WHAT HAPPENED: Believe it or not, this creamy take on a classic was only around for a little over a year. WebSo, in 1798 the term soda water became the primary term used to qualify carbonated water. Male or female, over 21 years of age or otherwise, you know you tried Zima at least once. (Screenshot: Youtube), Fruitopia cemented its status as a pop culture sensation when it received the ultimate gold star of the 1990s:ashoutout onthe Simpsons. Snag 'em here. While the decline of sugary sodas seems a permanent trend, advocates continue to bang the drum against the environmental impact of plastic bottles, and the folly of paying a dollar or more for something you can get out of the tap for free. Maybe it's a sugary cereal that brings you right back to those carefree Saturday mornings spent watching cartoons. Coke originally called this drink Peppo, but as expected, Dr. Pepper sued them. Originally, Pillsbury created the crumb-free space sticks for astronauts. There's still nothing that compares to the experience of having a War Head purse your lips from its overpowering sour flavor. In 2011, as enhanced-water sales were starting to rise, National Beverage added flavors like coconut and mango to the LaCroix line, growing to offer 20 different varieties. But do you remember in the 1970s when Hunt's Snack Pack was packaged in an aluminum can? 6254a4d1642c605c54bf1cab17d50f1e. WHAT HAPPENED: The world's OTHER most iconic mint-adjacent candy cremed no more in the mid-2000s. Sign up for our newsletter and enter to win the second edition of our book. Not only does this soft drink have zero sugar, but it also has zero calories. Crisps were graham cracker cookies that were filled with a peanut butter creme, but there were also spin-offs, with chocolate creme and a PB&J one with strawberry filling and peanut butter creme. Coke started a campaign where kids could trade bottle caps for free stuff at Blockbuster and TGI Fridays, spinning the Fruitopian ideal into a very appealing economy. In the early 70s, Mr. Pibb started slowly becoming available after initially testing in Texas in 1972. In the early 1990s, the publics love affair withregular old soda began to wane. By highlighting its French pedigree and premium price, Perrier played off baby boomers' growing desire for status as the generation shed its tie-dyed T-shirts and started entering the corporate world. After initially hawking the product from a folding table at health food stores, Weiss landed distribution agreements with Costco and Target and a promotional deal with pop star Justin Timberlake, who ended up buying a stake in the company. $9.99 at Amazon Buy Now 19 Airheads It's hard to believe that the chewy, leathery, vaguely fruit-flavored taffy candy experienced the popularity it did. But Keebler quietly discontinued them in the 2000s. WHAT HAPPENED: The coolest mint known to humankind hasn't been around for years. In 2014, the soda got an even fresher ad campaign after execs saw the cherry-flavored sodas sales spontaneously go up. It had various flavors, including Club Soda, Quinine Water, and Citrus flavored Soda. Hey! How Oreos Got Their Name: The Rise of an American Icon, Saving the Pint: How a CO2 Shortage is Changing Beer Brewing, You Asked The Food Lab 164 Questions. Sports drink maker Gatorade dabbled in the gum game, too. if( navigator.sendBeacon ) { Post author: Post published: December 1, 2021 Post category: usmc drill instructor speech Post comments: family tree vincent tan first wife family tree vincent tan first wife The idealist in me is rooting for the tap, but if I had to place a bet, my money would go with the marketers. Pumpkin Spice! In the end, it's hard to untangle how much of bottled water's success was due to clever marketing and "manufactured demand," and how much of it was driven by shifting consumer preferences. The soda packs a ton of caffeine and has grown to include a bunch of other flavors. Momoko Takeda. Perhaps the instructions provided too tricky for some, as the drinkwhich came in such fun flavors as Chucklin' Cherry, Berry B. Niagara also invested $4.5 million in equipment so it could manufacture its own half-liter bottles instead of buying them from a supplier, saving two cents per bottle in the process. Though health advocates have cheered the news of soda's declining fortunes, the rise of bottled water is less a nutritional success story than a victory for good old-fashioned American marketingor, to be more precise, of companies deftly navigating the murky space between what people want and what they can be convinced they need. spoofed sugary drinks in its advertisements, through the windows of swirl-painted school buses, Interviews with contemporaneous ninth graders, bribing grocery stores to display more Fruitopia, make the drink a part of their nutrition curriculum, Sign up for our email, delivered twice a week. It's no mystery why everyone went crazy for Scooby Doo Fruit