7 Vintage Candy Bars No One Remembers Anymore

Nothing beats biting into your favorite candy bar. It can transport you right back to the good ol' days, when your biggest worry was making it to math class. It's the simple things we miss so often as adults, and some of our most cherished candy bars aren't even around for us to lose ourselves in anymore. 

Candy trends are always changing, with big box names practically rolling out new sponsored products and trendy flavors each season. We'll hopefully always have our old standby candy bars, but sometimes we just want a taste of our childhood favorites. These seven sweets are now sadly discontinued, and have practically been forgotten. Some brave souls like The Gumps and L.A. Beast on YouTube track down long lost candies to enjoy, even when they're well past their best-by date. We might not be able to get our hands on these vintage candy bars anymore, but we can still celebrate them.

Decades before the soda, Seven Up was a candy bar. When you couldn't make up your mind, the Seven Up bar was the perfect answer. It was a creamy milk chocolate bar with seven different sections that break off in a snap, one for every flavor a candy lover could want. Mint, nougat, butterscotch, fudge, coconut, buttercream, and caramel fill each creamy pillow of chocolate.

The first Seven Up Bar came out some time in the 1930s, originally by Trudeau Candy until Pearson's bought out the St. Paul-based company in 1951. Pearson's added the candy bar to its repertoire, slightly changing the filling flavors to go with the times. When manufactured by Trudeau, the chocolate sections were filled with caramel, vanilla cream, maple walnut, brazil nut caramel, apple butter jelly, chocolate pudding, and coconut cream. The Seven Up Bar was discontinued in 1979, likely due to some drama over the name with, you guessed it, 7 Up soda. Necco's Sky Bars, which hit candy stores in 1938, are incredibly similar and still around today, but they're short a few squares. Pearson's Seven Up Bars had seven different pockets whereas the Sky Bar only has a modest four. Sky Bars fillings are also far less inventive (caramel, vanilla, peanut, and fudge).

Candy named after a savory meal sounds like something straight out of Willy Wonka's factory, but the Chicken Dinner candy bar didn't taste anything like chicken. Created by Wisconsin's Sperry Candy Company in 1923, it was a "good candy" according to the label. It was a nut roll, including crushed peanuts, doused in chocolate. 

Sperry was committed to the Chicken Dinner candy bar, handing out 12,000 samples during their 1926 campaign. There were even Chicken Dinner branded trucks that drove around Milwaukee blaring their horns, attracting curious passersby. For only 5 cents, folks could get themselves a chicken dinner. The chocolate covered nut roll left us in the '60s, but it lives on through its quirky name and intriguing ads.

The idea behind Mars' Marathon bar was a candy bar that never ends. The chewy milk chocolate covered caramel candy bar was long and braided, giving it a unique texture that would take forever to get through. The ultra chewy bar was 8 inches of goodness, which they proved on the packaging, and although it could leave Milk Dud levels of cavities, it was well worth it. The 1970s commercials were like a good Western, full of cowboys, tumbleweeds, and duels for the last Marathon bar.

The Marathon bar hit the shelves in 1973 and lasted until 1981. It was the best bang for your buck during its 8-year run, but apparently Mars wasn't on board. Cadbury debuted a strikingly similar braided candy bar, even down to the same measurements, called the Curly Wurly. You can still find the UK version in stores today, but it's no match for the original Marathon bar.

Different decades prompted different food trends, and in the late '70s diet culture was everywhere. Every brand seemed to debut a "light" line, focusing on low calorie options that weren't necessarily even healthier, and Nestlé was quick to the trend with the Choco'Lite bar in 1972. The Choco'Lite wrapper changed often, with some variations giving a glimpse into what was inside — a light, milk chocolate bar with crispy bites.

The milk chocolate bar had tiny pockets of air throughout, which gave it a unique crispy texture. The idea was not as much chocolate, lower fat content. It was less chocolate than the typical bar, but Nestlé guaranteed it would still "give you a very special chocolate feeling." The crispy chips were similar to that of a Crunch bar, but much lighter given the second ingredient is air. Choco'Lite vanished sometime in 1982, but has been recreated dozens of times since.

What is peanut butter without jelly? The candy makers at Peter Paul thought it was enough to stand on its own and were determined to prove it in the 1970s with their No Jelly candy bar. The milk chocolate bar had crisped rice, or "crispies" as Peter Paul called it, and plenty of peanut butter.

Peanut butter and chocolate are soulmates and there were plenty of peanut butter-forward chocolate bars to choose from at the time, but No Jelly stood out with its cryptic name. As clever as the name was, it apparently didn't reflect too well on the company's profits, because sometime in the mid '70s the packaging changed to read clearer as Peanut Butter with No Jelly. By 1977, Peter Paul totally dropped the "No Jelly" from the wrapper and went with the simple and straightforward Peanut Butter Bar. The company was known for its popular Mounds and Almond Joy candy bars, filled with chewy coconut, which ultimately outshined the crispy peanut butter bar.

In the 1920s, baseball was America's favorite pastime. The sport was everywhere you turned; trading cards, magazines, and even candy bars. Babe Ruth remains one of the greatest baseball players in history, and his fame was enough to earn him multiple candy bar legacies. The first candy bar, Baby Ruth, debuted in 1920 and was actually named after the creator's daughter (Ruth), but many associated its name with the Yankee slugger. This prompted Ruth to debut his own candy bar in 1928, which was called Ruth's Home Run. It was produced by Babe Ruth Candy Co., a company that licensed the player's name for candy and trading cards.

The vibrant label read "Babe Ruth's Own Candy" underneath his smirking portrait, and signed by the legend himself. The candy wrapper offered some bonus items, like the chance at winning a baseball. As we know from candy bar shelves today, it won over Ruth's Home Run. It wasn't long before legalities got involved, and the Baby Ruth company got ownership of the product.

This is another low carb chocolate bar that hit the market in the second wave of diet culture, the early 2000s. It was extremely similar to Nestlé's Choco'Lite — an airy chocolate bar — just with many more flavors to choose from. The sugar-free chocolate bar was available in both dark and milk chocolate with almonds, peanut butter, chocolate crisps, and macadamia nuts.

When it first came out, apparently it did almost as well as Butterfingers. Other than the fact that it was made by HVC Lizard Chocolate, there's not much evidence of the candy bar left. It didn't seem to last long, maybe not even a year, before it fizzled out. As TIME said in 2003, "Z-Carb is half the size of a Milky Way and twice as expensive." Given its big price tag at less than two ounces of chocolate, Z-Carb was replaced by more affordable options. Now, Whole Foods has tons of chocolate products on the healthier side, and there are sugar-free, gluten-free, everything-free options for days.