Name These Popular Grocery Items From the Past

In 1929, Coca-Cola marketed its soda to readers as "the pause that refreshes." According to AdAge, the slogan first appeared in its longer form, "All think about the pause that refreshes," accompanied by a depiction of three women socializing at a soda fountain. The ad was meant to encourage Americans to take a moment of rest from their increasingly busy lifestyles following years of rapid industrialization and urbanization. It was Coca-Cola Co. president Robert Woodruff who suggested positioning the soft drink as one of life's simple pleasures; he recruited a friend who was a copywriter at the D'Arcy Co. advertising agency in Atlanta to help refine the idea.

Conversation hearts — those chalky little heart-shaped candies stamped with flirty sayings like "Be Mine" and "Hug Me" — first came to us courtesy of the New England Confectionery Company, better known as Necco. Necco was the product of a merger involving Chase and Company, whose founder Oliver Chase invented a machine to cut the sugary discs later known as Necco Wafers. Chase's brother Daniel was similarly innovative, and figured out a way to print messages directly on their candy using vegetable dye, which eventually led to Sweethearts, the original conversation hearts. Necco went out of business in 2018, but Spangler Candy Company took over the Sweethearts brand soon after.

This well-loved snack jiggled its way onto the culinary scene back in 1895, when Pearl B. Wait, a former cough-syrup manufacturer, and his wife, May, developed the original Jell-O recipe. Using gelatin and fruit syrups, they created the flavors strawberry, orange, raspberry, and lemon, and May came up with the trademark name "Jell-O." Unfortunately for May and Pearl, the product was not an instant success, and they decided to sell the recipe to their neighbor for $450. With some clever marketing tactics and new flavors, Jell-O eventually rose to fame in the early 1900s.

Hawaiian Punch was invented back in 1934, by three guys named A.W. Leo, Tom Yates, and Ralph Harrison. They created the recipe in their garage, but it wasn't originally intended to be a drink. Their plan, according to the official Hawaiian Punch website, was to develop a new product to sell as part of their line of ice cream toppings: a sweet syrup with a tropical flavor that could be poured over sundaes, just like chocolate or strawberry syrup. Originally called "Leo's Hawaiian Punch," the syrup was sold to ice cream parlors and similar businesses, whose customers soon discovered that the syrup could be mixed with water to create a delicious, drinkable liquid. Seeing that people liked Hawaiian Punch as a beverage, investors bought the company and served up a ready-to-drink version in grocery stores in the 1950s.

Sold in their trademark blue tin can with a yellow lid, Cheez Balls were an iconic snack in the '80s and '90s. But in 2006, Planters stopped making them in an effort to focus on their core nut business. After over a decade of fans signing petitions and creating online groups to bring them back, Planters finally revived the beloved bright-orange snacks in 2018.

The precursor to modern tube-shaped "puff" snacks like Cheetos, Flings were produced by Nabisco beginning in the 1960s. Like many other popular snacks of the era, they were marketed as offering the taste of a classic meal in a convenient bite-sized format with plenty of crunch. Similar products created by Nabisco in the same era include Shapies and Chipsters.

When Lucky Charms first hit shelves in 1964, the toasted oat cereal was mixed with four kinds of marshmallows: green clovers, orange stars, yellow moons, and pink hearts. Since then, the marshmallows, which are called marbits, have gone through a number of design changes: Blue diamonds were added in 1975, followed by purple horseshoes, red balloons, and rainbows. Older marbits were phased out or replaced. For example, the original green clover became a leprechaun hat with a clover printed on it. Only the pink heart marbit has never changed.

The mascot for Quisp was created even before the cereal existed. Cartoonists Jay Ward and Bill Scott — creators of the famous "Rocky & Bullwinkle" characters — designed the friendly pink alien, Quisp, who appeared in ads with the miner mascot of its sister brand, Quake. Through a series of ads, children were asked to vote on which cereal they preferred. Quisp won out, but both cereals were out of production by the late '70s.

Sodas enjoyed a golden age in the '80s, when dozens of brands could be found on shelves and in all forms of pop culture. In ensuing decades, as consumers moved away from sugar-packed beverages, soda's popularity decreased. To capitalize on newer trends, the relaunched Slice is sold as an "organic sparkling water" that uses all-natural fruit flavors, without artificial sweeteners or colors.

