Bonkers was a candy offering from Nabisco in the mid 1980s. It consisted of chewable rectangular 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 you out!" 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.
Candy company Joyco currently makes and sells a candy called "Bonkers"[1] apparently with no relation and very little similarity to the original Nabisco variety.