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Facts About 80s Snacks
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May 27, 2025
Weird History is heading back to the 80's for some long lost snacks! Names like Famous Amos and his crazy good cookies, Jell-O Pudding Pops, and Smurf Berry Crunch were kid favorites during the era. So grab a snack to munch on as you take a trip down food memory lane!
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Today, we're going to take a look at some surprising facts about popular 80s snacks
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Despite their incredible sales, Pudding Pops weren't actually making the company any money
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See, the company wasn't in the frozen food business. The Pudding Pop was their one and only frozen item
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so the cost of producing and storing the pops chewed through their profits. In 1981, Kanagawa Brands released Act One Microwave Popcorn
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It was created by Dr. Percy Spencer, who engineered the design for microwave popcorn in 1947 and was granted a patent in 1949
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Although he hadn't quite figured the whole thing out yet. In his original sketches, the popcorn is packaged in a bag with the whole cob inside and the kernels still attached
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Also, it used real dairy butter, which meant the bag of popcorn needed to be refrigerated
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And because Act One popcorn was based on Spencer's design, it also required refrigeration
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But you can't stop progress, and they were able to make the popcorn better
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In 1984, Canagra unveiled Act II microwave popcorn. Unlike Act I, Act II was shelf-stable
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Back in the 1980s, frozen meals that actually had something resembling nutritional content
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were pretty much unheard of. That's why in 1981, Nestle introduced the world to lean cuisine
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Due to the extreme almost scary levels of demand from consumers across the country Nestle had to ration the amount of entrees it sold to retailers In 1982 Smurf Berry Crunch was unveiled by Post Cereal
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The popular cartoon-themed breakfast cereal turned the poo of those who ate it a smurfy blue
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According to an article by Slash Film in 2017, the reason for the colorful restroom break
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was the amount of blue dye in the recipe. The cereal changed the formula
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and eventually rebranded as Magic Berries in 1987. Pop-Tarts were created in the 1960s by the innovative culinary geniuses at Kellogg's
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Those early Pop-Tarts were unfrosted and came in just four flavors, and one of the first to be frosted were crisp apple Pop-Tarts
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which were originally called Dutch Apple Pop-Tarts. The Dutch Apple Pop-Tart became one of the three official toaster pastries
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of the 1984 U.S. Olympic team. Released in 1989 by Oscar Mayer, Lunchables were designed to help ease the lunchmaking process
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after research showed that the primary concern of American mothers when it came to making lunch
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was prep time. Among its 26 varieties, one of the headliners is the Pizza Lunchable
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But this particular variety became a flashpoint for controversy when Oscar Mayer did away with
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the small, red, soft-spreading stick that had come included with it in the early 2000s
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And honestly, who doesn't understand that frustration? What are we supposed to spread the sauce with now
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Our car keys? A finger? Someone else's finger? Thanks for nothing, Oscar Mayer
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