9 Old School Candy Bars You've Probably Forgotten About

People young and old experience excitement about the sugary, sweet flavors of candy. The candy we ate as children, or during impactful periods of our lives, stays with us into adulthood. In fact, nostalgia is a very real, very impactful phenomenon. It's a unifying feeling that connects us to other people. And candy, often the object of our desires as kids, is one of those triggers that sends us back to a specific time and place.

Food has a deep tie to memory — especially candy, since it can trigger your brain to release dopamine. According to candy scientist Tessa Porter, "There's a bit of generational nostalgia happening more [in 2024] than in the past" (via The Seattle Times). But with billions of candy bars produced and consumed each year, it's no wonder that some have fallen to the wayside in the zeitgeist. While some candies are making the rounds again, not all candy bars are getting the retro-resurgence treatment. We're here to explore nine candy bars that you've probably forgotten about. 

Today, Hershey's is the de facto chocolate bar for at-home s'mores, and it still makes the top 10 in our ranking of popular chocolate bars. The company even sells s'mores gift sets and has an entire section dedicated to the dessert on their website. At one point in time, they decided to go all in on the s'mores craze with a chocolate bar that brought together the richness of chocolate, crunch of graham cracker, and sweetness of marshmallows for an on-the-go experience, no fire necessary.

The S'mores bar originally hit shelves back in 2003 and lasted for less than a decade before it was discontinued. Most companies don't disclose why a product has been discontinued, and Hershey's was no different, but the assumption is that the product didn't sell as projected. There are still some s'mores bar options for those who don't want to go through the hassle of making s'mores on their own, but Hershey's chocolate has a distinct taste and dominates the market for a reason.

Peanut butter lovers lost a great candy bar when the PB Max, from Mars, stopped being produced. The treat combined smooth peanut butter, cookie pieces, and chocolate into a rectangular bar that had a plethora of pleasing textures and flavors. It was launched back in 1989 and discontinued not long after — but passion for the candy is still alive today, making it one of the many popular 90s snacks we want back. Some Reddit users shared glowing reviews and called for the candy to make a return to shelves.

Since the PB Max's end, rumors have been circulating about the reason why the product was discontinued: One being that the Mars team simply didn't like peanut butter. While that can't be confirmed, it seems like the PB Max is unlikely to return to stores despite calls and petitions from its fanbase for a second run.

Have you ever heard of the Peter Paul Candy Manufacturing Company? Today, it's a part of the Hershey Company, but prior to that, it was a standalone candy company founded by an Armenian family back in 1919. It produced several candy bars, only a couple of which are still in production today, namely Almond Joy and Mounds (one of the less popular store-bought dark chocolate bars in our ranking). But prior to 1988, when it was acquired by Hershey, the Peter Paul Candy Manufacturing Company made a candy bar to compete with other caramel and crisped rice bars, called the Caravelle bar.

The Caravelle bar was similar to The 100 Grand bar by Nestlé, with chocolate, rice, and chewy caramel. But despite its popularity at the time, the Caravelle bar didn't make it past the 80s. It was discontinued the same year that Hershey acquired the Caravelle parent company. Today you won't find Caravelle bars anywhere, but the company's jingles still live on the internet for your retro listening enjoyment.

The Hollywood Candy Company, also known as Hollywood Brands, was a standalone candy company based in Minnesota in the early 20th century. The company was acquired by Leaf Candy Company in 1998, and later by the Hershey Company in 1996. 

Despite the company no longer existing, some of its products do live on today, such as the PayDay bar — nougat-like caramel rolled in peanuts — and the Zero bar — a caramel, peanut, and almond nougat bar covered in white fudge. But some of its other creations were discontinued.

One of those bars was the Hollywood bar, named after Hollywood, Minnesota, where the company was first created. Many candy companies, then and now, produce candy bars with similar ingredients and shapes to compete with one another. The Hollywood bar is thought to have been a competitor for the Snickers bar from Mars. It has the same caramel, nougat, and peanuts, but with a bittersweet dark chocolate coating as opposed to the Snickers' milk chocolate exterior.

