In sad news for tiny marsupial chocolate enthusiasts Australia-wide, Cadbury recently killed the Easter Bilby. It’s dead and we won’t be seeing it this Easter. While Lifehacker has taken a look at some Aussie snacks that have gone the way of the dinosaur in the past – there’s plenty of others that we’ve missed that deserve both recognition and acclaim.
Dunkaroos
Take a small roo-shaped biscuit, dunk it in an ace choc hazelnut dip, then dunk it in some excellent muesli crumbles. That’s the way that Dunkaroos were sold to us in the mid-1990s – and though they still exist today – they aren’t the same. The excellent muesli crumbles? Gone. The assorted flavours? Dead. Strawberry? Vanquished. What ever happened to one of the coolest snacks in the supermarket? Health. Health is what happened. Damn it.
Grave Robber
The short-lived icecream featured a grinning skeleton mascot, a spoon that was shaped like a shovel and chocolate icecream with candy buried inside. Apparently, it was discontinued by Streets due to parliamentary backlash that suggested it was insensitive and encouraged an illegal act.
Yes, it was called a Grave Robber, but I don’t recall ever eating one of these and then thinking “boy, wouldn’t it be wondrous to head to a cemetery now?” Their sad demise was the result of public outcry over the idea that you were robbing candy from a chocolate icecream pot. What a sad way to go.
Pollywaffle
Probably the undisputed king of extinct Aussie snacks, if you say ‘Pollywaffle’ into a mirror three times, you will be haunted by the ghost of marshmallow wafer tubes for all your days. The Pollywaffle was all that and more: A wafer tube, filled with marshmallow and coated with chocolate. Sure, it looked a bit like a poo – and was used to hilariously sledge former Treasurer Joe Hockey – but this is the T-Rex of extinct Aussie chocolates. A favourite, forevermore.
CARAMILK
What an absolute scandal Caramilk was! Everyone was eating it and then, suddenly, no one was eating it because there was found to be small pieces of plastic strewn throughout its caramelised white chocolate body. In and out as a Cadbury special edition over the years, the love for Caramilk doesn’t cease and many still routinely hit Cadbury’s Facebook page for information on its return. For now, that doesn’t seem likely.
Quatro
How on earth did we send these guys to their death? A biscuit with caramel and nuts covered in chocolate does not seem like it would end up on the Arnott’s cutting room floor, but here we are. Here we bloody are Arnott’s. What was wrong with having a few cheeky Quatros, or as they were affectionately known (probably to me only) a few Suzis. What is especially galling is the stuff that Arnott’s keeps on the shelves – those disgraceful Hundreds and Thousands biscuits and what about Tic Toc? Quatro didn’t die for this.
Paddle Pop Thick Shake
You can go ahead and call that garbage Shaky Shake a replacement if you like, but those of us who lived through the Caramel and Chocolate Thick Shakes prime know the truth. These were delectable – and if you left them just long enough for them to turn to slush, they’d be infinitely more delicious.
Yumbo
Yumbo was literally just a ham and cheese bun sold by Hungry Jacks. People still cry out for this thing that you can absolutely build, at home, for less than a fiver. I don’t think I was alive when Yumbo was removed from the menu, but I have a feeling that the nation let out a collective cry that reverberated around the world for days. Ham and cheese sangas would never be the same.
Dixie Drumstick
For a while there, Shapes had a pretty big rival in the coliseum of savoury biscuits. Enter: Nabisco’s In A Biskit Dixie Drumsticks. These oven-baked chicken biscuits should have been buried on a remote island in the Caribbean because they were a damn treasure. I lament their demise every day – if only because I would have absolutely went HAM on them when Shapes decided to change all their flavours up.
The straight Chicken In A Biskits were hot garbage but the Dixie Drumstick will live on forever, in my stomach.
Dany Yogurt
I know y’all remember Yogo, that stuff is still around, but do you remember Dany? This was like a super intense Yogo, but without the whole pour some crunchy bits over the top. The ad above is one of the more bizarre ads of the time, but I distinctly remember asking for this as a kid over Yogo. It just had a more milky, moussey taste. Anyway, ya done, Dany. Please come back.
Milo Bar
The original and still the best, that old school Milo bar was really something else. It was basically pure, unfiltered Milo compacted and pressed in between chocolate. It was a sad, cold day for anyone with a mouth when Nestle went and changed the recipe on us. Apparently, market forces and consumer research were the cause of Milo Bar V1 falling off the face of the Earth but that’s no excuse. The public outcry alone shows how much people want these things back in their life. As a young Old El Paso fan once remarked: “Why not both?”
By the way, don’t forget to grab one of these Coles promo codes and save on your next grocery shop.
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