Bonkers candy

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An ad for Bonkers from Detective Comics #568.
An ad for Bonkers from Detective Comics #568.

Bonkers was a candy offering from Nabisco in the mid 1980s. It consisted of chewable bubblegum-shaped candies with a fruity outside and an even fruitier filling. The candy came in a large rectangular package with several of them individually wrapped. Common flavors included grape, orange, strawberry, watermelon and chocolate.

The product is perhaps most memorable for a series of television commercials in which one or more apparently uptight characters would take one bite of a Bonkers candy, and a giant fruit such as a bunch of grapes would fall from above and knock them into hysterical laughter. The tagline in the commercials was "Bonkers! Bonks ya out!"[1] Several of the commercials featured an older Southern woman who said in a deadpan voice that "Some folks think Bonkers is gum" after which the aforementioned giant fruit would fall on someone, inducing raucous laughter. The woman would then deadpan the line: "They know it's candy now."

After the commercials stopped running, the popularity of Bonkers waned until it became a rarity, available only in novelty candy stores. The manufacturer has discontinued the Bonkers line of candies.[2]

[edit] New Bonkers

There's a company that makes, and sells Bonkers candy. Even though these are Bonkers candy, they are not the original Bonkers candy that was sold in the 80s to mid 90s. The original Bonkers was made by Nabisco. The new Bonkers candy is made by a different company. The new Bonkers do not have the look and taste of the original Bonkers candy. The original Bonkers that was made by Nabisco were discontinued in 1997. The new Bonkers candy was made sometime around 2002, they are still being made today. You can find the new Bonkers at some dollar stores, and novelty stores.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Favorite Commercials From Television and Radio in the Eighties. In The 80s. Retrieved on January 31, 2006.
  2. ^ Bonkers (discontinued). Candy Crate: Nostalgic Candy and Gift Store. Retrieved on January 31, 2006.