If you call yourself an older millennial, then you definitely grew up with Fruit Stripe gum, its wildly erratic zebra mascot, and the brightly colored sticks of gum with bold fruit flavors that lasted almost as long as it took you to read this sentence. Almost.
However, according to Fruit Stripe’s manufacturer, Ferrara Candy, the gum is being discontinued. (That’s big news to anyone who didn’t think it was discontinued about the time “Hannah Montana” went off the air.) “We have made the difficult decision to sunset Fruit Stripe Gum, but consumers may still be able to find the product at select retailers nationwide,” a Ferrara Candy representative said in a statement.
Fruit Stripe commercial from the 1960’s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUKenR9k238
Fruit Stripe gum had the unfortunate distinction of being the most delicious thing you’ve ever put in your mouth, a total whirlwind of flavor… for five seconds. Then it’s just sugar, then shortly after that, it’s just nothing. It’s like something Willy Wonka would have wished for on a monkey’s paw.
Don’t forget it smelled fantastic too.
Don’t tell anyone, but I have a pack I literally keep to smell. Do my kids know about it? Nope.
As an older millennial this is the most amazing description of this gum that I wish I would have thought of.
Man, that is perfect. Just thinking about it, I could mentally taste it. God only knows how long it’s been. It was a truly remarkable flavor.
The taste I imagined was probably stronger than the taste after the first 5 seconds. Lol.
Never lasting gobstopper.
It’s the crack of the gum world.
deleted by creator
Ah yes. The memories of a few minutes of flavor and a few more of sadness as you chew hoping it would return.
I’ll never forget that time at 6yrs old when I just kept chewing. It eventually just disintegrated and I was left with the consistency of old wet kleenex. I had to literally scrape my tongue to get rid of it all.
You got the flavor to last for several minutes??! I swear it lasted maybe a dozen chews or so and then lost all flavor.
It looked like something that I really wanted to love, but within seconds it was pure disappointment.
Good times!
Removed by mod
5 minutes? Try 10 seconds.
Tried but it only lasted 6.3 seconds.
I only got 6.9 seconds
There was a short time around 1977, during which my wildest fantasy of the best and happiest thing that could possibly happen to me (short of truly fantastical and nigh-impossible things like going to Disneyland, which I wasn’t yet sure really existed) would have been to receive multiple packs of Fruit Stripe gum.
It was boomer shit lol. It first came out in 1969 when younger boomers were hitting childhood and adolescence.
Removed by mod
Yeah so the absolute oldest Gen X were 4 when it came out.
The younger Boomers were 5-15 when it came out.
Removed by mod
Could you imagine our reactions if we told ourselves as kids we’d grow up and electronically argue about this stupid shit when we were old. The mix of wonder and soul crushing despair.
Removed by mod
I guess I feel a small bit of shame for reading this deep in a dumb argument for a laugh, but we all have our guilty pleasures.
Yo, you got some real boomer energy there for a gen xer.
Removed by mod
lol, you’re whole presence here in this thread.
Jesus Christ, everybody just block this fucking guy.
If you haven’t read the thread, don’t bother. Trust me.
Removed by mod
I love you 💋
So the oldest Gen Xers were 4 years old, is the point. Gen X wasn’t the original target demographic, but rather they grew into being good consumers of Fruit Stripe Gum™
Removed by mod
are you trying to argue that small children weren’t in the target demographic for fruit-flavored gum primarily sold in toy stores?
No
are you trying to argue that 4 year-olds weren’t in the target demographic for fruit-flavored gum primarily sold in toy stores?
Yes
Either way I think you care a lot more about this than is healthy
Removed by mod
You seem angry about a candy released in 1969 being marketed to baby boomers, who were 5-23 years old at the time. Are you angry about that?
It tasted really good for all of 10 seconds.
yea its gone for a reason
But it was a really good 10 seconds.
Did this stuff come with tattoos?
It did, on the insides of the wrappers. They never worked very well, and even if you could get one to transfer they tended to last about as long as the flavor in the gum itself did.
When I found out they were food dye, I tried them on cookies and they worked so much better on food than on skin.
I vaguely remember that
I always gave myself a half sleeve while eating an entire pack
i had fruit stripe gummies a few years ago and they tasted like ass rubbed with fruit
Like good ass or bad ass?
bad
That sounds badass
I’d upvote you twice if I could for that one
I can’t say I’m entirely surprised… I distinctly remember getting Fruit Stripe gum because it just looked so cool and being disappointed that it wasn’t actually very good every time lol
It was terrible then, and it’s till terrible now. But I still buy a pack from the local dollar store every now and again, just for the nostalgia.
I guess we still have Bazooka Joe, at least for now.
New favorite job title, from the article: “General Manager of the Sugar Portfolio at Ferrara Candy Company”
tastes like shit
No no,… tasted brilliant as fuck for,…2 minutes— then like shite.
Yikes! Stripes. :'(
Ah, beat me to it!
Yay! Awww
can we still chip our teeth on bazooka joe?
Wow the memories. Like everyone said, the flavor lasted for seconds at best. It’s currently going for $140-200 for 12 packs on ebay.
Incredible. It’s the only gum I’ve ever tried that crumbled to bits when chewed. Even just bought, it was like it had been sitting in the Arizona sun for decades.
I can see your handle that you commented something but it’s just blank for the comment
It’s a video loop of cartoon Spiderman grasping at a disappearing mist. I guess it’s a gif but it also has a play/pause function so who knows what format it is.
It’s hard to tell what will actually function on Lemmy. I think WebP files that aren’t jpegs have been causing grief too, I see a lot of blank posts that are probably that format. A ton of pictures are WebP now even though you’d expect an older format.
Also I’m on desktop, so if you’re mobile that might explain things.
Mobile using voyager (not the ios app the web browser version) on lemmy.world
Are you on a client that can’t handle gif (or video? looks like it auto-converted) replies? It was the spiderman grasping at dust one
I’m on lemmy.world and using voyager on mobile not the ios app, the web browser
I’m using Chrome to view lemmy.world directly, should be similar. Weird
Never heard of this. Looks like vegetarian bacon strips
They’re worse because they’re just as tough but taste of fruit for all of 5 seconds as opposed to salty smoky bacon flavor
