Remember when the biggest thing you had to worry about during Halloween wasn’t if your friend was blacked out in a Batman costume somewhere, but if you’d be able to trade the black licorice at the bottom of your bag for a Hershey bar? While the bittersweet taste of getting stuck with black licorice will forever be burned into our minds, there’s tons of sweet treats we’ve forgotten over the years that could once make or break our Halloween. Grab a toothbrush and apologize to your dentist in advance; we’re in for one nostalgic sugar rush!
1. Fun Dip
Indulging in one of these is a grim reminder of how acceptable it was for us to literally shovel sugar into our mouths. We hope you brush your teeth thoroughly if you pick up a packet of these this year.
2. King-size Pixy Stix
There was no in-between when it came to Pixy Stix. You either ate the tiny ones and enjoyed the equally tiny sugar rush, or you begged your mom to buy you one that was half the size of your third-grader body. How did our teeth not fall out before middle school?
3. Airheads
It’s not hard to forget the commercials where kids’ heads blew up 10 sizes and shot through ceilings after eating one of these, but it’s hard to remember why that made us want to eat them even more. Did anyone ever figure out what flavor “white mystery” was?
4. Hubba Bubba Bubble Tape
Remember chomping through these like little Pac-Mans? The hardest part of enjoying one of these was figuring out how much was too much. Things got even worse when they introduced the “Mega-Long” variations of the gum!
5. Dubble Bubble Bubble gum
Speaking of gum, these little packages always made their way into our Halloween hauls, no matter what. They were infamously hard to chew and easy to lose its flavor, but for some reason we all still stuffed 56 of them into our mouths at one time. Or was that just us here at HCBU?
6. Nerds Rope
While Nerds are still a classic staple in our candy diets, Nerds Rope has quietly left our memories. Basically a soft gummy string covered in deliciously crunchy nerds, we moved on from Nerds Rope too soon (that doesn’t mean we won’t order the 24-pack from Walmart.)
7. Nestle Wonder Ball
These didn’t just leave our memories, they were forcibly taken away—twice! Wonder Balls were a huge hit with kids in the 90s, promising little toy surprises nestled inside thin spheres of chocolate, but it was banned in 1997 for the choking hazard the toys represented. In 2000, Wonder Balls were brought back, this time with tiny candy inside the balls instead of toys. Despite their comeback, they were discontinued in 2004 after Frankford bought the Nestle brand. Farewell, Wonder Ball…
8. Ring Pops
Did you ever propose to someone with a Ring Pop on the playground? If not, take advantage now and grab a pair. There’s nothing like a huge candy rock on your finger to brighten up your day.
9. Candy Necklaces
There’s nothing like being able to wear and eat your jewelry at the same time. It’s good that we could wear it, because besides having cool candy necklaces and bracelets, the candy itself was kind of chalky in flavor and texture. Whatever, at least we could stack our arms up to our elbows in candy!
10. Those Weird Strawberry-Looking Candies From a Parallel Universe That No One Except Grandmas Have Access To
It turns out these do have a name, and its “strawberry bon bon candy.” But have you ever seen these for sale? If Dubble Bubble gum just quietly sneaked into our bags, these things shot through worm holes and the very fabric of time to land in our bags when we weren’t looking.