The Spice Girls-Themed Candy You Probably Forgot About
Sporty. Scary. Posh. Baby. Ginger. Five iconic adjectives that, at one point, meant everything to millions of millennials around the world. If you were alive in the '90s, there's no way you didn't hear the songs "Wannabe," "Spice Up Your Life," "Stop," or "Say You'll Be There" almost everywhere you went. The Spice Girls arrived on the music scene in 1994, and the acclaimed sisterhood's popularity has been compared to the Beatlemania craze of the 1960s.
Melanie Chisholm, Melanie Brown, Victoria Beckham (née Adams), Emma Bunton, and Geri Horner (née Halliwell) made history together as "the most commercially successful girl group of all time" according to the Evening Standard, ranking alongside TLC, Destiny's Child, and other legendary female superstars. Believe it or not, the ladies, who remain close friends to this day, are celebrating their 25th anniversary in 2021. Released in July 1996, their hit single "Wannabe" spent seven consecutive weeks at the top of the music charts in the UK and four weeks at #1 in the U.S., the BBC reports.
Their overnight global fame resulted in tons of licensing opportunities to supplement record sales and promote their "girl power" philosophy. This shelf-clearing merch included dolls, apparel, fragrances, a feature film, and of course, lollipops.
The Spice Girls lollipops were a partnership with Chupa Chups
The year was 1997. "Titanic" graced the silver screen, Steve Jobs returned to Apple, "Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone" was published, and the Spice Girls released their second studio album "Spiceworld" (via Discogs). To pay tribute to the launch of the smash record, Spanish candy company Chupa Chups created a line of Spice Girls-themed lollipops called Fantasy Ball. This sweet collaboration, which New York Daily News reports also included bubblegum and a Pop Rocks-esque candy, sent sugar-craving kids and teens into a complete frenzy. There's even a Reddit post dedicated to the once-sought-after product where users have expressed all sorts of nostalgia.
The lollipop flavors included peach, strawberry and cream, orange, and lemon. The colorful, crinkly packaging featured each member of the quintet and included 24 different collectible stickers, toy microphone headsets (the lollipop was used as the mic!), bubblegum packets, and even temporary tattoos that probably lasted all of 10 minutes when applied to the skin. The suckers were sold in youth retail stores like Limited Too, according to another Reddit post, as well as toy stores and candy shops. Even today, some people are selling the decades-old lollipops (or just the wrappers) for astronomical prices on eBay.
Whether you were a Spice Girls fanatic or have no idea who we're talking about, it's always fun to look back on the items that defined our youth, even the simple ones. Zig-a-zig-ah!