You remember the exact snap of a Squeez-It cap before the first sip. You long for the shimmer of a Dunkaroos foil pack hiding cookies half-crushed from being shoved in a backpack pocket. That specific orange of Ecto Cooler haunts you, because it represents a flavor like nothing else on Earth.
So you grew up in the ‘90s and would trade all the protein they’ve loaded into any and every food imaginable for a handful of Butterfingers BBs.
Here’s twenty ‘90s snacks we miss, ranked by how hard they hit back then. Some are gone forever. A few are hiding in plain sight, back on shelves under your nose. We tagged every one so you know what’s what before you go down a nostalgic eBay rabbit hole for something you could just buy at the grocery store.
TL;DR
Twenty of your favorite ’90s snacks are ranked and tagged by status—gone forever, quietly back, or a limited revival only. The permanent comebacks worth knowing about are: Dunkaroos, French Toast Crunch, and Doritos 3Ds. Gone for good and not coming back: Squeez-Its, Choco Tacos, Wonder Ball, Planters PB Crisps, and more. Bonus: a few snacks people might assume are discontinued aren’t on the list but are still on shelves right now (Warheads, Airheads, Ring Pops, and Bagel Bites).
How we picked what made the list
The internet—that’s how. Consensus picks are pulled from the actual conversations nostalgia-snack heads are having online. But some specific cravings from a nostalgia-starved (and, honestly, a little regular hungry) millennial also figured into the rankings. If you don’t see your specific most-missed snack, email us.
The (kinda) definitive list of ‘90s snacks we miss
1. Squeez-Its—STATUS: GONE FOREVER
The plastic bottle you crushed to get out the last drop was discontinued around 2001. Nothing on shelves today replicates the specific dent your hand left in that bottle. And there’s no sign those weird, winged twist-off caps are coming back.
2. Dunkaroos—STATUS: QUIETLY BACK
The ‘Roos’ permanent return to U.S. shelves in 2020 is one of the only good things to happen in that awful year. But somehow this still isn’t common knowledge. Go check the cookie aisle for your fix.
3. Choco Tacos—STATUS: GONE FOREVER
The discontinuation of Choco Tacos in 2022 was nowhere near the worst thing to happen in the first part of this dark decade. But the loss of a dessert taco still stung. And the backlash was loud enough that it should tell food companies something about touching a nostalgia snack that’s still beloved.
4. Hi-C Ecto Cooler—STATUS: LIMITED REVIVAL ONLY
A brief, Ghostbusters-tied comeback in 2016 proved the demand is real. But the insanely colored and flavored nostalgia bevvie hasn’t stuck around as a permanent SKU—making it, ironically, a ghost that haunts us today.
5. Butterfinger BB’s—STATUS: GONE FOREVER
Bite-sized Butterfinger balls that solved the “Butterfinger bar makes a mess” problem with perfect poppability. Then, like the bliss of a millennial childhood, they vanished.
6. Surge—STATUS: LIMITED REVIVAL ONLY (MAYBE?)
Coca-Cola has brought this back in small runs and online exclusives more than once. Watch out for the neon-green citrus soda that basically ran on sugar and vibes, but it also may be gone again—the research wasn’t super clear unfortunately.
7. Planters PB Crisps—STATUS: GONE FOREVER
One of the most-requested discontinued snacks on the internet, full stop. If a petition could bring back a peanut-butter cracker, this would already be back. And we thought corporations wanted to make money.
8. Old-School Gushers—STATUS: STILL ON SHELVES WITH A DIFFERENT RECIPE
The product technically never left, but longtime fans swear the burst and flavor formula changed for the worse. That could be some sort of taste-bud Mandela Effect, so while it’s a quietly contentious entry, it has to be here.
9. Fruitopia—STATUS: GONE FOREVER
The most “we were promised a flavor experience” drink of the decade. Fruitopia had only the most tangential relationship to any natural fruit substance, but it’s gone, and mourned specifically for its weird, poetic bottle copy.
10. Fruit String Thing—STATUS: GONE FOREVER
Back in the day, our ability to eat strings of things wasn’t limited to savory snacks. And the world was better for it. The discontinuation of Fruit String Things leaves fewer sanctioned opportunities to play with your food, which is so sad.