Snacksthey're fruity gummy delights! Walking down the freezer aisle of the grocery store after school, there's no way you wouldn't beg your mom to buy you some of these icy treats. But bottled-water sales were growing at 30% each year, far outpacing soft drink sales, and Aquafina, backed by Pepsi's formidable distribution and marketing machinery, quickly became the top-selling brand in convenience stores. For fans of the alcopop, the good news is that its still actually sold in Japan., As if Mountain Dews ghost-like green color wasnt disturbing enough, in 2004 the company decided to launch a dark purple, grape-flavored sodaPitch Blackto coincide with Halloween. Red Bull was one of the first ones. [slidetitle num="8"]Potato Crisps[/slidetitle]. Shaped like a half-moon, the spongy cake was filled with fluffy, banana-flavored cream. Why can't we bring these little beads of Butterfinger back? Otherwise, we'd be grabbing that plain glass of water. Oh how I wish Planters' peanut butter-flavored cereal would come back to the cereal aisle. Just as the popularity of Ghostbusters has endured, so too did the super-sweet drink it inspired: Ecto Cooler. Each little gummy, filled with a splash of delicious fruit goo, still holds a special place in my adult heart. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. Sold in plastic bottles that you had to squeeze in order to drink out of, these came in cherry, berry, grape, strawberry, fruit punch, green punch, orange, and tropical punch flavors. Brittany Anas is a freelance travel and health writer. 6. Search, watch, and cook every single Tasty recipe and video ever - all in one place! But a series of highly publicized health scareslike an outbreak of a parasite discovered in the Milwaukee water system in 1993, which sickened tens of thousands of peoplehad made consumers leery of public water sources, and bottled-water sellers were quick to highlight the virtues of their advanced filtration processes over the chemical treatments, such as chlorination and fluoridation, used to treat city water supplies. Andlike most of the worldhated it instantly. Like Tang, Space Food Sticks, which are akin to today's energy bars, go down in NASA's "Space Food Hall of Fame." Sales soared to $120 million in 2015, then to $300 million in 2016. Brian was the Culture Editor and has been working at Mashable on the web culture desk since 2014. The advertising wasnt great, either. Sign up for our newsletter! All this activity raises the question of whether such products are really bottled water or a modified form of soft drink. In 2010, for instance, the Talking Rain Beverage Company, a small bottled-water producer in Preston, Washington, found itself on the verge of folding after years of slumping sales, so it decided to throw its remaining resources behind a single brand in its portfolio: Sparkling ICE, a zero-calorie blend of fizzy spring water and fruit juice. Wild. Originally created in 1963, it was meant to appeal towards people, especially women, who wanted to keep tabs on their weight. The 1970s is when the product grew further, according to MeTV, with plenty of different flavors becoming available. Several makers had versions of banana flip snack cakes, which were also known as banana dreams. More info below. The brand has created many grape-centric products, from jams to jellies to juices, and to this very same Grape Soda. But don't you remember loving the stuff? Get ready, because the battle of the 90s brown lipsticks is on! But today's kids will never know the thrill of finding a rare great white shark in the package of fruit punch fruit snacks. if( 'moc.sihttae.www' !== location.hostname.split('').reverse().join('') ) { From the chocolatey (and grammatically incorrect) Oreo O's of yesteryear to the still very delicious Gushers, these are the 37 '90s snacks that will bring you back to the tasty decade in a big way. Mountain Dew was popular, but the Code Red flavor was an instant classic. Hilltop became the worlds most popular commercial. What made it so great? These days, Mr. Pibb is known in stores as Pibb Xtra. Coke insists that they came up with the name Fruitopia during the development process. They shouldnt have been included in the research, but as I personally wasnt born yet, I couldnt really stop them. This represents its, ________ measures how many consumers in a market are familiar with the brand and what it stands for and have an opinion about it., Target's A The snack was discontinued around 1975, according to General Mills. Ancient relics (OK, a promotional photo on a Tumblr page) reveal that McDonald's once served Onion Nuggets in the 1970s. When Rachel Edelman was a kid in Memphis in the 1990s, summer meant afternoons with her mom and brothers at the local Jewish Community Center. WHAT HAPPENED: The world has been devoid of remixes since 2005. A few years later, Smurf Magic Berries made their debut with mini marshmallows. It