What Happened To 8 Candy Bars Every Kid Bought With Pocket Change

Remember walking into the corner store with a fistful of coins and a very serious decision to make? The candy aisle was a whole world, and some of the bars you chose are gone for good.

Cheapism, in a 2025 look at discontinued 1970s candy, runs through the treats that disappeared. Here are eight candy bars that kids once bought with pocket change, and what happened to each.

Here is the twist: these were not obscure oddities. They came from big names like Mars, Nestlé and Peter Paul, and they sat right beside the candy that is still on shelves today.

So why did they disappear? Cheapism gives a reason for some of them, and for others it simply says they never caught on. Either way, a kid with pocket change never knew that a favorite bar had a short shelf life.

Summit Was Mars’s Upgraded Twix, And It Kept Melting

Mars launched Summit in 1977 as a two-bar chocolate-covered wafer with peanuts, marketed as an upgraded Twix. According to Cheapism, it melted easily, and adjusting the peanut ratio and adding more chocolate did not fix the problem.

It was gone by the mid-1980s. Sometimes a good idea simply cannot survive a hot summer day.

The Cristy Bar Wore A Smiling Blonde Girl On The Wrapper

This was a nougat bar with nuts in a creamy coating, sold in packaging with a smiling blonde girl on it. Cheapism says it arrived in the late 1960s and lasted a few years into the 1970s.

It had a short run, but anyone who grew up with it tends to remember the face on that wrapper.

Marathon Bar Came With A Ruler On The Wrapper

The Marathon bar, sold from 1973 to 1981, was an 8-inch chocolate-braided caramel bar. The wrapper had a ruler printed on it, so kids could measure their candy before they ate it.

Cheapism says it fizzled out and was discontinued in 1981. A candy you could measure may have been a fun gimmick, but it was not enough to keep the bar on shelves.

Reggie! Bar Honored A Yankees Slugger, Then Vanished

Introduced in 1978, the Reggie! Bar was a round patty of caramel, peanuts and chocolate named after Yankees star Reggie Jackson. It had a famous name behind it, which made kids want one.

Cheapism reports it was discontinued by the mid-1980s and briefly revived by Clark Bar Co. in the 1990s.

Choco’Lite Was Nestlé’s Airy Chocolate That Lasted Until 1982

Nestlé introduced Choco’Lite in 1972 as a milk chocolate bar with air pockets and crisped chocolate for a lighter, crunchier bite. It was meant to feel different from a standard chocolate bar.

It was discontinued in 1982, according to Cheapism. A decade on the shelf is not bad, but fans of the bar still remember it fondly.

Snik Snak Stiks Copied Kit Kat And Lasted Under Six Years

Mars made these chocolate-covered wafer sticks, which Cheapism calls an obvious copy of Kit Kat. They lasted under six years.

The lesson here is plain. Kids already had a favorite wafer bar, and a lookalike had a tough time winning them over.

Super Skrunch Went Up Against Hershey’s Mr. Goodbar

This peanut-heavy chocolate bar came from Mars in the early 1970s. It competed with Hershey’s Mr. Goodbar.

Cheapism says it never achieved mainstream success and was gone by the early 1980s. Going head to head with a bar that already had a loyal crowd proved to be a tough job.

PowerHouse Was A Chocolate-Wrapped Block Of Fudge, Caramel And Peanuts

Made by Peter Paul, the PowerHouse bar was a block of fudge, caramel and peanuts wrapped in chocolate. It was filling enough to count as a small meal.

Cheapism says it never had lasting appeal and disappeared by the mid-1980s. It is a good reminder that a big bar is not the same as a big seller.

Notice that candy makers kept trying. When one bar failed, another took its place, and kids kept spending their coins on whatever looked new on the counter.

Ask around your own family, too. Brothers, sisters and old neighbors all seem to have a favorite from this list, and a few minutes of talk about who liked the Marathon bar and who swore by Choco’Lite can fill a whole holiday afternoon.

Look at the pattern across the list. Many of these bars were new takes on candy that kids already loved, and a number of them were gone within about a decade.

The same Cheapism piece also covers Space Dust, a fine powder of Pop Rocks introduced in the late 1970s. Parents objected because the name resembled drug slang, and even a rebrand as Cosmic Candy did not save it from being gone by the early 1980s.

If you want to taste the old days again, keep an eye out for revivals, since the Reggie! Bar already came back once in the 1990s. And if you have an old wrapper tucked in a keepsake box, hold on to it, because a wrapper tells the whole story of what a nickel once bought.

Vinyl and Velvet