[Note: CollectingCandy.com posted a significant update to this article in March of 2013.]
I will admit to coming around to the goodness of the Munch bar a bit later in life. As a kid, it wasn’t my thing. If I recall, my brother dug this one, and I would sample one from time-to-time.
Rock candy has always been a fun concept, though the crystallized-sugar-on-a-string style is not the only kind out there. I think I first saw jelly bean-like confections designed to look like rocks, all the way back in the 1970’s, during a family vacation.
In 1993, Brach’s introduced a retail version of this genre of candy with Brach’s Rocks, featuring a fun Dinosaur mascot named Rocky D.
For this week’s edition of Wacky Wednesdays, I’m going to cover the original Wacky Packages parody for Milk Duds – Milk Muds. This has long-been one of my favorite Wackys, and I think that goes back to when I first saw this sticker as a kid. Milk Duds were, and remain, one of my go-to treats when I go out to the movies. I love ’em.
Whistle Pops, as they were called when I first encountered them, were introduced to United States consumers in 1975.
Collecting candy is a crazy kind of hobby. Sometimes you can spend years hunting for any trace of a brand or piece of packaging, and never find one. But it’s not always so tough – typically there is a photo or a mention somewhere. With Willy Wonka’s Daredevils, there was no such thing – until last week, this was one of what I call a Sasquatch of candy boxes. Before today, the only evidence you could find of these were the vague recollections and distant memories of those who witnessed them 30 years ago.
So it is that I can state with some confidence that the title image for today’s piece represents the first the internet has seen of this hot cinnamon Gobstoppers cousin – well, aside from a sticker – but I’ll get to that.
Back in 1979, Star Wars-mania was in full-effect and everyone was excited about the sequel they knew was on the horizon. I was ten-years-old, and I was certainly a part of that very enthusiastic group of fans whose eyes lit up at the mention of anything related to those characters.
One of the few things I do recall not being overly crazy about though, was the Star Wars-inspired jewelry. It’s also one of those things that, over the years, I’ve come to appreciate in a different way. Now, I think they’re kinda cool.
I grew up loving Nestle Quik chocolate milk – the kind you made yourself with powder. The commercials featuring the Quik Bunny were tied into that experience and, just like the kids in those commercials, I could put away a tall glass of chocolate milk in seconds. These days, I’ll admit to the guilty pleasure of one of those pre-mixed Nestle Quik chocolate milk jugs.
I don’t recall trying the Nestle Quik bar during its run in the mid-1990’s, but being a fan of the brand in general, I’ve been delighted to learn about its candy bar offshoot, and to pick up a couple of vintage pieces of packaging along the way. For those that aren’t familiar, the Nestle Quik Bar was a chocolate taffy-like item, and featured a wrapper that was in line with the Nestle Quik cans of the time, Bunny and all.
Concorde-Sunmark - Nestle Quik bar -NEW- chewy chocolaty candy bar wrapper - 1993
Today will be a light post as I present a fantastic wrapper without much comment. Coming from mid-1970’s is the wrapper for a bar that was meant to be more health-bar than candy bar. It’s the Bionic Bar, or more completely the Six Million Dollar Man Bionic Bar.
Natural Protein Products Inc - Six Million Dollar Man Bionic Bar - 25-cent foil wrapper - 1976
Produced by Natural Protein Products Inc. of Hayward California, this striking red foil wrapper shows off a cool illustration of everybody’s fave bionic recipient, Steve Austin. This is one of those wrappers that is just so funky and cool, it transcends the typical collecting candy territory. It’s bionic!
Since I launched CollectingCandy.com, there are a few topics that I’ve been especially excited to talk about and share pieces of – and Pop Bottle Candy is definitely one of them.
For today’s edition of Wacky Wednesdays we’re going to delve back to 1974 and the original Wacky Packages series 12 for the parody of Hollywood’s Payday candy bar, Paydough.
