’90s Kids: Here’s What You Should Know About the Return of Dunkaroos

Naomi Tomky
Naomi Tomky
Seattle-based writer Naomi Tomky uses her unrelenting enthusiasm for eating everything to propel herself around the world as an award-winning food and travel writer.
updated Feb 3, 2020
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Credit: Courtesy of Dunkaroos

High on the list of most-coveted items on school lunch tables in the ‘90s — alongside Lunchables and Capri Sun pouches — were Dunkaroos. In case you’re not familiar, Dunkaroos was a “DIY” snack of sorts. It came in a long container where one side was filled with little graham cracker dinosaurs, and the other side was a little dipping bowl full of frosting with little rainbow sprinkles. I mean, FROSTING. Hello! What more could you ask for than dipping cookies in frosting? Nothing, truly. The childhood favorite snack was introduced in the United States in 1992, and was sadly discontinued in 2012. That was, until today.

The dream of the ‘90s is OFFICIALLY BACK, because General Mills is bringing back Dunkaroos! The cult-favorite snack is slated to return this summer.

It’s hard to imagine that a snack that succeeded based on so many things that have gone the way of Michael Jackson’s reputation and Lindsay Lohan’s childhood is making a true comeback. The days seem so far behind us when people happily sent their children to school with sugar in which to dip more sugar, all packaged up in single-serve plastic, and advertised with a cartoon mascot that resembles Poochie from The Simpsons more than anything else in recent memory. That spirit of the shameless marketing of absurdly over-the-top sugar snacks to kids — actual or just at heart — was something unique to the latter half of the 20th century.

But nostalgia is a powerful tool. And while it might not make its way back into every kid’s lunchbox, I can see it making a bigger splash in the workplace — where many of the ’90s kids now reside. The snack enjoyed 20 years of success but faded out and was taken off the market almost a decade ago (at least in the U.S. — Canadians could still get it). Now the re-released snack comes in boxes that Buzzfeed describes (accurately) as “like they blended The Max from Saved by the Bell with a Jazz Waxed paper cup.” The mascot and dino shapes are gone, but the spirit of the snack (plus the frosting!) remains.