kept our hyperactivity level off the charts and kept our dentists' respective children in expensive sneakers. What? It's a valid interpretation of sustenance, given you accept that these treats served no real nourishing purpose.

You just don't know what you have till it's gone. For a brief, fleeting period these sugary snacks enticed us with their off-the-charts sweetness. Like all good things, though, our love affair with these candies were forced to come to a bitter end. For many of us, we didn't even realize these sweets no longer graced our grocery store shelves until it was too late. Had I been alerted of the impending discontinuation, I would have stocked up on Hershey's Tastations before it was too late.



Mintaburst/Cinnaburst/Fruitaburst Gum



You name the flavor, this gum was a'burstin' with it. Unfortunately, it bursts no more. The burst in question was a mysterious compound of so-called "flavor crystals," which seems to be some sort of code for "gritty hard pieces in your gum that are kind of gross but also ripe with flavor."

Astropop



When I think of what the ideal adjective for describing a favorite candy is, "stabby" usually ranks pretty close to the top of the list. Any candy that can double as weaponry is okay in my book. That book, of course, is called "Lollipop Swords: Beginning Swashbuckling for Youngsters." Look for it coming soon to a bookstore near you.

These things were pure sugar, which from a child's perspective is the be-all-end-all of attractive candy characteristics. Astrioios unfailingly stained our lips and tongues, but this should have been the least of our parents' concerns. The most, of course, being that it was possible to lick the Astropop into a finely tuned dagger and inflict multiple puncture wounds onto our siblings on car trips. Ouch.



Tastetations


Mmmm....Tasteations. These things were creamy hard candy goodness with the Hershey's chocolatey seal of approval thrown in for good measure. Sure, you might feel like a crotchety little old lady carrying around hard candies in your pockets, but the taste made it well worth the minor image sacrifice. Apparently Hershey's first-ever hard candy just wasn't enough to hold our attention--their heyday was pretty short-lived.



Carefree Gum



How, I ask you, are we supposed to adequately sprinkle Clueless movie quotes into everyday situations when the cultural context has cruelly been discontinued? I'm referring, of course, to Cher's impassioned tirade against gym class in which she claims she barely burned off the calories in a stick of Carefree Gum.

By the way, that above commercial is actually pretty funny. Kudos to Milli Vanilli for taking the low road after their incredibly embarrassing lip-syncing debacle. You know what I always say: if you can't make fun of yourself in a gum commercial, you just can't make fun of yourself.



Gatorade Gum



Also known as GatorGum, this sports-themed chewing gum had it heyday in 70s and 80s and enjoyed a brief revival in the late 90s. When I think sports and quenchiness, I don't typically jump immediately to gum, but hey, it worked.

I know the commercial is a bit dated for what we usually post around here, but it's just so funny I couldn't resist. It's cheesy in a way that advertising just can't get away with anymore. "Active people are discovering the gum that's different!" (Man in sweatband crosses finish line) "Now you can lick...dryyyyyy mouth" (Sweatbanded man opens mouth to reveal a camel and some sand). Brilliant.



Dinosaur Eggs



These egg-shaped jawbreakers from the Wonka candy company came in individual boxes, which misled us to believe we could consume them in a single sitting. These things were huge, plus some of them had the added licking obstacle of the Dinosour taste.



Lifesavers Holes



If you ever wondered what they do with all the leftover cutouts at the Lifesavers factory, look no further than the briefly popular "Holes" candy pieces. It doesn't get much lazier than this. "Hey, you know those extra candy pieces we already have but usually toss in the trash?" "Yes?" "We should totally sell them." "Sounds like a plan. Let's give them a kind of gross sounding but fitting name." "Done and done."



Mars Bars (US)



These have been unavailable in the US (despite a steady supply abroad) for nearly ten years. I've heard a rumor, though, that they've been relaunched. If this is true, I'm off to devour one now. These things are awesome. One might even say out of this world. Ba dum ching!



Butterfinger BBs



Who better to take candy advice from than the man himself, Bartholomew J. Simpson? This kid knew his stuff. These have since been discontinued, so the best we can do now is chop up a bunch of butterfingers into small circular pellets and simulate the experience at the movies. Somehow, it just isn't the same.