was trying to complete with Dr. Pepper, but thats a hard battle to win. But many people may know it better as Id Like To Buy The World A Coke. The Washington Post reported that the spot cost the company $250,000. The candy made a comeback as the Nestl Wonder Ball, this time with candy filling the chocolate sphere. Falling Fruit offers a fresh perspective on food and the future of urban environments. The coveted Steven-Hawking-as-a-Springfieldian shoutout. In fact, that was the flavor to have if you wanted to really impress your friends. It was called Monster Energy and it helped meet the increasing need for energy drinks. Can you imagine being in business that long? Not bad for approximately 17-percent juice. Perrier's American sales rocketed from 3 million bottles in 1975 to some 200 million just four years later. Fruit by the Foot. As diet drinks were making their way to America, Tab had a different approach. The actual bite-size snacks. The firm also introduced its so-called "Eco-Air Package"essentially a shrink-wrapped bundle of bottleswhich eliminated the cardboard tray from cases and allowed more bottles to be stacked on a single pallet. Its unclear as to when Barqs root beer came out, but it was definitely some time in the late 1800s. '90s candy made you suffer. In March 2016, Coke extended its Minute Maid line of juices with "Minute Maid Sparkling," which they call "low-calorie fizzy juice drinks," each with 30 to 40 calories. Sprite Remix. "We're calling it Babbling Brook. Which one of these childhood snacks do you wish would make a comeback? Luckily for all of us grown-ups, these tasty snacks can still be found in most grocery stores. It was a glorious beverage. But Baby Ruths aren't named after famed baseball player Babe Ruth. Coke resisted following at first, preferring to promote consumption of its soft drinks over an alternative that might cannibalize sales. Like the McRib before it, customers clamored to get some more. WHAT HAPPENED: Reese's in beautiful, beautiful ball form went away in 2008. In the 1850s, E. W. Stephenson, proprietor of St. Catharines Mineral Water, promised that his product, drawn from an artesian well in Ontario, would cure everything from "dyspepsia, liver, and kidney complaints" to "sea sickness, fever, and ague.". Maybe that unintended consequence was just a bit ahead of its time. Cookie Crisp was introduced to the cereal aisle in 1977, but fully caught the attention of children everywhere in the '90s. But unfortunately, the Pepsi company stopped making Sprite Remix in 2005. The late 19th century saw the creation of a flurry of spring water companies; some of the brands, like Arrowhead and Ozarka, are still on the market today. The combination of corn syrup-fortified gummy candy and soda made perfect sense in the early '90s, which marked the height of the "Big Soda" boom. "By the 1960s, Dum Dums became the obligatory treat in every bank, barber shop, and doctor's office in America," Kimmerle said. Yoplait Trix Yogurt. 20. WHAT HAPPENED:They've been gone since the early 2010s but they're coming back! In 1990, the makers of Maxwell House coffee decided to up the ante with this ready-to-drink jug of java. [slidetitle num="10"]Space Food Sticks[/slidetitle]. Little Hugs juice aka colored sugar water are magical, colorful flavor explosions, and you can still order them online(opens in a new tab) to quench your thirst. Established in 1937, the oldest candy shop in New York City boasts a rainbow-colored inventory that would make Willy Wonka envious. Sydney Kramer. Jogging was in; the Martini was out. But it's true they've been gone for a few years. WHAT HAPPENED: These have been gone for over a decade, my good, good friend. In the summer of 2003, Coke gave up on Fruitopia. In 1977, the firm hired Bruce Nevins, a 40-year-old exSpecial Forces officer and former Levi Strauss executive, to relaunch the brand to the American market with a blitz of television ads voiced by Orson Welles. And, let's be real, the white sharks tasted the best. You may have even had a Fruitopia branded vending machine in your school. Guaranteed to piss off your parents, these whistling lollypops were a coveted musical treat. The back of the original box promised: "All the true delicious pizza flavor in a munchy, crunchy, mouth-sized snack!" Nu metal might have hit peak popularity in 2000 with Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water and Hybrid Theory, but most of the records of any historical interest came out in 1994-1999.Nu metal kind of went from being the sort of music a major label would take a chance on (in case it would succeed grunge, which it more or less did) Health officials pushed back, pointing to Perrier's benzene contamination incident as evidence that the bottled-water industry was hardly immune to contamination issues, and publicly fretting that dental hygiene might suffer as more people shifted to drinking non-fluoridated