The marriage of high fructose corn syrup, dayglo food coloring, and absurdly indirect connections to popular children’s cartoons and video games was perhaps the greatest marketing triumph of the ’80s and ’90s. After-school snacks have never quite been the same. Reading X-Entertainment’s hilarious memoir of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fanatic, related through some strange Turtle-inspired foods, got us thinking about some other childhood snacks that, in retrospect, look totally disgusting. The marketing overlords of that decade surely must have conspired to trick kids into thinking slime was cool — and, moreover, delicious. From Ecto Cooler to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles “Ooze” gelatin, kids back then apparently just loved eating slime. We’ve put together some of the most coveted quasi-foods of the lunch table, branded with our favorite cartoon, movie, and video game characters. Can you remember other similarly themed snacks that simultaneously hit you with a wave of nostalgia and trigger your gag reflex?
