Moon Pie / Nabisco / Burry's
Note: Some exact dates are unknown due to limited historical records. “Unknown” indicates the specific year of release or discontinuation could not be verified through available sources.
Discontinued: 1999
When Sunshine Biscuits launched Hydrox in 1908, they named it after hydrogen and oxygen (the building blocks of pure water). This chocolate sandwich cookie featured a less sweet filling and crunchier shell that didn’t get soggy in milk.
Four years later, Nabisco created Oreo as a direct competitor. Through superior marketing in the 1950s, Oreo made people think Hydrox was the copycat.
In 2015, entrepreneur Ellia Kassoff brought Hydrox back through his company Leaf Brands.
Discontinued: Unknown
Anola Wafers were one of Nabisco’s earliest wafer experiments.
These delicate wafers rode the wave of early 20th-century fascination with light, crispy textures. A departure from the heavy, dense cookies of previous generations.
Like many early commercial cookies, Anola Wafers simply faded away from the public’s consciousness.
Discontinued: 1960s
Before there was Nabisco, there was Kennedy Biscuit Company. A Massachusetts-based operation that went from a small local brand to distribution nationwide.
Kennedy offered multiple wafer varieties: Princess, Vanilla, Lemon, Oatmeal, Graham, Fairy, and Sugar. By 1890, their ads appeared in newspapers from Salt Lake City to the East Coast.
Kennedy was eventually absorbed by the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco), but their multi-flavor cookies became the template for modern cookie variety packs.
Discontinued: 1960s
Imagine biting into a large, round molasses cookie covered with hard white and black striped icing. That was the magic of Zebra Stripes.
The distinctive striping made them instantly recognizable and perfect for special occasions.
During the conformist 1950s, Zebra Stripes offered a touch of visual excitement that stood out in cookie aisles dominated by plain round treats.
Like many artisanal-style cookies, Zebra Stripes couldn’t compete with mass-produced competitors. Their intricate icing work was probably too labor-intensive.
Discontinued: 1996
Sunshine Biscuits captured the 1970s spirit perfectly with Yum Yums. They featured coconut caramel chocolate cookie bars.
Yum Yums embodied everything groovy about the ’70s. Natural ingredients, tropical flavors, and that laid-back “far out”attitude.
When Keebler acquired Sunshine Biscuits in 1996, Yum Yums became a casualty of corporate streamlining. Today, devoted fans recreate them at home using internet recipes.
Discontinued: 2019
During the counterculture 1970s, even cookies got groovy. Rainbow Chips Deluxe featured vibrant, multi-colored chocolate chips that brought literal color to the cookie aisle.
They were chocolate chip cookies where each bite delivered a burst of color that matched the era’s love for all things bright and bold.
Unlike many ’70s novelties, Rainbow Chips Deluxe survived for nearly 50 years.
But when Kellogg’s sold the Keebler cookie division to Ferrero in 2019, Rainbow Chips Deluxe were discontinued forever.
Discontinued: 1990s
In the 1980s, Nabisco wanted to create a store-bought cookie that felt homemade.
Almost Home broke new ground as one of the first mass-produced soft cookies. Before this, store cookies were hard and crunchy.
The packaging featured embroidery-style designs meant to evoke grandmother’s cross-stitching. Every detail screamed “homemade with love.”
The cookies featured chocolate chip, peanut butter, and old-fashioned sugar.
Despite clever marketing, Almost Home couldn’t quite bridge the gap between industrial production and genuine homemade taste. Grandma’s kitchen just couldn’t be replicated in a factory.
Discontinued: 1990s
What happens when you combine sandwich cookies with smiley faces? Nabisco Giggles. A treat that was equal parts delicious and unsettling.
Vanilla and chocolate sandwich cookies with holes cut into smiley face shapes. The cream filling would sometimes create the appearance of pupils and teeth.
TV commercials featured children laughing after eating Giggles. You couldn’t eat one without bursting into uncontrollable laughter, according to their official slogan.
Despite ads that were arguably more terrifying than funny, Giggles maintained solid popularity throughout the 1980s. Good taste overcame creepy marketing.
Giggles faded in the ’90s, probably because even kids found the advertising a bit too intense.
Discontinued: 1990s
Oreo Big Stuf was a 3-inch diameter individually wrapped Oreo that solved exactly zero problems.
But Big Stuf destroyed everything that made Oreos special:
Big Stuf proved that in the cookie world, size doesn’t always matter.
Discontinued: Early 2000s
Imagine you bite into what looks like a normal shortbread cookie, and molten chocolate or peanut butter oozes out. That was Magic Middles.
Creating a cookie with a liquid center that stayed gooey required serious food science innovation.
These cookies came in multiple varieties:
By 1991, demand was so high that Keebler released Mini Middles. Bite-sized versions of the originals.
Magic Middles disappeared quietly, allegedly so Keebler could use the same equipment for other products. Fans still petition for their return, but with little luck so far.
Discontinued: 2003
When Keebler acquired Sunshine Biscuits and inherited Hydrox, they made a big mistake.
Instead of keeping the beloved Hydrox recipe, Keebler reformulated it and renamed it “Droxies.” They made it sweeter, changing the entire character that Hydrox fans loved.
Hydrox loyalists felt betrayed. You don’t mess with a 90-year-old recipe and expect people to be happy about it.
When Kellogg’s acquired Keebler in 2001, Droxies disappeared by 2003, even the new owners recognized this wasn’t working.
Discontinued: 2001
Oreo Magic Dunkers used special blue food coloring that made your milk turn increasingly blue as you dunked.
It took a full year to perfect the blue-dyeing technology without changing the cookie’s taste.
Magic Dunkers were designed to make snack time feel like a science experiment.
Cool factor aside, they were still just regular Oreos with food coloring. Once the novelty wore off, so did sales.
Discontinued: 2006
During the low-fat diet craze, even Girl Scout cookies tried to get healthy.
Bite-sized lemon cookies with powdered sugar coating, marketed as a reduced-fat alternative to traditional Girl Scout treats.
Making cookies both healthy AND delicious proved harder than expected. Lemon Coolers felt like a compromise—better for you, but not quite as satisfying.
Lemon Coolers eventually morphed into Savannah Smiles in 2011, and the rest is history.
Discontinued: 2006
Keebler’s E.L. Fudge cookies were already popular, but someone in marketing asked: “What if we made them EXTREME?”
The company took classic sandwich cookies and blasted them with bold flavors like Butterfinger and S’mores. More flavor = more excitement, right?
But the “blasted” versions felt gimmicky compared to the original E.L. Fudge simplicity.
After three years, Blasted cookies were discontinued.
Discontinued: 2019
When green tea met sandwich cookies, magic happened. Briefly.
Golden biscuits filled with green tea-flavored cream, perfectly timed for the matcha trend explosion.
These cookies also happened to be photogenic treats perfect for the Instagram age.
TJ’s built their reputation on interesting, limited-time products. Matcha Joe-Joe’s fit perfectly into their “try something new” philosophy.
Two years proved that trendy flavors have expiration dates. By 2019, the matcha moment had passed, and so had these cookies.
Discontinued: 2020
2020 was weird enough, and then Nabisco decided to put gummy candy in chocolate chip cookies.
The concept was to replace chocolate chips with Sour Patch Kids pieces. Sweet meets sour meets... confusion?
These cookies were never meant to be permanent—just a limited-edition experiment to see how far cookie boundaries could be pushed.
Reviews were mixed at best. Turns out people who want chocolate chip cookies really want chocolate chips, not sour gummy candy.
One year was enough. And they were gone, probably never to return again.
Discontinued: 2022
Nothing captured 1990s diet culture quite like SnackWell’s. They created a fat-free cookie that was supposed to make indulgence guilt-free.
Fat-free chocolate cake cookies you could eat without the guilt!
Fat-free didn’t mean healthy. These cookies were loaded with high-fructose corn syrup and artificial ingredients. But hey, no fat!
Even as nutrition science evolved, SnackWell’s hung around until 2022. The brand was officially retired after decades of declining relevance.
Discontinued: Unknown
Burry’s knew exactly what chocolate fans wanted: more chocolate, everywhere.
These cookies featured flower-shaped chocolate biscuits with fudge filling that overflowed through a hole in the topcookie. Chocolate to the extreme.
The overflowing fudge created an almost decadent appearance that screamed “indulgence” from across the cookie aisle.
Like many regional or smaller-brand cookies, Fudgetown simply faded away as larger companies dominated shelf space.
Discontinued: Unknown
Someone at Chattanooga Bakery had an idea: what if we made Moon Pies crunchier?
The concept was to take the beloved Moon Pie formula—marshmallow and chocolate—but replace the soft graham crackers with crunchy cookies. Think Thin Mint meets Moon Pie.
Moon Pies were already perfect for their target audience. Changing the texture meant changing the entire eating experience.
These cookies were much smaller than the original Moon Pies, not the big snack that diehards expected.
Moon Pie Crunch disappeared without fanfare, no longer listed on the company website or with retailers.