Crispy M&Ms



Yet another bygone product from our pals at M&Ms. It seems every couple of years or so, they come up with some variation on the classic. The crispy kind had a sort of Nestle Crunch style popped rice inside. They were equal parts satisfying crunch and tastiness, though many of us failed to realize their deliciousness till it was too late.



Tearjerker's Gum


Do you love being tortured by sour candies? Instead of just enduring its presence in your mouth, do you prefer to chew the heck out of it for an extended period of time? Well, then you're in luck. Or at least you were if you grew up in the 90s. These may still be available in limited



Hershey's Cookies and Mint Candy Bar

Just when they come up with something I really adore, they pull it from the market. It's just my luck. This bar was magnificent--milk chocolate, oreo-type coookie bits, mint flavoring...it had it all. And it was not, as the package implied, green. Thank goodness.



This post has made me pretty hungry, which is unfortunate as all of these products are no longer available in safe sell-by date form. We may no longer be able to enjoy them, but at least we have our memories. Sigh. Oh, and if any of you knows where to find these, by all means, please share with the class.

She's All That

What happens when you take a handful of teen movie tropes and cliches and roll them all into a conveniently packaged single film? Why, you end up with legions of devoted teenage fans a bunch of grumbling and crotchety grown-up film critics, of course. Teen movies like She's All That serve to prove that the divide between teenagers and adults is still alive and kicking. Or, more accurately, alive and breaking spontaneously into over-the-top song and dance numbers set to Fatboy Slim's "Rockafella Skank." Either way, the reactions just don't add up.

In every film-producing generation, adolescents flock to schmaltzy coming-of-age teen flicks that continually leave most adult viewers scratching their heads. It's a bit ironic, of course, that these films are invariably produced and dictated by roomfuls of adults who seek to crack the code of youth culture. They manage to convince us that the story they're telling is indicative of the plight of young people, despite the fact that the only young people involved played no role in the creative decision-making process. Savvy adults issued the call and we 90s teens and tweens were more than happy to answer.

All youth cultural analysis aside, She's All That swiftly ascended to the rank of widely accepted canonical teen movie. That is, mainstream teenagers in the 90s absolutely ate this film up. I mean, really, would you expect anything less from the director who went on to spearhead projects like From Justin to Kelly? Its monumental success was practically inscribed.

She's All That is loosely based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalian, the same play that formed the basis of the 1956 Broadway musical My Fair Lady. In case you didn't follow that, the movie was a reinvention of a play based on an older play based on a Cypriot myth, only to later be remade into a musical play that was later made into a movie. That's right, we just can't get enough of these I-bet-I-can-make-that-social-outcast-chick-passably-popular productions.

They teach us such valuable and morally astute life lessons, it's no wonder we like them so much. For example, from She's All That I gleaned that beneath the surface of every pretty girl wearing glasses lies a pretty girl not wearing glasses. I'm going to go out a limb here, but it seemed the message has been diluted just a bit since the Pygmalian story debuted as an ancient Cypriot myth.



BMOC Zack (Freddie Prinze Jr.) is one of the top-performing students in his class, also boasting class presidency and several sports team captainships. He is, of course, also dating the most gorgeous girl in school. Or at least, he was, until she met a self-promoting douchenozzle of a Real World cast member during a Spring Break trip to Daytona. Yes, that's right: Taylor dumps Zack for the dyslexic volleyball player that got voted out of the house. Bummer.

Meanwhile, offbeat social outcast Laney (Rachael Leigh Cook) is classified by her peers as an artsy freak because electrical impulses occasionally run through her brain and she likes to paint. How enlightened.



Zack's buddy Dean bets him that Zack can't turn any girl in the school into the prom queen. It's a pretty quick development, but since our entire plot hinges on it, we've got to go along for the ride. Laney bites it on the pavement right in front of their bet selection panel and thus becomes the chosen one for this twisted though admittedly entertaining high school social experiment.