In 1945, Jack Moone and two other executives at Birds Eye Frozen Foods left to pursue what was then a new idea: selling frozen juice concentrate. Their venture, Bounded Snow Crop, was an immediate hit — by 1946, the company was grossing $3.2 million per year. In 1954, Snow Crop was acquired by Minute Maid, which had been a rival juice seller. Minute Maid was in turn bought by Coca-Cola in 1960.

The original name for this beloved toaster treat was a delightful portmanteau of "frozen" and "waffles." When the Eggo brand, originally known for its mayonnaise, first introduced Froffles to its line in 1953, it was to meet the growing demand for frozen food. To stay relevant, the company transitioned from a powdered waffle mix to the frozen form we've come to know and love. Froffles became known as Eggo waffles later in the 1950s.

With pizza experiencing a rise in popularity during the 1960s, General Mills wanted to capitalize on the trend. Pizza Spins, introduced in 1968, were designed to offer "all the true delicious pizza flavor in a munchy, crunchy, mouth-sized snack!"

Nabisco launched Creme Savers in 1998, combining the popularity of Life Savers hard candy with creamy, fruity flavors. Despite years of healthy sales and the launch of new flavors such as Raspberries & Creme, the candy was shelved in 2011. A decade later, the Iconic Candy company — which specializes in reviving nostalgic candy brands — partnered with Mars Wrigley to relaunch Creme Savers in the U.S.

Since the early 1970s, General Mills has cornered the spooky cereal market with their iconic monster cereals. Count Chocula and Franken Berry launched in 1971, with the blueberry-flavored Boo Berry not far behind in 1972.

By the time Oreos debuted in 1912, Hydrox cookies had already been on shelves for four years. Launched by Sunshine Biscuits, Hydrox featured a cream center sandwiched by two chocolate cookies. Oreos were an imitation of the original, but Nabisco's version ultimately surpassed Hydrox in popularity — in part due to the latter's name, which was a mashup of "hydrogen" and "oxygen."

Sold in a circular container that allowed the uniformly round chips to stack — a precursor to modern Pringles — Mrs. Bumby's was marketed with an elderly bespectacled woman on the package, which boasted that the chips were "made from dried russet potatoes." Alas, General Mills discontinued the snack after a few years.

General Mills produces all kinds of cereal classics, from Lucky Charms to Wheaties. But not every cereal has stood the test of time; in the '60s, General Mills tried to turn their salty Bugles snack into a cereal called Cornados. Needless to say, it didn't last long.

Today, we think of a "classic" Twinkie as one filled with vanilla frosting. But when Twinkies first hit shelves in 1930, the cream inside was banana-flavored, not vanilla. A man named James Dewar invented the snack while trying to come up with a way to make use of the Continental Baking Company's strawberry shortcake machine for the 10 months of the year when strawberries were out of season. He decided to make cakes filled with banana cream instead, and a supermarket staple was born. Eventually, however, banana shortages during World War II forced Continental Baking to switch their original recipe for a version with vanilla cream.

When the cereal we now know as Cheerios first hit grocery store shelves in 1941, it was sold under a slightly different name: Cheerioats. The "oats" part, of course, was a reference to its key ingredient, which was a rarity in cereal at the time. (Most brands were more focused on corn cereals — Corn Flakes, Wheaties, etc.) General Mills wanted to tout the product's unique ingredient in its name, but unfortunately for the company, "Cheerioats" led to a conflict with Quaker Oats, who claimed that the name was a trademark infringement. So in 1945, Cheerioats became simply Cheerios.

Although it was released back in 1959, the powdered orange fruit drink known as Tang didn't really take off on Earth until it took off into space alongside John Glenn in 1962. Water on board NASA's spacecraft had a strange taste because of a nontoxic chemical reaction, so scientists lit up at the prospect of something palatable and easy for their astronauts to drink in space. They did have to alter the mix-in method — pouring powder into water wouldn't have worked in zero gravity — but once that was fixed, Tang was cleared for take-off. When Glenn returned to Earth after Tang's first flight, General Foods began to market their distinctive orange powder as an out-of-this-world space-age drink — and just like the astronauts had, the public lapped it up.