Somewhere in a grandparent’s memory sits a candy bar that no store carries anymore, usually described with a sigh and a very specific wrapper color. On Aug. 26, 2026, Tasting Table writer Sophie Morelli gathered a batch of them in a list of forgotten classic sweet snacks from the ’70s.
Six of them stand out: the Milkshake candy bar, Super Skrunch, the Marathon bar, Jell-O 1-2-3, the Banana Flip and Flicks. The group spans chocolate bars, a gelatin dessert, a bakery snack and a movie-theater candy, and each one disappeared for its own reason, from a factory fire to plain weak sales. Tasting Table’s list mixes bars that debuted in the decade with ones that were still on shelves during it, so a few of the dates below start earlier or end later.
1. The Milkshake Candy Bar Ended With a Factory Fire
Tasting Table says the Milkshake bar was made by the Hollywood Candy Company, which was later part of Consolidated Foods, and that production stopped after a major plant burned down. Wikipedia’s page on the company fills in the timeline: the firm was formed in 1912, the Milkshake bar arrived in 1927 as a malt-flavored cousin of the Milky Way, and the Martoccio family sold the business to Consolidated Foods in 1967. The page dates a fire that destroyed the Centralia, Illinois, plant to 1980.
Consolidated Foods later became Sara Lee, according to the same page. Another Hollywood Candy product, Payday, is still around. Readers who remember a bar like this one often remember the era around it too, as in a list of six things anyone who grew up with a milkman remembers. The same goes for the rooms those snacks were eaten in, a subject of Frenz Hub’s list of surprising things that decorated every 70s home.
2. Super Skrunch Was a Movie Tie-In That Never Came Back
Super Skrunch was a Wonka-brand candy launched by Quaker after the 1971 film, Tasting Table reports, and it was never revived. Wikipedia’s Quaker Oats entry says the company financed Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory in 1971 and licensed several product names from the film for candy bars. The Wonka Bar page adds that the film was funded largely to promote the upcoming bars, and that Quaker later sold the brand to its manufacturer.
The Wonka name itself had a longer run. According to that page, Chicago’s Breaker Confections launched the brand in 1976, and Nestlé bought it in 1988. Movie tie-ins like this one belonged to the same culture as Saturday morning television, a world revisited in Frenz Hub’s list of Saturday morning cartoon classics from the ’60s and ’70s. A later generation’s routines are collected in a list of everyday habits kids of the 1980s and 1990s grew up with at home.
3. The Marathon Bar Could Not Meet the Necessary Sales
Tasting Table says the Marathon bar was made by Mars, was introduced in the early 1970s and was discontinued because it “simply could not meet the necessary sales.” The list gives no specific years for the bar, and Wikipedia’s page on the Marathon chocolate bar does not confirm dates for the U.S. product, so none are given here. Readers curious about the decade around the bar can find more in Frenz Hub’s list of things only people who grew up in the 70s will understand.
The name is easy to mix up. That Wikipedia page explains that Snickers was sold as Marathon in Britain and Ireland from 1968 until 1990, a separate story from the American bar. It also says the name Marathon was used on an unrelated bar marketed in the 1970s in the United States.
4. Jell-O 1-2-3 Made a Dessert in Three Layers
Tasting Table describes Jell-O 1-2-3 as a Kraft dessert introduced at the end of the 1960s and phased out in the 1990s because of low sales. Wikipedia gives the dates as 1969 to 1996. It describes a single 4.3-ounce powdered mix that, when prepared properly, separated into three layers: a creamy top, a mousse-like middle and regular Jell-O at the bottom.
The page also notes that an episode of The Nanny mentioned the product had not been made in a long time, and that a change.org petition asks Kraft to bring it back. The three-layer trick was the whole appeal.
5. The Banana Flip Left the Snack Shelf in the Mid-2000s
The Banana Flip came from Nickles Bakery, and Tasting Table says it was discontinued in the mid-2000s. The list does not give a reason. That is the latest exit date among the snacks here that come with one, close enough that many shoppers who unwrapped one as children could have bought one for a child of their own.
6. Flicks Wore Out Its Equipment and Its Packaging
Flicks was a Ghirardelli movie-theater candy, Tasting Table says, and it was discontinued because the company’s equipment was outdated and kept breaking down, while the foil tube packaging was expensive. The brand was repurchased and revised in 2004, but availability remains limited.
The maker has a much longer story. Wikipedia says Ghirardelli was founded in 1852 in San Francisco and named for Italian chocolatier Domenico Ghirardelli. Lindt & Sprüngli acquired the company in 1998. Flicks is not mentioned on the Wikipedia page, so its details here rest on Tasting Table alone.
Six Exits, Six Different Reasons
The six snacks left the shelf for different reasons: a plant fire, a brand that was never revived, weak sales for the Marathon bar and Jell-O 1-2-3, no stated reason for the Banana Flip, and costly equipment and packaging for Flicks. Several of them also changed owners along the way, according to the sources above.
The Tasting Table list includes more discontinued sweets than the six covered here, among them Dynamints, No Jelly, Mr. Bones and Heinz Tinned Pudding.
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
Image: Famartin – CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons
