I Want My MTV (and My BlackBerry, Blockbuster and Pudding Pops)

Crystal Pepsi

Introduced: 1992

Discontinued: 1994 (with a few comeback tours)

The early ’90s were full of big, clear promises: clear skin, clear computers, clear beverages. PepsiCo, feeling the pressure from the rising health craze and Snapple’s “best stuff on Earth” energy, decided to hop on the bandwagon by launching a healthy soda. The company removed the caramel coloring from regular Pepsi, replaced it with modified cornstarch, and hoped nobody noticed that it still had over 130 calories per can.

It looked like 7Up but tasted like a flat Pepsi left in the sun. “The taste was, well, confusing,” says Beth Kimmerle, a food industry insider and author of four books about candy. “To consumers, it looked like a lemon-lime soda but tasted like a classic cola.” That disconnect left people’s taste buds rattled. Even the guy behind it admitted as much: “It would have been nice if I made sure the product tasted good,” creator David Novak said in a 2007 interview with Fast Company.

But Crystal Pepsi was a vibe. “It symbolized transparency, purity, a sense of ‘new’ ... and even the future,” Kimmerle adds. It fit right in with the era’s obsession with clarity, both literal and metaphorical. There were clear phones, clear Game Boys, clear mascara. If you couldn’t see through it, were you even trying to be futuristic?

Sadly, most people tried it once, went “huh” and went back to regular cola. It quietly vanished in 1994, but nostalgia gave it a few limited-edition revivals, most recently in 2022. Still, it deserves a spot in the fizzy hall of fame for being bold, weird and briefly everywhere.

DeLorean DMC-12

Introduced: 1981

Discontinued: 1983 (but its legend hit 88 mph in 1985)

America has never shied away from building fast cars, but in the early ’80s we didn’t have a proper mid-engine supercar. Enter the DeLorean DMC-12, a stainless steel, gullwing-doored wedge of sci-fi fantasy that looked like it was speeding even when parked at the mall.

The first DeLorean rolled off the line in January 1981, the brainchild of auto engineer John Z. DeLorean, who left General Motors to start his own car company. It had gullwing doors, a mid-rear engine and a body made of unpainted stainless steel that easily smudged. But it looked cool.

But then came the crash, figuratively. By 1982 the company was bankrupt, and Mr. DeLorean was arrested in an FBI sting for allegedly trafficking cocaine to keep the business alive. He was later acquitted (entrapment), but the damage was done. Only about 9,000 cars were ever made.

But then a Flux Capacitor changed everything. In 1985, Back to the Future turned the DeLorean into the most famous time machine in cinema. Fans didn’t just want a sports car; they wanted a portal to better days. It popularized the car that Time magazine once described it as “shaped like a flying wedge.”

Today, around 4,500 DeLoreans still exist, tracked by passionate owners via the “DeLorean Census.” But if we had our way, they’d all be back on the roads and in the parking lots of every shopping mall, leaving flaming tire tracks in their wake.

Jell-O Pudding Pops

Introduced: 1981

Discontinued: 2004

Launched in the late 1970s with the tagline “all the goodness of real Jell-O pudding, frozen on a stick,” Jell-O Pudding Pops were an instant smash, racking up $100 million in sales in its first year.

The texture was what truly set them apart. “Jell-O Pudding Pops were a perfect example of how texture, temperature, flavor and brand can combine to create a uniquely memorable sensory experience,” says Kimmerle. “They tasted distinct from chocolate or vanilla ice cream”

And then, like so many beautiful things, they vanished. Jell-O stopped making them in 2004, though a brief (and not very accurate) revival attempt by the Popsicle brand left die-hard fans unimpressed. Today, Pudding Pops live on only in wistful childhood memories and desperate internet message boards. You can make your own at home with milk and Jell-O instant pudding, but it’s just not the same.

LaserDiscs

Introduced: 1978

Discontinued: 2000 (officially dead by 2009)

Before DVDs and Blu-rays, there was LaserDisc (first marketed under the name DiscoVision), the oversized, gleaming optical platter that looked like a vinyl record auditioning for Tron. First released in 1978 (with Jaws, naturally), LaserDiscs were shiny, expensive and gloriously impractical. The players cost a fortune, and the discs were about as portable as a manhole cover. And yet for a generation of movie nerds, they were everything.

LaserDiscs offered better picture and sound than VHS, and they were the birthplace of the Criterion Collection, which would go on to become the gold standard for cinephile street cred. For 22 years, LaserDisc was the go-to format for people who wanted letterboxed versions of Citizen Kane and director commentaries before anyone knew what a director’s commentary was.

The last U.S. release? Bringing Out the Dead in October 2000. (Sleepy Hollow sometimes gets the credit, but it was actually 25 days too early. Sorry, Tim Burton.) By 2009, Pioneer — the final holdout — made its last run of players, citing a lack of available parts and competition from DVDs.

Today, LaserDiscs mostly live in Reddit threads and garage-sale bins. The glue binding them is literally breaking down. But maybe, just maybe, there’s still room in the world for a format that turned movie collecting into something that felt epic, tactile and a little bit ridiculous.

McDonald’s Deep-Fried Apple Pie

Introduced: 1968

Discontinued (U.S.): 1992 (but still sizzling in Downey, California)

McDonald’s understood what kids in the ’70s and ’80s wanted in a dessert. They wanted it to come in a cardboard sleeve and be hot enough to melt your face like a villain in Raiders of the Lost Ark. That was the glory of the original McDonald’s deep-fried apple pie. Launched in 1968 alongside the Big Mac, the turnover-style pie was golden, crisp and filled with apple-cinnamon magma. And we loved it.

The pie’s recipe is credited to Knoxville, Tennessee, franchisee Litton Cochran, who developed the perfect crispy shell wrapped around a hot apple filling. “How many freakin’ times I’ve scorched my palate with that apple lava,” wrote one Reddit user, “and I still loved it.”

But in 1992, McDonald’s quietly replaced the fried version with a baked one, citing health trends. The new pie was … fine. But let’s be honest: It’s not the same.

If you’re still craving that crispy bite of nostalgia, head to Downey, California, where the oldest operating McDonald’s in the country still fries its pies like it’s the ’70s. Fans still make expeditions to the location just for the old-school apple pies, and as one YouTube visitor posted last summer, the experience is “so worth it.”

MySpace

Introduced: 2003

Discontinued: Technically still alive; spiritually deceased by 2010

Before Instagram, TikTok or whatever app is currently farming your data, there was MySpace, the internet’s original social playground. (Yes, we know Friendster came on the scene first, as did listservs and Usenet, but arguably they didn’t have the same mainstream cultural impact.) 

​Launched in 2003, MySpace was chaotic, personal and completely customizable. You could rank your friends (savage), add glittery GIFs to your profile (iconic), and set your favorite song to auto-play the second someone visited your page (deeply annoying but undeniably powerful).

At its peak, MySpace was the social network. It hit 100 million users in 2006 and briefly became the most visited site in the U.S., even surpassing Google. And for a brief, shimmering moment, it felt like Tom (everyone’s first friend) ruled the internet.

But that power came with problems. Clunky design, slow load times and the wild west of HTML customization made every page look like a Lisa Frank folder crossed with a hacker’s blog. Meanwhile, Facebook rolled in with clean lines, real names, and the one thing MySpace never nailed: a sense of order.

By 2009, Facebook had overtaken MySpace in traffic. By 2011, Justin Timberlake bought a stake in a last-ditch attempt to rebrand it as a music hub. (It didn’t work, but we appreciate the effort, JT.)

Today, MySpace still technically exists, like a haunted amusement park. But for those of us who remember the Top 8 drama, the HTML hacks and painstakingly choosing our profile song, it was the golden age of the internet.

Parachute pants

Introduced: 1983

Discontinued: Late 1980s (but quietly parachuting back!)

Inspired by Michael Jackson’s hardware-heavy stage outfits, Bugle Boy launched a line of parachute pants in 1983: zipper-covered nylon trousers that made every trip to the mall sound like a wind tunnel. Other brands followed, with designs created by clothing companies like Panno D’or and Yu-No, and the look spread like wildfire through breakdancing crews, arcades and paperboy routes everywhere.