The 1990s were the time of Beanie Babies, butterfly clips, Nirvana, and diet culture. The Atkins diet, which had been around since 1972, surged in popularity during the 90s, calling for less carbohydrate consumption. Given the explosive following of Atkins and other diets, food companies responded in kind with diet or lite versions of fan favorite foods. Fat-free, carb-free, and sugar-free options were all the rage and Mars capitalized on this with a lite version of the much loved Milky Way bar.

The Milky Way Lite had about half the amount of fat as the classic bar and didn't use some of the ingredients in the classic Milky Way, such as milk, wheat flour, and lactose. The replacement ingredients included fructose (a form of sugar) and skim milk — which has about half the calories and 3.5% less fat than whole milk. Reviewers at the time thought that diet versions of their favorite candy tasted almost identical, but for whatever reason, the bar fell to the wayside while its full-fat companion still dominates candy shelves today.

While the name isn't particularly appetizing, the Chicken Dinner bar label has historical roots that affect food marketing today. Created by the Sperry Candy Company in 1923, the Chicken Dinner bar was likely named as a means to stand out in an already crowded industry. Aligning itself with a typical dinner that was eaten across America, the Sperry Candy Company positioned its bar as a healthy option, one that had nutritional value beyond its sugar content.

This means of marketing was especially impactful in the tumultuous years of the Great Depression that followed, when people were forced to come up with creative recipes because of the limited availability of ingredients. In "The Great American Candy Bar Book," author Ray Broekel writes that during the Great Depression, "A whole roasted chicken on a candy bar wrapper symbolized something substantial in terms of food value" (via Mental Floss).

It was also deeply affordable, especially after Sperry lowered the price per bar to 5 cents, which was a steal back then. After several transitions of ownership, the Chicken Dinner candy bar was discontinued in the 1960s, but it's quirky name and marketing live on in legend.

The malted chocolate shake is a richer, thicker version of its non-malted counterpart, which made it the perfect dessert for the Hollywood Candy Company to replicate in their MilkShake candy bar. The candy bar's creator, Frank Martoccio, bought the Pendergast Candy Company in 1927 following their creation of a process that made nougat — which was notoriously dense — fluffy. In a candy bar, the texture means everything, thus the MilkShake candy bar was born.

It was, in many ways, a candy bar ahead of its time because of some of the innovations that Martoccio came up with, including a way to ensure the delicate exterior candy coating of each bar didn't melt immediately when exposed to heat. During warm months, some candy bars were sold frozen to really drive home the ice cream comparison. But the candy bar didn't last beyond the 1990s when the Hollywood Candy Company was sold to Hershey.

Willy Wonka is the de facto king of candy and all manner of sweet treats. In 1971 — to coincide with the release of the film "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" — Quaker Oats released the Wonka's Super Skrunch candy bar. 

Now, you may be wondering what "skrunch" means in the context of a candy bar (or at all), and we have the answer. A Wonka Skrunch bar had a peanut butter and crispy rice interior and a chocolate exterior. The skrunch (or scrunch), was the crunching noise the crispy rice made when a person bit into it.

In its later iterations, Super Skrunch bar packaging started using phrasing like "peanut buttier and skrunchier," but that didn't help the candy bar's staying power. By 1982, the Super Skrunch bar had disappeared altogether. Today, there aren't any popular Wonka bars being sold by Quaker Oats or the Willy Wonka Candy Company, a division of Nestlé.

Elvis, the King of Rock and Roll, had a famous love of the banana and peanut butter flavor combination, with the fried peanut butter and banana sandwich among his favorite Southern comfort foods. It was such a famous love that Reese's, owned by the Hershey Company, once released a peanut butter cup with smooth banana cream filling in honor of Elvis. 

The candy was released in 2007, 30 years following the death of the King, and was a supreme hit with candy lovers across the country. The banana flavor wasn't too overpowering and the creaminess of it paired well with the smoothness of the chocolate exterior and the grittier peanut butter texture inside.

Inside the wrappers, candy lovers had the chance to win one of 10,000 prizes, including a trip to Graceland and a 1957 pink Cadillac. But as with many limited release flavors, the peanut butter and banana cream Reese's cups were eventually discontinued. That didn't stop fans though, who still advocate for the chance to eat the treat again.