bottled water. A peanut butter flavor was available, too. ), you're probably not likely to see a bright green Jello salad at potlucks or parties in this decade. Offer subject to change without notice. When mom forgot to pack your lunch, that meant one delicious thing: Lunchables for lunch! Share on Facebook (opens in a new window), Share on Flipboard (opens in a new window), 22 Ingenious Stoner Foods Inspired by the Munchies, This week's most watched movies and TV start with fresh, hot diplomacy, Ghostface is in NYC: How to watch 'Scream VI' online for free, The shocking true story behind 'Love and Death' is stranger than fiction, How to watch every Stanley Cup playoffs game online, 'The Late Late Show with James Corden' is ending with 24 hours of TikTok clips, What to do when social media insists you should be a 'gentle' parent, How to recycle Amazon packaging (yes, all of it). Plant a Gastro Obscura garden this spring. That said, 1971 was a big year for them. People didnt enjoy this drink for too long, though. (School officials struck that part from the deal.) These 3rd Degree Burn Doritos chips are no joke! Despite our parents' best attempts to make us eat vegetables, most kids in the '90s would've preferred to feast on junk food. But, earthlings got a taste, too, with flavors like chocolate malt, caramel, or orange hitting supermarket shelves. We hold major institutions accountable and expose wrongdoing. (That is, if you even knew they made the change in the first place.) Yes, even in the U.S. But by the early 20th century, the chlorination of municipal water supplies made safe drinking water widely available, and the sale of bottled water declined into a specialty trade. There's everything from run of the mill, approachable flavors, like iced tea, to limited time options, and unique fruit-forward blends, like kiwi-strawberry. Absolutely not. As bottled water has become commoditized, Coke and Pepsi have found themselves in another bind: Soda sales peaked in the late 1990s, and have steadily declined since. That opened the door for competing sparkling-water brands to flood the market. The '90s were a wild time. 1965: Dum Dums, tiny lollipops that come in a variety of flavors, hit their stride in the mid-1960s. You ripped open that bag and dumped the whole thing in your mouth, period. Slice is part of the Pepsi lineup, and apple was a flavor The New York Times states theyreleased in 1986. Oh, Tab! The easy way to make healthier comfort foods. First it was sold, then it was normalized, and then it was commoditized. It was an entire experience., A Fruitopia vending machine, in the wild. Tons of shark-shaped gummies(opens in a new tab) on the market but none compare to the Shark Bites fruit snacks. At the time, many people werent really concerned about reusable water jugs and the environmental havoc that plastic bottles wreak. [slidetitle num="6"]Pizza Spins[/slidetitle]. The sugar factor might turn people off today, as sugar is on everyones must-avoid list, but hey. The History of Popcorn: How One Grain Became a Staple Snack, A Social History of Jell-O Salad: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon, Soda: We Try All 127 Flavors from the Coke Freestyle Machine, Robusta May Be The Future of CoffeeHeres How To Try It. The campaign, with its integrated vision, went above and beyond traditional branding efforts. Or at least my parents' freezer by storm. WHAT HAPPENED: What many call the holy grail of peanut butterflavored sweet cream snacks has been gone since the '90s. According to Case Western Reserve University, after Cotton Club emerged in 1902, it created a bunch of fruit-flavored drinks. Is there no greater taste than a brownie or doughnut cooked by a lightbulb? Because it is something that instills some serious nostalgia, Crystal Pepsi has made some limited-time comebacks in recent years. Even though Coke usually came out on top, it didnt mean that Pepsi was lagging all that far behind. Advocates decry censorship and erasure by GOP-led state Legislature and Gov. Their "branded waters" can still compete in convenience store coolers, where individual bottles may run a dollar or more, but they don't have a chance in grocery stores, where 24-bottle cases of private-label store brands sell for $1.99. "At a long, wet business lunch," People magazine noted in a 1978 article, a bottle of Perrier "besp[oke] a clear-headed sense of purpose." They came in flavors like island fruits and a minty Peppermint, yet they were still distinctly different from Tic-Tacs. A tectonic shift was underway in the beverage industry, and it involved much more than water. } else { WHAT HAPPENED: They're back!!! In March of 2017, the Beverage Marketing Corporation, a beverage industry consulting firm, announced that the United States has a new favorite beverage. Cinnamon Toast Crunch just doesn't compare to these tiny french toast-flavored morsels. Health clubs and upscale