Until recently it never occurred to me just how huge of a hit fruit snacks became when I was a kid. There are more varieties and movie tie-ins than ever before but the fruit snack boom seemed to have happened in the ‘80s. There were a few types of fruit snacks that I still yearn for today.
Today the chewy, gummy bear-type fruit snack has flooded the marketplace. It’s rare to find my all time favorite fruit snack that wasn’t gummyish at all. It was the type that you would smoosh down onto the tip of your finger to make it look like you had long nails (don’t ask). They were in the shape of a half circle and I’m pretty sure they were made by Sunkist (Fruit Wrinkles I believe?). Cherry and Grape were the best since they actually tasted like their fruit counterparts. I haven’t found them in stores unless I‘m not looking hard enough.
Following a close second would be the formidable Shark Bites Fruit Snacks. They were in the shape of various sharks. Just a few months ago I performed many strategic Google searches to find as much information as I possibly can about these luscious streamlined snacks. With all the nostalgia sites available to scour, I still had a hard time finding anything on Shark Bites. Surprisingly there wasn’t too much out there but I did find a few blog comments, including one of mine here. It seemed that Shark Bites were discontinued and I didn’t see them making a comeback, especially since there was no petition page in the Google search that said “Bring Shark Bites Back!”
All it took was going to several different stores and I wound up doing the berzerker attack in the aisles of Shop-Rite when I saw them staring at me from the very bottom shelf where all bastard fruit snacks go when they are too badass and anti-social to be with the rest of the faggety fruit snacks. They still exist! I bought 2 boxes, not one. You never know when the government might deem Sharks too scary for kids and too fierce to be a frickin’ fruit snack. I’m serious! You never know when they’ll pull some dumb shit like that. I rationalize having shark bites as getting back at these creatures for all the years of attacks and scaring the crap out of us after Jaws. None of us could go in our own pools! Damn you Great White! Ahh yes, the Great White is in the pouch…in all of his non-artificially colored glory. Just for that it was well worth the hunt. The commercials would make it seem like it was a rare event when you got the Great White. When I ripped into my first bag I was immediately catapulted back to when I was a kid during lunch time.
Finally, the one fruit snack I can’t dig up much of anything on are the ones that were shaped like fighter planes. If you were lucky, instead of getting the Great White Shark, you got the sleek, black Stealth Fighter in the pouch. I can’t remember the name of these, but they kicked a lot of ass too.
*Update – the fighter plane version was called THUNDER JETS FRUIT SNACKS! Hooray!