Laney wants nothing to do with Zack's suspiciously friendly advances, but she just can't say no when he accosts her at work in the falafel shop. She does what any normal girl would do in this situation, which is to invite Zack to accompany her to a quirky performance art piece complete with little blue people and a writhing Alexis Arquette chanting, "Be silent, be still." Naturally, Zack gets invited onstage and improvises a hacky sack-driven expose on the life of a golden boy. Deep.



Zack invites Laney to the beach, everyone suddenly realizes she's incredibly attractive, and she undergoes an impromptu makeover courtesy of Zack's sister. Like in any teen movie, it takes about 3 minutes flat to transform Laney from the sort of ugly duckling you're always hearing about on your Farmville newsfeed to a totally hot swan. Just like real life, right?




We get some Sixpence None the Richer, Laney makes her comic entrance and ta-da! Transformation complete. They head to a party jam-packed with the high school elite and everything seems to be going just great until Zack's ex Taylor publicly humiliates Laney. All of Zack's sister's amateur haircutting skills are no match for Taylor's vicious wrath.

Fast forward a bit and Laney's in the running for prom queen. Dean pulls out all the villainous stops by beating Zack to the punch of asking Laney to the prom. We get our requisite dance number, Zack is the prom king, but all is not well in promland. Dean has plans to put the moves on Laney at a hotel after the dance. Zack hears the news and frantically tries to stop the unfolding of these most unfortunate events.



Laney doges Dean's lecherous advances and Zack eventually catches up with her at her house. He confesses everything, including revelations about the bet and his undoubtedly true love for her, and we all learn a valuable lesson. Especially Zack, who learns that losing a bet means you have to appear nude at graduation in front of the entire commencement crowd.Tough break.




It might not be real life, but we'll take it. So what if Usher never DJed our high school radio station or our classmates never made Greco-Roman mythological style bets about our makeover skills? That's what makes it so entertaining. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get a professionally-trained dance crew together. I think I just heard the opening beat of "Rockafella Skank."

Our Favorite 80s and 90s TV Puppet Pals

If there's one thing we've learned from TV, it's that everything is cuter when a puppet does it. It's a fail-safe formula. A person performs a hackneyed visual gag and we all groan in agony, but an adorable puppet does it and we fall for it hook, line, and stinker.*

It's no mystery that children love puppets, but TV in the 80s and 90s proved that adults have a pretty solid puppet-loving capacity all their own. Puppets often make the best punchlines, giving them an automatic boost in likability in both kids' and grown-up television programming. Plus, they never need a stunt double or act like a diva when it comes to contract renewal. Talk about cutting expenses.

Puppet-studded programs may not be the most highbrow fare on TV, but they have a unique style of entertaining us. They allow us to suspend our disbelief to a point where if we can believe this talking toy exists somewhere in real life, maybe all of the magical features that come along with it are possible, too. These 80s and 90s shows didn't need to be realistic or to feature deeply developed characters; we were perfectly content with our cartoonish, overdrawn cliches. So long as they kept feeding us hilarious puppet gag antics, we were more than happy to partake in spoonful after heaping spoonful.


Eureeka's Castle


Eureeka's Castle was a Nick Jr. gem, giving us a quirky, offbeat world of wizardry and goofy characters. The show revolved around sorceress trainee Eureeka, thickheaded dragon Magellan, peanut butter sandwich-gobbling twins Bogge and Quagmire, the visually impaired Batley, and the vaguely ethnic pushcart proprietor Mr. Knack. The characters were creative and imaginative in a way that bodes well for children's programming. It may not have been highly educational, but it did teach me to fear claymation Slurms. Those things were weird.


Lambchop's Play-Along



If there's one thing kids love more than puppets, it's baby puppets. Have you ever seen a more adorable little sheeplet? When I grew up, I was horrified to find that "Lambchop" referred to a cut of meat. Slicing into it for the first time was pretty traumatic, though luckily there was no stuffing inside. That might have scarred me for life. As a device to distract myself from the lambchop chopping task at knife, I just hummed a few bars of "This is the Song that Never Ends." That seemed to do the trick.