stores in New York and Los Angeles introduced water bars, displaying bottles from around Europe and from even more distant locales like Fiji, charging, as Corby Kummer put it in a 1998 New York Times piece, "laughable prices for something that can be gotten out of a faucet.". Around the same time, in 2009, Ben Weiss started selling Bai Antioxidant Infusion, a five-calorie water product infused with coffee fruit and flavored with exotic fruit juices. And for those curious to see how this majestically layered cake is made, you need only to watch this video(opens in a new tab). And for Jell-O's next trick one mix, separating into three layers! In the 1970s, just 350 million gallons of bottled water were being sold in the United Statesabout a gallon and a half per person per year. Pepsi began test-marketing Aquafina, its brand of filtered bottled water, in late 1994, and a few years later rolled it out nationwide with a huge marketing campaign. Its ranked as one the best Mountain Dew flavors of all time. Sip creative cocktails in the former vault of the Riggs Bank. But Perrier stumbled in 1990 after a small number of its bottles were found to contain traces of benzene, a toxic chemical compound, which prompted a nationwide recall and sent the company's sales plummeting. Remember when I mentioned Mr. Pibb? While they debuted in the 1970s, Jell-O Pudding Pops hit peak popularity in the 1980s. Imagine Doritos but 3D and you've got yourself some 3D Doritos, baby! It was, according to CNET. Niagara poured its profits into automation and engineering, squeezing out every last scrap of waste. Were not surprised at all, though. If you're really craving a pudding pop, and a Fudgesicle doesn't come close enough for you, there are pudding pop molds so you can make your own. We just want to make you feel good. Even that didnt really work. And it came out in 1979. It went away in the mid-2000s. [slidetitle num="9"]Hunt's Snack Pack in Aluminum Cans[/slidetitle]. But, like many products back in the 90s, Zima was written off as a fad. Again, blame it on the Great Clear Beverage Fad of the 1990s. Discontinued: Mid-2000s Earth (grape-cranberry), Rain (agave-cactus), Sun (starfruit-orange), and Fire (dragonfruit) were the original lineup of Snapple Elements But the Flinstone-branded pops, sadly, are now, well, dinosaurs. Image via drugstore.com. Dum Dums. So not only Limp Bizkit made a fortune from late 90-early 2000, but an album titled Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water made millions of dollars. Paying money for a bottle containing nothing more than plain drinking water, once dismissed as an absurd expenditure, had become normalized in the American market. We know it today as Sprite Zero, but back then it was The problem was twofold, but ultimately boiled down to confusion: Maxwell House intended its customers to nuke their coffee before drinking, but the container itself was too large to fit inside a microwave, leading customers to drink it cold. Oddly enough, Pepsi did it first and this was Cokes response. This ambitious restaurant celebrates the culinary traditions of the Ozarks before 1870. "Bye-bye, tears!" [/ga-newsletter], [slidetitle num="2"]Onion Nuggets[/slidetitle]. Like Atlas Obscura and get our latest and greatest stories in your Facebook feed. Web64 likes, 6 comments - Permanent Records LA (@permanentrecordsla) on Instagram on August 15, 2020: "THREE COPIES AVAILABLE! But the bottled-water business hasn't proved to be a great alternative for Coke and Pepsi. Produced by General Mills from the mid-1980s until 2001, Squeezit was another lunchtime drink worth bragging about. Zima had carbonation and was kind of a big deal for people who werent too into beer. You can still get it on Amazon. Unlike with sodas and sports drinks, the beverage companies learned, very little differentiates one bottle of filtered water from another. While I prefer Diet Coke these days, I also have a soft spot in my heart for nostalgic sodas like Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi. No word yet on whether lightning will strike a third time., 2023 Minute Media - All Rights Reserved. Stream the latest slasher flick from your couch. They came in flavors like onion, ranch, and cheddar. Its still around in Japan if youre dying to try it. If Whole Foods workers had read a copy of Walther Hermann Ryffs Das new gro Distillier Buch, they In October 2013, the New York Times reported that Hugh F. Johnston, PepsiCo's chief financial officer, had told industry analysts that the company was no longer investing in the regular bottled-water business, saying, "We don't think it creates value over time. Look for Fruitopia in America today, though, and youll come up empty. THEY'RE COMING BACK! In November 2016, Dr Pepper Snapple Group bought Bai Brands for $1.7 billion, and we can look forward to similar acquisitions from Coke and Pepsi, too. [slidetitle num="5"]Jell-O 1-2-3[/slidetitle]. Introduced in 1981 by the G. Heileman Brewing Company as a discount Perrier competitor, LaCroix was acquired in 1996 by Florida-based National Beverage Corp., makers of the Shasta and Faygo soda brands. It's beautiful ripples of ice cream, like the hide of a Shar-Pei oozed elegant decadence, whether they were being served after dinner or at a birthday party. Cupcakes (Especially Mini Cupcakes) Mini desserts reigned supreme in the 2000s, and nothing was more popular than a simple, cute cupcake. 