The Most Popular Candy from When You Were a Kid

1945: DOTS Gumdrops
Since their invention, DOTS has offered the same flavors every year with cherry, strawberry, lemon, lime and orange. And they haven't waned in popularity! Four billion DOTS are produced each year. Craving something sweet?

1947: Bazooka Bubble Gum

Marketed in a post-World War II America, Bazooka gum was originally sold in single pieces for a penny each. In 1953, Topps would introduce the iconic comic strips associated with Bazooka Bubble Gum, with 75 different comics to collect. Looking for the comic strips today? Prepare for a kick in the childhood—the company did away with the comics in 2012 in an attempt to modernize the brand.

1948: Almond Joy

Sister candy bar to Mounds, Almond Joy features milk chocolate rather than Mounds' dark chocolate coating. While diehard fans swear by the classic, there have been several iterations of the candy, including Piña Colada, White Chocolate Key Lime and Milk Chocolate Passion Fruit Almond. 

1949: Junior Mints

Deliciously sweet and refreshingly minty, this candy was named after a collection of stories by Sally Benson called "Junior Miss," which eventually became a Broadway play. In 2009, all of our wildest dreams came true when Junior Mints Deluxe rolled out, a larger dark chocolate version. 

1950: Hot Tamales

Some like it hot! This spicy sweet candy continues to be the top-selling cinnamon candy in the United States to this day. 

1953: Candy Cigarettes

Marketed during the height of smoking in the United States, these candies were wrapped and packaged to look just like cigarettes—some packaging even contained a little bit of sugar in the wrapper, so that you could blow and produce "smoke." Candy cigarettes were eventually banned in 15 countries, although only North Dakota in the U.S. temporarily banned the candy from 1953-1967. 

1954: Atomic Fireballs

Looking for a candy with a dark origin? Atomic Fireballs were released during the peak of the Cold War, when students underwent bomb drills in school as a nuclear holocaust loomed. The candy pulled no punches about their namesake—the original wrappers featured a giant mushroom cloud. 

1955: Good & Plenty

While Good & Plenty is thought to be the oldest brand of candy in the United States, starting in 1893, it surged in popularity in the 1950s due to a marketing campaign featuring the cartoon "Choo-Choo-Charlie." 

1957: Charleston Chew

Invented in 1925, this candy was indeed named after the popular dance The Charleston. Despite its dance ties, the candy didn't reach peak popularity until the founding company was purchased by Nathan Sloane, doubling in sales. The candy has expanded beyond chocolate to also offer strawberry and vanilla, although for one shining moment it could also be found in banana.

1960: Pixy Stix

When candy producers found out that kids were eating a popular drink mix called Fruzola Jr. straight out of the packet as a sugary powder, they tweaked the recipe and created Lik-M-Aid, which would eventually be rebranded as Pixy Stix and packaged in those iconic paper straws. 

1961: Lemonheads

No joke—the inventor of Lemonheads came up with the idea for the candy after witnessing the oblong shape of his grandson's head shortly after birth. Maybe not exactly what you want to be known for, but it is a delicious candy. 

1962: SweetTarts

This sweet and sour candy is actually just condensed version of Pixy Sticks. When parents began to bemoan the mess that Pixy Sticks created, the company compacted the recipe into round, flat tablets. 

1967: Starburst

Starburst didn't always have its catchy name—the candy was originally called Opal Fruits in Britain before it was brought to the U.S. It was marketed as a healthy candy because of its fruit flavors, and at one point was even fortified with Vitamin C. Starburst isn't the only amazing candy to come out of Britain.

1970: Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

Reese's has been around since the 1920s, born in the basement of H. B. Reese's house, but the cups reached peak popularity after Hershey Chocolate and H. B. Reese merged in 1963. The candy would become Hershey's top-seller in 1969. 

1975: Pop Rocks

Sometimes danger is part of the fun! Despite a large marketing campaign and even a special hotline set up by the FDA for frantic parents, rumors persisted for years that this candy would make your stomach boil and explode if consumed with soda. 

1976: Jelly Belly Jelly Beans

If you visit Jelly Belly in Fairfield, California, you'll be watched over during the tour by multiple pictures of Ronald Reagan, including an enormous portrait made entirely of jelly beans. The reason? Ronald Reagan was a huge Jelly Belly fan, eating them as a way to quit smoking cigarettes in the 1960s and keeping the White House well stocked during his presidency. 

1983: Nerds

Often thought to be named after a Dr. Seuss character, these little candies are similar to rock candy with their irregular, unusual shapes. The candy would be one of the biggest in the 1980s and was named Candy of the Year by the National Candy Wholesalers Association in 1985. 

1990: Big League Chew

While Big League Chew had been around since 1980, it exploded in popularity after its packaging began to include caricatures of baseball players.

2001: Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans

With Harry Potter craze sweeping the world, Jelly Belly created a Muggle version of the book's fictional line of jelly beans, with wild and unsettling flavors like earwax, vomit, skunk and dirt.