A few coins in your pocket, a rack of brightly colored wrappers and a decision that felt surprisingly important. If you grew up in the 1960s, 70s or 80s, the candy counter probably had something you haven’t thought about in years.
Some treats promised an impossibly long chew. Others changed texture or came with enough compartments to make choosing a chocolate bar feel like ordering a sampler. The names alone can bring back a corner store, a Saturday matinee or the Halloween candy you traded with your siblings.
Here are 15 forgotten candies that may take you back. We’re looking at sweets remembered from American childhood in those decades, including older candies that were already classics. “Forgotten” doesn’t mean every one is discontinued: some vanished, some returned and others are still being made.
1. Razzles: the candy that became gum
You started with a little round candy and finished with chewing gum. That transformation was the whole attraction. The first few bites had a powdery crunch, then the pieces came together into something you could keep chewing long after the initial burst of flavor had faded.
Tootsie dates Razzles to 1966, which puts them squarely in this candy-counter era. The brand is still around, but its unusual two-in-one trick belongs to a very particular kind of childhood excitement: buying a sweet partly to see what it would do.
2. Bottle Caps: a soda fountain in your pocket
The name described the shape, but the flavors did the selling. Bottle Caps offered soda-inspired tastes in small pressed candies, with cola and root beer giving them a different personality from the usual fruit sweets. Picking out your favorite could become a serious sorting exercise.
They arrived in 1972, and their packaging and flavor assortment have changed over the years. If your memory involves a particular pouch, roll or favorite color, it may belong to a different version from the one someone else remembers. That’s half the fun of comparing notes.
3. Marathon: the chocolate bar that stretched the rules
Marathon made an ordinary candy bar look short. This American favorite was a long, open braid of chewy caramel covered in chocolate, sold in a red wrapper. It looked like a purchase that would keep you occupied for quite a while.
Mars introduced it in 1973 and withdrew it in 1981. The eight-inch length was a big part of its appeal, even though the open spaces in that braid meant length wasn’t the same thing as extra weight. This was a different product from the British Marathon bar that was renamed Snickers.
4. Reggie!: the candy with a ballplayer’s swagger
A bright orange wrapper and Reggie Jackson’s name made this one hard to miss. Inside was a round confection of peanuts, caramel and chocolate. You didn’t have to study a complicated ingredient list to understand the attraction, although being a Yankees fan probably helped.
The Baseball Hall of Fame dates its debut to 1978. When Jackson homered at the Yankees’ home opener, fans threw the promotional bars onto the field and interrupted the game. The original run was short, and a brief 1993 comeback followed. Few candies can claim a sporting moment quite like that one.
5. Bonkers!: the fruit chews with an extra center
Bonkers looked like a little block of fruit candy with a secret inside. Bite through the chewy outside and there was another fruity layer in the middle. The contrasting colors made the center part of the show before you had even finished the first piece.
Leaf Brands describes the original Nabisco candy as a mid-1980s offering, with flavors including grape, orange, strawberry and watermelon. For anyone who remembers unwrapping those chunky little rectangles, the name still has the energy of an after-school treat. Even the name sounds like it belongs beside a stack of comic books and a bicycle waiting outside.
6. BarNone: a late-eighties chocolate overload
BarNone piled several good ideas into one package: chocolate wafers, chocolate cream, peanuts and a milk-chocolate coating. It had the crisp bite of a wafer bar, but enough going on around it to feel like a bigger occasion than a plain piece of chocolate.
According to Iconic Candy’s brand history, the original debuted in September 1987. A later reformulation added caramel and changed its shape before the bar disappeared in the 1990s. Iconic Candy relaunched BarNone in 2019. It’s a useful reminder that a candy can slip out of your life without being gone forever.
7. Mary Jane: peanut butter, molasses and patience
Mary Jane had a flavor that felt old-fashioned even when you were young. The combination of molasses and peanut butter was earthy and rich, and the chewy texture encouraged you to slow down. It was the sort of candy you either traded away immediately or quietly collected from everyone else.
It debuted in 1914, well before the decades on this list. That long history helps explain why parents and grandparents recognized it too. Later production changes brought new packaging and a different shape, so an old rectangular Mary Jane and a newer twist-wrapped piece won’t necessarily look alike.
8. Necco Wafers: the roll everyone had an opinion about
A roll of Necco Wafers was an invitation to choose sides. Did you save the chocolate ones? Enjoy the cinnamon? Pass along the licorice? Their dry, crisp texture was just as distinctive as the flavors, and there was no disguising one as a gummy or a chocolate bar.