Bugle Boy saw that the rising influence of dance, music and comfort were reshaping youth style. “Parachute pants were comfortable, smooth-textured and fast-drying — perfect for breakdancing,” says Joseph Prevost, a longtime vintage clothing dealer.

Bugle Boy and retail partner Merry-Go-Round moved 10 million pairs in a single year. The look was cemented in pop culture thanks to The Karate Kid (1984), where villain Johnny Lawrence’s (William Zabka) swishy swagger made teenage hearts swoon. Ryan Seacrest mused on Live With Kelly and Ryan in 2019 that he hated back-to-school clothes growing up, “except for the one year that Bugle Boy pants were popular.” Parachute pants, he said, made it “fun to go back to school.”

But fashion turned fast. By the late ’80s, the trend had collapsed, and Bugle Boy was forced to offload its pants for 25 cents a pair. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2001.

Today, parachute pants are making a subtle comeback, seen on runways and celebs like Jennifer Lawrence and Hailey Bieber. But without Bugle Boy’s original swagger, they’ve yet to reclaim the full glory of their swishy, zippered peak.

ShowBiz Pizza

Introduced: 1980

Discontinued: 1992 (officially), but pieces still live in Mississippi

In the late ’70s, after Chuck E. Cheese had already introduced kids to the triumvirate of pizza, arcade and terrifying animatronics, a hotel franchisee named Robert Brock decided to do it his way. Brock had originally signed on to open hundreds of Chuck E. Cheeses, but after a contract dispute, he bailed and launched a rival chain: ShowBiz Pizza Place. On March 3, 1980, the first location opened in Kansas City, Missouri, and a new, weirder chapter in birthday party history began.

The main attraction? A bizarrely lovable animatronic band called The Rock-afire Explosion, which played hits from the ’60s and ’70s and featured characters like Fatz Geronimo (a gorilla on keys), Dook LaRue (a space-traveling drummer), Beach Bear (a stoned-sounding guitar bro), and Billy Bob Brockali, a friendly hillbilly bear named after the founder. 

Kids came for the chaos: blinking lights, greasy pizza and a bear band belting out Three Dog Night. “It was sensory overload: the sights, the sounds, the smells,” says fan and archivist Damon Breland, 47. “The simple kiddie rides, the Red Baron airplane going up and down, playing Skee-Ball with those heavy wooden balls, the ball pit — it was the whole experience.”

ShowBiz eventually bought out Chuck E. Cheese in a corporate plot twist, only to be completely rebranded under the Chuck E. name by 1992. But The Rock-afire Explosion lives on, most remarkably at Smitty’s Super Service, a replica ’80s arcade and animatronic shrine run by Breland in rural Mississippi. No pizza. No birthday parties. Just music, nostalgia and one man keeping the robots singing.

Tower Records

Introduced: 1960

Discontinued: 2006

Once the gold standard of music retail, Tower Records was less a store than a temple. With its red-and-yellow logo and endless aisles of CDs, vinyl and cassettes, Tower was the destination for anyone who defined themselves by their music collection.

Founded in Sacramento, California, in 1960 by Russ Solomon, Tower expanded into a billion-dollar global brand, with nearly 200 stores across 15 countries. The Sunset Boulevard location alone was a hangout for legends; Elton John, 78, showed up every Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. sharp to buy a stack of new releases. Brian Wilson once shopped there in his bathrobe. If Tower didn’t have it, it probably didn’t exist.

But the rise of digital music — and a mountain of corporate debt — brought the tower down. In 2006, Tower Records filed for bankruptcy and closed all its U.S. locations, leaving behind a generation of music lovers who grew up flipping through jewel cases and getting hand-scribbled employee recommendations. (Remember those?)

Still, the spirit of Tower lingers. Japan never gave it up (some 80 stores still operate there), and in 2022 a Tower pop-up called Tower Labs opened in Brooklyn — part store, part performance space, part nostalgia trip. “In an increasingly digital world, it is imperative for artists to have a physical space where they can connect and create,” said Tower’s new president, Danny Zeijdel.

Actor and superfan Colin Hanks, 47, spent seven years making a documentary about the record chain. “Tower helped pave the way for your identity,” he told NPR in 2015. He’s right — music makes people. And for a long time, Tower Records was where we all went to figure out who we were.