3. Fruit Smoothies Not to be confused with the green/vegetable smoothie craze happening right now. 4. Watermelon and Feta Salad Sweet and salty goodness! Or was there a certain cookie that you hoped to find when you cracked open your lunchbox in the elementary school cafeteria, one that everyone wanted to trade for? All those poolside vending machines emptied out for good. It originally came in four flavors: red punch, orange, grape, and cherry. Adults cant feel cool drinking apple juice, but Apple Slice is another story. advice every day. How to navigate overwhelming parenting style advice online and choose a helpful approach for your family. Now, let me get one thing straight. A '90s snack staple, Gushers could be found in nearly every school cafeteria that decade. Atlas Obscura reminds us that Fruitopia was so prevalent in '90s pop culture that it was referenced on a Simpsons episode. Though they've largely fallen out of favor with kids over the years, they're still widely available in supermarkets. WHAT HAPPENED: After coming hot (heh) out of the gate in 2010, they've been gone for years. A Saturday morning classic, Post's Smurf Berry Crunch was a fruity red and blue cereal that came out in 1983. In the bottled-water trade, it turns out, the real expense lies in the raw materials for making the bottles and in the cost of shipping those bottles to their destination. Ron DeSantis. WHAT HAPPENED: They've been gone for at least the last seven years, maybe longer. They were so peanut-y, so crispy, so delicious, If only they would return. For more, check out these 108 most popular sodas ranked by how toxic they are. single That means that they had no problem helping define such a popular decade. Ecto-Cooler came out in 1987, according to Food and Wine, and the neon green drink was a way to market "The Real Ghostbusters" cartoon. At the time, all of us in creative-driven agencies felt our team had lost a big one, says Hopper. Some believe the first appearance of vodka took place as early as the eighth century in Poland, while others say the ninth century in Russia. The Ricker family, who operated the Poland Spring resort in Maine and started selling its waters in the late 1850s, originally touted them as a kidney remedy. These brightly-colored containers full of juice easily doubled as a water gun. Sadly, after the discontinuation of these multi-dimensional snacks, 2D Doritos just don't do it for me anymore. ", In 1997, the New York Times interviewed a gaggle of Madison Avenue ad execs for a tongue-in-cheek piece on how one might package and sell water from less-than-exotic sources, like the Hudson River. This caffeine-free soda, which they marketed as the clear alternative to cola. At least the company was honest about the product they were selling, and why this soda flavor was different from the rest. (Photo: dkwannabe101/Imgur), Interviews with contemporaneous ninth graders show them to have also been awestruck by both drink and salesmanship. The Rise and Fall of Fruitopia, the Trippiest Beverage of K9 Water comes in chicken, beef, liver, and lamb, (no, there's no toilet-water flavor), and according to the California-based company that makes it, it's rebarkably To this day, many people mourn the loss of Fruitopia. These Trix cereal-flavored yogurts can still be found online(opens in a new tab), along with numerous slime tutorials (opens in a new tab)based on this favorite '90s snack. While sales of the beverage were initially impressiveapproximately $474 million in sales quickly accumulatedthe fad was a short-lived one; why drink something that sort of tastes like Pepsi when you can just drink Pepsi? That was kind of an exciting thing. As Coca-Cola and Pepsi moved into the market, the reactions from industry watchers were decidedly mixed. But not even Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi. What If She Never Existed? "As demand soars, sources of the product are under scrutiny." WHAT HAPPENED: The world shall paint with candy no more as of the mid-2000s. Packaged pudding packs remain popular today and even come in inventive flavors (hello, pink and blue unicorn pudding!). gum was folded up into a wrapper that looked like a colorful band-aid denoting the stick's flavor. The 1990s witnessed vigorous debatessometimes lighthearted, sometimes in earnestover whether bottled water was of any real value to consumers, or little more than a slick swindle.