11. Oreo O’s cereal—STATUS: LIMITED REVIVAL, BUT NOW GONE AGAIN
More desserty snack than something anybody should eat for breakfast, the O’s were discontinued, then relaunched as an exclusive years later in the bullseye-themed store that shall not be named. Well, like so many other things, that store messed that up and Oreo O’s are once again unavailable anywhere.
12. Crystal Pepsi—STATUS: LIMITED REVIVAL ONLY
There’s plenty of clear, cola-flavored sparkling waters, but none that approximate the odd satisfaction of the original. This one is periodically resurrected for nostalgia marketing moments, but never permanently. You can still find the Crystal Gravy SNL sketch on YouTube, though.
13. Tato Skins—STATUS: GONE FOREVER
A potato-skin-flavored chip that hit different. What else are they doing with potato skins besides grinding them up into a delicious, salty snack? Maybe the company is composting them now instead, because they discontinued Tato Skins without warning, prompting constant searching online.
14. French Toast Crunch—STATUS: QUIETLY BACK
After a good, long run, this staple was discontinued in 2006, and quietly relaunched by General Mills in 2015. Now it’s just…a normal cereal again, like nothing happened. Giant corporate machines are glitchy sometimes.
15. Wonder Ball—STATUS: GONE FOREVER
The chocolate shell hid a toy inside. Chocolate and toys?! So of course it was discontinued over safety concerns about kids choking on the toy. But it still lives rent-free in a specific part of the millennial brain.
16. Doritos 3D’s—STATUS: QUIETLY BACK
These hollow, puffed triangles came in a tube instead of a bag, which somehow made snacking feel like more of an event. They disappeared sometime in the early 2000s once the novelty wore off, then quietly came back at the end of 2020 as Doritos 3D Crunch. Same crunch and new flavors. But now stuffed in a regular bag like every other chip on the shelf. The tube is definitely missed.
17. Bonkers candy—STATUS: GONE FOREVER
“Fruit”-flavored. Oddly satisfying. Gone with almost no explanation. The insane commercials outlived the product by decades.
18. Zima—STATUS: LIMITED REVIVAL ONLY
Especially for elder millennials, this may have been the first “real drink” you ever had. The clear malt beverage came back briefly in 2017 as a nostalgia play. Would we have White Claws without it?
19. Keebler Magic Middles—STATUS: GONE FOREVER
It wasn’t groundbreaking to put stuff between two cookies. But those elves did God’s work sealing that fudge inside instead of dropping it on top.
20. Life Savers Holes—STATUS: GONE FOREVER
It’s the middle part of a Life Saver that’s rattling around in a plastic tub. Most people would just call that a mint, like all the other round mints in containers. This was a completely unnecessary product that we would still buy today.
Snacks that somehow never left
A quick clarification before you go: Warheads, Airheads, gross new Gushers, Ring Pops, and Bagel Bites are all still very much on shelves. People assume they’re discontinued constantly, and they’re just…not. Go check it out and see if a bite takes you back to an unsupervised summer of sprinklers and Nickelodeon.
Tell us what we missed
Twenty is never enough, and you already know we missed your specific one. Email us (millennosphere@gmail.com) so we can correct our gross oversights. (We read every single one, especially the ones that are more fun than mean.)
Bite-sized answers
What snacks from the ‘90s are discontinued? So many. But for our purposes: Squeez-Its, Fruitopia, Planters PB Crisps, Butterfinger BB’s, Keebler Magic Middles, Life Savers Holes, Choco Tacos, Wonder Ball, Bonkers, Oreo O’s (gone again after an exclusive relaunch), and Tato Skins are all fully discontinued with no current production.
Are Dunkaroos still made? Yes. Dunkaroos returned permanently to U.S. shelves in 2020 and are still sold today. If you haven’t seen them, check the cookie aisle, not the discontinued-snacks nostalgia lists.
What ‘90s snacks have been brought back? Dunkaroos, Doritos 3D’s, and French Toast Crunch have permanently relaunched. Hi-C Ecto Cooler, Surge, Crystal Pepsi, and Zima (all limited, non-permanent revivals) have all come back in some form.
What was the most popular snack in the ‘90s? There’s no single answer, but Dunkaroos, Squeez-Its, and Gushers consistently top nostalgia-snack polls and “most missed” lists as the most iconic of the decade.