Mystery Science Theater 3000



I think our buddy Joel at MST3K had the right idea. If you're stuck orbiting the earth sequestered on a spacecraft forced by the powers that be to watch n endless stream of B-movies, you should definitely use the spare theater equipment to build yourself some sentient robot pals. You should, of course, name them Gypsy, Cambot, Crow T. Robot, and Tom Servo. There are pretty much no other options.


Sesame Street



For many of us, this was our first major exposure to puppetry. Or, equally likely, our first exposure to platonic male puppet roommates who share a cookie crumb-ridden bed and know an awful lot about each other's bathtime habits and carrier pigeon preferences. Either way, most of us fell for the cuddly Sesame Street characters, and hard. I mean, a monster who lives in a garbage can? Where do they come up with this stuff?


ALF


Alf Sings "Old Time Rock and Roll" - Click here for the most popular videos

Just when you thought noses couldn't get any more phallic looking than Joe Camel's, you met Alf. And then, you knew. This was the be-all-end-all of vaguely suggestive schnozes. ALF stood for "Alien Life Form", which is how we kindly earth-folk classify floppy-looking brown masses who grew up on the Lower East Side of the planet Melmac. ALF definitely had his moments, but his appearance is just a little unsettling. It just feels inappropriate.


Dinosaurs



If after watching this show you cried out endlessly, "I'm the baby! Gotta love me!" I'm sure your parents were less than pleased with their decision to grant viewership privileges. The show wasn't really directed at kids; it was more of a family sitcom that happened to feature full-size puppet characters. By the time we'd realized this, though, we'd already moved on to gleefully smacking our fathers on their heads with a frying pan while screaming, "Not the mama! Not the mama!"


Muppets Tonight



There have been so many incarnations of The Muppets over the years it's become difficult to differentiate between one series and another, but for the sake of 90s nostalgia we'll single out Muppets Tonight for brief examination. The show hinged pretty heavily on celebrity guest appearances and wasn't especially a standout in the long line of Muppet shows. I must say, though, the Baywatch parodies were worth a chuckle or two.


Fraggle Rock



That is some seriously rockin' theme music. I probably haven't seen this intro since 1992, yet somehow I find myself singing along with a surprisingly adept command of the lyrics. It's catchy, right? It's got that sparkly puppet charm sprinkled liberally throughout. Well done, Jim Henson studios. Well done, indeed.

Fraggle Rock managed to slip in a bunch of heavy issues while we were busy enjoying the musical numbers and highly colorful wardrobe selection. Some of us also spent a fair amount of time giggling over the fact that there was a Fraggle named Boober. I mean, Boober! Can you beat that?


Cousin Skeeter



Who knew a marionette could be such a bad-ass? It probably speaks volumes about my level of maturity that the theme song's phrase, "Skeeter's what I want" amuses me in a slangy double-entendre kind of way. I don't think I've advanced much in behavioral age since the days this show originally aired.


Unhappily Ever After


This show gave many of us an unquenchable desire to own a crass, wise-cracking stuffed rabbit. Mr. Floppy was just so adorable. His looks were, anyway. His personality could probably have used a bit of a tune-up to align with his cherubic appearance, but it all just contributed to his puppety charm.


Weinerville



If you had to pick the most terrifying mode of puppet, I'd say human-head-on-tiny-puppet-body would fall pretty darn close to the top of the list. Weinerville was a Nickelodeon cartoon/live-action variety show based on the comedic stylings of Marc Weiner. The characters were undeniably creative, but they still seem a little creepy to me. Add cross-dressing to the giant head/tiny puppet body mix and be prepared for the wrath of Weinerville.


Whatever the reason, puppets had a hold on us. Maybe we just don't watch enough Nick Jr. anymore, but the proportion of puppets in prime-time programming seems to have persistently plummeted. It's too bad, really. A lot of today's shows could probably use a good puppet boost. Just think: if this weekend's Oscars had used puppet presenters, we'd have been far more likely to push through to the bitter end. Just a thought.




*This is not a typo, it's just a terrible, terrible play on words. Had I been a puppet, you would have been all over that one