3 Lunchbox Favorites That Left Store Shelves and Came Back: Squeezit, Dunkaroos and Pudding Pops

A Hagley Museum and Library post on the history of the lunch box notes that the lunch box as it is known today dates to 1935, when a Milwaukee company, Geuder, Paeschke, and Frey, licensed the likeness of Mickey Mouse for the top of its oblong “Lunch Kit.” The post adds that the company’s patent, issued to Phillip Kempter, is dated Nov. 26, 1929. Three snack-aisle names from the lunch-packing era that followed share a twist of their own.

Squeezit, Dunkaroos and Pudding Pops each left store shelves and later returned. Squeezit came back for short runs in 2006 to 2007 and again in 2011 to 2012, Dunkaroos returned to U.S. stores in 2020, and Pudding Pops reappeared in 2004 under the Popsicle name before being withdrawn again around 2011.

Squeezit: The Bottle With a Face

Squeezit was a fruit-flavored drink from General Mills, sold in a plastic bottle that had to be squeezed to get the drink out. Tasting Table, citing a clip from “Inside the General Mills Archives,” reported that the drink was introduced in 1985 with four flavors: red punch, orange, grape and cherry. Faces were added to the bottles in 1992, and the tagline was “Squeeze the fun out of it.”

The characters had names. Sporked’s history of the drink lists Chucklin’ Cherry, Silly Billy Strawberry, Berry B. Wild, Rockin’ Red Puncher, Mean Green Puncher, Smarty Arty Orange, Troppi Tropical Punch and Grumpy Grape, which was later renamed Gallopin’ Grape. Sporked also notes color-changing bottles arrived around 1996, along with a mystery flavor sold in a black bottle. Readers who miss that era can find more of it in 8 little rituals from the ’80s and ’90s that disappeared without much notice, a Frenz Hub list.

General Mills discontinued Squeezit in 2001, and Tasting Table attributes that to slumping sales. According to Wikipedia’s entry on the drink, it appeared in stores again from mid-2006 to mid-2007 and in 2011 and 2012. Other everyday things that quietly left the house over the years are gathered in 31 forgotten household items from the past.

Dunkaroos: The Snack That Took Years to Return

Dunkaroos is a General Mills snack pairing small cookies with frosting for dunking, and its name blends “dunk” and “kangaroos.” Wikipedia’s entry on the brand says the original mascot was Sydney, an Australian-accented kangaroo voiced by John Cameron Mitchell, and that a 1996 contest produced a new mascot named Duncan.

The snack was discontinued in the United States in 2012 but kept selling in Canada. In 2016, General Mills ran a campaign called Smugglaroos, encouraging Canadians traveling to the United States to bring the snack to Americans who wanted it. Canadian production was suspended in 2017.

Then came 2020. Wikipedia says Dunkaroos began arriving at 7-Eleven stores in the United States in May 2020 and later reached Walmart, Target and Kroger, in a 1.5-ounce package. Another look back, Families in the 60s & 70s had 8 Saturday morning habits, covers a similar kind of memory lane.

Good Morning America reported in December 2020 that General Mills had announced 16 new cereals, one of them based on Dunkaroos. Hillary Balma, a General Mills senior brand manager, told the program that consumers, especially Millennials, “just love nostalgia.” Wikipedia says the Dunkaroos cereal was a limited-edition product that ended its promotional run in 2022.

Pudding Pops: A $100 Million Start

Jell-O Pudding Pops were frozen pudding snacks originally made and marketed by General Foods. Wikipedia’s entry on the product says they reached stores in Denver and Cincinnati in 1978, and in Minneapolis and Salt Lake City a year later. They earned $100,000,000 in their first year and, after five years, $300,000,000 annually.

Strong sales did not save them. Wikipedia says they were eventually discontinued because they were no longer profitable. Tasting Table, citing the book “What Were They Thinking?” by Robert McMath, says the product was too expensive to make because Jell-O was not in the business of frozen foods. It adds that Jell-O’s official Twitter account said in 2018 that not enough people were buying the product.

The comeback was not a smash. Pudding Pops returned to grocery stores in 2004 under the Popsicle brand, in variety packs of chocolate, vanilla and chocolate-vanilla swirl. Wikipedia says differences in texture and shape kept them from reaching their earlier popularity, and they began to be withdrawn around 2011. 15 foods from the ’60s most boomers loved with a passion on Frenz Hub looks at older favorites in a similar spirit.

Three Different Kinds of Comeback

The three returns did not look alike. Squeezit’s two reappearances were short, each lasting a year or so. Dunkaroos came back through a convenience store chain first and then spread to large retailers. Pudding Pops returned under a different company’s brand and lasted about seven years before being pulled again, according to Wikipedia’s dates.

What the three share is the lunchbox. History.com, in a piece on collectible school lunch boxes, cites collector Thad Reece as saying more than 120 million metal lunch boxes in 450-plus designs were sold between 1950 and 1970 alone. Squeezit, Dunkaroos and Pudding Pops belonged to the snack side of that world, and each of them left shelves and returned at least once.

Not every comeback lasted, though. What kids packed alongside the lunch box is a memory many grown-ups still trade stories about, and 9 things grandkids remember most about their grandparents is one more place where that kind of recollection shows up. In the end, the shelf decides which names stay.

This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.