The wafers’ history reaches back to 1847. After a two-year interruption, Spangler announced their return in 2020. They were already a very old candy when sixties, seventies and eighties children discovered them. For some families, that familiar paper roll connected several generations of sweet teeth.
9. Sky Bar: four centers, one important decision
With Sky Bar, choosing the candy was only the beginning. Its four sections offered caramel, vanilla, peanut and fudge centers under milk chocolate. Which one would you eat first? Which one deserved to be saved? Sharing was possible, but it required negotiations.
The brand’s own history traces it to 1938. It survived long enough to become a familiar treat across several decades, then found a new home in Sudbury, Massachusetts, after Necco’s closure. Its compartment-by-compartment approach still makes it feel like a miniature box of chocolates disguised as a bar.
10. Zagnut: the candy bar that skipped the chocolate
Zagnut stood out because it didn’t need a chocolate coat. A crunchy peanut-butter center and toasted coconut supplied the texture and flavor. If you liked coconut, the outside was a selling point. If you didn’t, you probably remembered exactly which bar to leave in the store.
Hershey dates Zagnut’s creation to 1930 and still lists it among its brands. It also earned a memorable appearance in the 1988 film Beetlejuice. That wonderfully odd name may have slipped your mind, but the combination of flaky crunch and coconut is harder to confuse with anything else.
11. Abba-Zaba: taffy with a peanut-butter surprise
Abba-Zaba paired a pale, chewy taffy outside with peanut butter in the middle. The contrast was its attraction: sweet stretchiness around a filling with a little more richness. A bite could turn into a patient tug rather than the clean snap of a chocolate square.
Long associated with West Coast candy counters, it remains part of Annabelle Candy Company’s range. Regional favorites don’t always produce the same memories everywhere. One reader may remember it as an everyday purchase while another encountered it only on a trip, which can make a familiar wrapper feel even more special.
12. Bit-O-Honey: a small candy with a long chew
Bit-O-Honey never needed a wild color or a sour coating to get your attention. Honey-flavored chew and little pieces of almond did the work. It was a slower sort of treat, and its plain appearance could hide just how firmly people felt about finding one in a candy bowl.
The brand dates its beginning to Chicago in 1924, when it was sold as a bar rather than just a small individual piece. Its bee mascot arrived in the 1970s. If you remember dividing a larger bar into sections, that’s a real part of the candy’s history, not your imagination.
13. Charleston Chew: the freezer favorite
Some people opened a Charleston Chew immediately. Others took it home and put it in the freezer first. The chewy nougat and chocolaty coating gave it a familiar identity, while chilling it made the eating experience different enough to inspire firm household preferences.
Tootsie traces the candy to 1922 and still suggests trying it frozen. Vanilla is the version many readers will picture first, though other flavors have their fans. It belongs to that group of older sweets whose preparation instructions were often passed from one child to another.
14. Nik-L-Nip: the tiniest drink in the store
The wax bottles were so small that the ritual almost lasted longer than the drink. You opened the top, tasted the brightly colored liquid and wondered whether another color would be better. Their appeal had as much to do with the miniature bottle as the sweet filling.
Tootsie explains the name as a combination of the original nickel price and a “nip” to open the bottle. They predate the sixties but remained the kind of novelty that could distract you from a perfectly sensible chocolate purchase. The wax is packaging for the drink, not something to swallow.
15. Candy Buttons: a sweet treat served on paper
Rows of small colored dots on a strip of white paper made Candy Buttons look almost like an activity. You could work through a row, eat by color or try to remove each button neatly. Getting the candy free without taking any paper along was the unofficial challenge.
They were already an established treat before these decades and later became associated with Necco. After that company’s collapse, Doscher’s acquired the Candy Buttons brand. It’s a wonderfully simple idea that can bring back a whole candy shop: a strip of paper, tidy rows of color and plenty of decisions for a small purchase.
Which forgotten candy would you choose again?
Sometimes a candy brings back more than a flavor. It brings back the shop where you bought it, the friend who introduced you to it or the careful way you made your spending money last.
Which of these do you remember, and which favorite belongs on the next list? Tell us the candy and the decade you associate with it. Someone else may be trying to remember that very same name.
Historical and image note: This list covers candies remembered from American life in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, not only candies introduced during those years. Recipes, packaging, ownership and availability have changed. The credited product photographs were taken later and are not archival photographs from those decades. Brand names identify the products discussed and do not imply sponsorship.
More interesting articles you may be interested in reading:
15 Christmas Toys Every Kid Wanted in the 1980s
12 Forgotten Christmas Traditions From the 1950s and 1960s
Thanks for reading and be sure to share this info with your friends using the social share buttons below.
Talking about social stuff, consider liking our Facebook page to keep up to date with our articles.
