The 25 Greatest Fruit Snacks of All Time
Fruit snacks that are just as sweet as they are nostalgic.
There was nothing more exciting then opening up your lunch box and finding your favorite fruit snack underneath the boring healthy stuff that your mother packed for you. Kids would always try to trade their way into your lunch box, and fruit snacks were the most valuable form of food currency. Somehow (we can't explain the complicated science behind it) the variety of shapes, from sharks to your favorite television characters, had a great influence on how the individual gummy tasted.
We bring you back to your gradeschool cafeteria (lunch ladies, be damned) with The Greatest Fruit Snacks of All Time.
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There was nothing more exciting then opening up your lunch box and finding your favorite fruit snack underneath the boring healthy stuff that your mother packed for you. Kids would always try to trade their way into your lunch box, and fruit snacks were the most valuable form of food currency. Somehow (we can't explain the complicated science behind it) the variety of shapes, from sharks to your favorite television characters, had a great influence on how the individual gummy tasted.
We bring you back to your gradeschool cafeteria (lunch ladies, be damned) with The Greatest Fruit Snacks of All Time.
RELATED: 25 Junk Foods We Wish Still Existed
RELATED: The 50 Greatest Breakfast Cereals of All Time
RELATED: 14 Snacks More Dangerous Than Hot Cheetos
RELATED: The 25 Best Snacks to Buy at a Gas Station
25. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fruit Snacks
Maker: Betty Crocker
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were huge in the '90s, so we would eat anything their ting green faces were plastered on. They just had to be in red, blue, orange, and purple.
24. Arthur Fruit Snacks
Maker: Brach's
Arthur was on our televisions, backpacks, t-shirts, and macaroni and cheese, but our favorite way to experience Arthur was in fruit snack form.
23. Amazing Fruit Gummy Bears
Maker: Hershey Foods Corporation
Keep note, ladies and gentlemen, Amazing Fruit did the personified gummy bears long before the Sour Patch Kids were cutting people's hair off. Points for being pioneers.
22. Create-A-Dino
Maker: Betty Crocker
Mom told us never to play with our food, but you tossed those arbitrary rules out the window when creating your part T-Rex/Pterodactyl.
21. Super Mario Fruit Snacks
Maker: Kellogg's
Everybody's favorite video game in our favorite snack form. How could they fail?
20. N*SYNC Fruit Snacks
Maker: Brach's
If only they made the snacks in the shape of their gelled, frosted tips.
19. Operation Fruit Snacks
Maker: Kellogg's
The boardgame Operation! was pretty gross concept to begin with, so it was always weird to imagine yourself eating his appendix. Still, we did it anyway, because we were brave—really brave.
18. Sunkist Fun Fruit
Maker: Sunkist Growers, Inc.
Sunkist might have offered different shapes, like "spooky" or "space," but we could always count on their consistently delicious fruity taste.
17. Sodalicious Fruit Snacks
Maker: Betty Crocker
No kid was actually interested in eating fruit, so Sodalicious gave us exactly what we wanted: more sugar!
16. Hi-C Fruit Snacks
Maker: Brach's
Probably higher in sugar than in Vitamin C, there was some false advertising involved with the proclaimed health benefits of this fruit snack. But we didn't care. Fuck a health benefit.
15. Fruit Snack Maker Set
Maker: McDonalds
Bet you didn't know Ronald was in the fruit snack game. As if there weren't enough fruit snacks being sold in the '90s, McDonalds ensured we'd be able to make them ourselves in whatever combination of flavors we wanted. That level of control was everything.
14. Tiny Toons Fruit Snacks
Maker: Thomas J. Lipton Co.
No one could resist their silly adventures and clever puns, so who could resist a sugary treat with their adorable, mischievous faces on them?
13. Fruit Leather
Maker: Stretch Island
Although the name isn't at all appetizing, fruit leather was the perfect sweet and sticky treat.
12. Thunder Jets Fruit Snacks
Maker: General Mills
The Thunder Jets commercials convinced us that their snacks were capable of flying. We would have been thoroughly disappointed if it weren't for their amazing tastiness.
11. Legend of Zelda: The Adventure of Link Fruit Snacks
Maker: Thomas J. Lipton Co.
Nintendo had never been cooler than in the '90s, so, of course, nerds freaked out over these Legend of Zelda fruit snacks. And when we say nerds, we mean us.
10. Garfield Fruit Snacks
Maker: General Mills
We probably didn't understand the cynicism of Garfield at the time, but he was cute so we'd eat anything he told us to chew on.
9. Flinstones Gummy Vitamins
Maker: Welch's
While Flinstones gummies are not technically snacks, they were vitamins, we sure treated them as if they were.
8. Scooby Doo Fruit Snacks
Maker: Betty Crocker
What better snack than the Scooby Snack itself? Everything tastes better when it is shaped like your favorite stoner dog on TV.
7. Darkwing Duck Fruit Snacks
Maker: Fruit Parade
Darkwing Duck was the jam, and so were his fruit snacks. So ominious, so delicious.
6. Welch's Fruit Snacks
Maker: Welch's
A staple in our lunchboxes in elementary school and in our vending machines at work, Welch's fruit snacks are here to stay. Nothing felt better than when mom came back from the supermarket with the variety pack.
5. Fruit Rollups
Maker: Betty Crocker
You felt like a bad ass when you got the temporary tongue tattoos from the Fruit Rollups you devoured during lunch, but you honestly just had an unverifiable blue shape on your tongue for the rest of the day. Not a rebel after all.
4. Fruit by the Foot
Maker: Betty Crocker
This fruit tape felt like it never ended when we were young, but now they disappear seconds after opening the package. Some kids loved wrapping the tape around their fingers, which sounded like a good idea at the time.
3. Fruit String Things
Maker: Betty Crocker
They were much more fun to play with than they were to eat. But they were also delicious, don't get it twisted.
2. Fruit Gushers
Maker: Betty Crocker
Gushers were so delicious that you wish that the little baggies had the Mary Poppins effect and never ended. Our favorite pasttime was pairing different combinations to create different flavors in your mouth.
1. Shark Bites
Maker: Betty Crocker
Possibly the fruit snack favorite, everyone's favorite flavor was the great white. Has anyone figured out what that flavor is?