This Vintage Hershey Bar Was A Halloween Hit Back In The '80s (You Can Still Buy It Today)

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They were never destined for a spot on the list of 2025's most popular Halloween candies, but we want to spare a moment of appreciation for Hershey's Whatchamacallit bars, which have been known to pop up from time to time in candy buckets ... albeit not nearly as frequently as they did in their '80s heyday. If you aren't acquainted with Whatchamacallit, know that they are crunchy chocolate candy bars stuffed with peanut-flavored crisp and caramel. Whatchamacallit is distinguished by its pop art-esque, retro-looking logo and wrapper, which hearken back to its 1978 origins.

There's a common misconception that these chocolate treats have joined the sizable ranks of discontinued candy bars, but it's not true. This bar is still very much around. If you want to elevate your house to the most beloved trick-or-treat stop on the block, you can shell out for a few 36-count boxes of full-sized Whatchamacallit bars on Amazon and show Gen Alpha what it's been missing. 

Parents of a certain generational cohort (face it, folks ... it's called middle age) will remember that Hershey used to actively promote Whatchamacallit in the '80s, including a quintessentially of-its-time animated commercial featuring new-wave imagery and an ultra earworm-y description of the ingredients intoned over a vogueish beat. Internet anecdata seems to suggest that this spot ran until around the mid-90s, after which neither hide nor hair was heard about Whatchamacallit again, at least not officially — Hershey 86'd the ads and left the candy bar's fate to word of mouth.

When you realize how much money Americans spend on Halloween each year (hint: it's a lot), it makes sense that people might plumb the depths of available candy to stand out in a crowd. For every house doling out beloved faves like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and M&M's, there are those mavericks dispensing Sugar Daddy pops and those strange, divisive peanut butter taffies in the orange and black wrappers. Hershey, all by itself, has some lesser-known chocolate bars that aren't shining as bright as they once did, but are worthy of a comeback.

For example, you have the Symphony bar featuring almonds and toffee for an undeniable crunch. Krackel and Mr. Goodbar put in faithful appearances in variety bags of Hershey mini bars, but when's the last time you spied a full-sized specimen at a supermarket checkout stand? Likewise, it seems that York Peppermint Patties exist in a liminal state during 10 months of the year, popping out of hibernation in September or October just in time to show up amidst your Halloween haul in snack-sized form. Whatmacallit may be a little more obscure than some of its Hershey brethren, but it has a heck of a past. We feel that, since you can still buy it today, its time is ripe for a renaissance.