14 Corner Store Snacks Gen X Kids Obsessed Over That Gen Z Has Never Even Tasted

Sadly for them, Gen Z will never know the pure unadulterated joy of stepping into a penny candy store with a pocket bulging full of spare change. 

While Gen X may be more worried about maximizing retirement savings now, there's still room to miss the nostalgic snacks and sweets that were the flavor of childhood.

See some blasts from snack aisles of the past that left this world too soon.

Jell-O pudding in frozen popsicle form was a staple summer treat. It offered chocolate, vanilla, or swirl flavors on a hot day. Its unique formula made it different from other ice cream and creamier than a Fudgcicle.

Some people will say you can recreate them by freezing pudding into popsicles, but those people are wrong.

Before boba tea, there was Orbitz, a non-carbonated fruity beverage with small colorful floating balls that resembled a drinkable lava lamp.

They burst onto the scene and then disappeared just as quickly, allegedly due to the proprietary equipment used in production breaking down.

Pizzarias were chips made from pizza dough and covered in zesty flavor to mimic the taste of, well, pizza. 

They were once touted as the most successful product launch in Keebler history, and yet they sadly disappeared after Utz bought the trademark a few short years later.

A bright green beverage based on Slimer from the movie Ghostbusters was an unexpected hit for Hi-C. The drink was expected to be discontinued when the animated cartoon series ended, but the success continued.

It remained a popular drink until it was rebranded to Shoutin' Orange Tangergreen, and then again to Crazy Citrus Cooler, at which point it only remained in the memories of Gen X adults.

Hindsight makes it easy to see why cigarette-shaped candy is no longer marketed to small children, but the little sticks of pressed powdered sugar were once found in nearly every penny candy store around the country.

Technically, they can still be found in some markets as "candy sticks" but few stores are willing to stock them.

The primary marketing gimmick of these fruit-flavored drinks was that kids would squeeze the bottle to make the beverage come out. Additional gimmicks were later introduced, such as color-changing options and a mystery flavor in a black bottle.

Bonkers candy had a chewy rectangular outside and a creamier center filling, sometimes with clashing colors for complementary flavors between the layers.

They were largely known for silly commercials that featured giant fruit "bonking" people on the head.

Imagine crispy wafer cookies layered with chocolate cream, topped with peanuts, and covered in chocolate, and that was the Bar None candy bar. Low sales caused the line to be discontinued by Hershey in the late 90s, but it has since been reintroduced by Iconic Candy which specializes in bringing back discontinued candy.

Their line of Bar Nones can now be found in Cracker Barrel and on Amazon.

These peanut butter candy bars only lasted a few years, but people still rave about them. The base was a whole grain cookie topped with creamy peanut butter coated in milk chocolate.

Allegedly, the Mars company discontinued the line because of a family dislike for peanut butter.

It's weird that crime-fighting anthropomorphized turtles trained in the ancient art of ninjutsu somehow lasted longer than Hostess Pudding Pies. The fruit-filled pies are still available, but the pudding options disappeared from shelves in the late 80s.

They made a brief return with a green crust and vanilla pudding filling to promote the TMNT franchise, but it was always planned as a limited release and was discontinued the same year.

Betty Crocker launched this line of snack-pack cookies with frosting for dunking and slapped a cartoon kangaroo on the package to explain the name. 

The popular '90s-era snack was discontinued in America until 2020, when the nostalgic munchy began appearing on shelves in 7-Eleven stores, which then spread to Walmart, Target, and Kroger.

Pixie Stix met Pop Rocks and Space Dust was born. Essentially, this candy was like a powdered form of popping candy that fizzed on the tongue. It ended production in 1983, but lives on in infamy on the internet.

Despite the name similarity, these chocolate bars had nothing else in common with the lemon-lime soda brand. Seven Up bars were like seven Valentine's candies all in one bar, but in sections. 

These included mint, nougat, butterscotch, fudge, coconut, buttercream and caramel. They haven't been seen on shelves since 1979.

General Mills released this short-lived cereal that consisted of puffed corn squares where some of the pieces contained surprise fillings of fruit flavors. It was on shelves between 1993 and 1995.

Presumably, the cereal manufacturer discovered that what people really want is a sweet filling in every bite, rather than the occasional surprise bite.

Gen X has seen it all, snacking on delicious treats while watching technology change rapidly. They've watched entire candy empires rise and fall before the next generation even got a taste.

Life as a Gen Xer now might be more about eating healthy and avoiding money-wasting habits, but nostalgia for old-school snacks never gets old.