Screaming Yellow Zonkers

by Lincoln Snacks

1969 – 2007 GONE FOREVER

Gone — Conagra bought Lincoln Snacks in September 2007 and quietly retired Zonkers, keeping its stablemates Fiddle Faddle and Poppycock, both of which are still sold. A limited run for Walgreens in 2012 is the only sighting since.

Sugar-glazed popcorn the color of a highlighter, sold in a jet-black box that spent more effort on jokes than on the snack inside. Plenty of kids read the whole package out loud before eating a single piece.

🧾 One more thingLincoln Snacks claimed the Zonkers box was the first food package ever printed in black, and hired comedy copywriters to fill it with gags — one panel helpfully noted that the eight-ounce box weighed 1/4,409 of a metric ton. The name and the box came from a small Chicago agency that won the account by pitching the joke before the recipe.

Filed under: Snacks & Chips · the ’70s & earlier

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