Saying goodbye to the things we love is such an inevitable part of life, and sadly, even the lolly aisle isn’t immune. So many of the delicious sweet treats we loved as Australian kids have been relegated to Memory Lane, taking a tiny bit of our childhoods with them. All we can do is remember them fondly and hope that one day, the companies behind them will make the brave decision to bring them back. After all, if they can do it with Spearmint Leaves, Polly Waffles and Wizz Fizz Sherbet Cones, why not DunkaRoos and Sunnyboys…? We’ve searched both our memories and our supermarket shelves to see which of our retro favourites have stood the test of time (we see you Ovalteenies, Fads Fun Sticks and Push Pops!), and which are gone but never, ever forgotten. Vale to these classic sweets.
Summer wasn’t summer until someone’s parents pulled these tetrahedron-shaped ice blocks out of the freezer. Whisked from shelves in 2016 due to “sustained reduction in customer demand over a long period of time”, we still remember letting those icy triangles of Orange Explosion, Razz Raspberry and Glub Cola melt a little before sucking the juice from them, leaving only colourless ice behind. Sorry Zooper Doopers with your mouth-slicing plastic edges, you’re just not the same…
We know what you’re thinking: ‘Killer Pythons are still around’. It’s true, these slithery sweets are still on sale, but the snakey snacks now only measure up to 21cm, down from their original 32.5cm. The move, designed to align the size of the lollies with the recommended serving size, might make sense, but it still stings like a snakebite. And while they remain bigger than their slim Snakes Alive counterparts, we miss the original heft of these colourful adders.
This Aussie legend is the most recent to fall, with Nestle announcing the cancellation of the once-popular movie snack in early 2023 after almost 100 years due to declining sales and outdated machinery. The outcry that followed was enough to prompt one final surge in production, meaning if you’re quick, you might still be lucky enough to get your teeth trapped in a chewy choc-covered caramel while trying to guess the ‘Who am I?’ celebrity trivia wrapper one last time.
A solid chunk of compressed Milo covered in chocolate. That’s what they took from us in 2003 when Nestle replaced the deliciously malty, unapologetically brick-like original Milo Bar with the chocolate crackle-esque rice bubble bar you see on shelves today. Sadly a series of ongoing online petitions to bring back both these epic bars and the Milo yoghurt tubs, which we miss just as much, so far haven’t managed to twist Nestle’s arm.
It’s the middle of summer holidays and you’ve spent all day in your friend’s pool. At 3:30pm their dad comes outside to announce that it’s time for a trip to Wendy’s Milk Bar. That means one thing: an Agro Cone. Named (and modelled) after the hilariously foul-mouthed kid’s TV show puppet, these Milo-dipped soft serve cones were brought to terrifying life with a set of lolly teeth, a pair of half-lolly banana cheeks and a collection of Smarties as the eyes and nose. The puppet-inspired cone made a brief come-back in 2019 but has since been retired for good.
Like a sweet Le Snak, DunkaRoos featured a little plastic bowl of kangaroo-shaped cookies resting beside a tub of choc-hazelnut spread, challenging kids across Australia to use the sweet dip sparingly enough to make it through all the ‘roos. There seems to be a bit of confusion around when – or even if – these snacks were discontinued, due partly to the existence of unrelated Dunkaroos in the US; some sources say they were dropped from Australian shelves 2012 (before temporarily returning in 2020), while others claim they were never officially axed. All we know is that although Woolies still lists them for sale, it’s been a long time since we’ve seen them in stock. Fingers crossed…
Like superglue for your teeth, these tart and sweet delights captured the flavour of a toffee apple in a jaw-sealing thin red and green strip. Phased out by Allen’s in the early 2000s, these days Sweetmans produces a similar lolly, though most enthusiasts agree it’s not the same. Shout-out too to the similarly adhesive Pink Panther musk-flavoured chew and the Banana Split chew, both of which were lost too soon as well.
Was there a single nanna in the nation who didn’t have a stash of these somewhere, back in the day? The oblong shape of these boiled lollies might have made them a little hard to suck on, but you always got your reward when the outer shell gave way into the sticky, soft centre. Blackcurrant and strawberry were the clear winners in the flavour stakes, but you never complained if you ended up with an orange or lemon one. This is lollies how they used to be made – chonky, generous and never disappointing.
