Buncha Crunch Squad: My Favorite Movie Theater Snacks
When I really think about it, I probably have attended movie theater showings snackless more often than not. Sad but true. I just can’t justify spending the same amount on popcorn that I would spend on dinner. Growing up was different, though. ESPECIALLY if it wasn’t my parents taking me to the movies. If my grandma is offering to buy me a $500 gigantic cup of Sprite, I’m slurping down a $500 cup of Sprite in my comfy seat. I have worked my way through the movie snack line-up, and have a few childhood favorites.
The Regal Cinema Zap Pack
I had no idea this was called a zap pack, but Googling “Regal Kid’s Meal?” brought me to a nostalgia-filled Google Image experience. I loved these growing up. A Zap Pack included a reasonable amount of popcorn, a small drink, and an extra snack all packaged together in a cute box, advertising some kiddie movie that I would probably be begging to see the following month. I do have to say, I cackled a little when I saw that the current extra snack in the Zap Pack is Welch’s Fruit Snacks. Yikes you guys. Back in my day, we got AirHeads. Sorry losers!
Soft Pretzels and Cheese Sauce
When I first discovered that this was an option, my pre-teen brain exploded. A plastic tin filled to the brim with warm soft pretzels, with an extra side pocket pumped full of nacho cheese sauce--can you even deal?! It combined my favorite food groups together into one snack that had more calories in it than two days of food, and frankly, it made so much more sense as a movie food than popcorn. No noise! Bonus points for whenever I rationed out my cheese sauce. Once the soft pretzels were gone, I could “borrow” my sister’s popcorn and repurpose my plastic tin as a cheesy popcorn receptacle. Perfection.
Buncha Crunch
Buncha Crunch was my movie candy of choice, probably because it was more difficult to find it outside of my local theater than most of the other candies. Plus, I will always choose chocolate over sour or fruity sweets. If you were unlucky enough not to be exposed to Buncha Crunch, it’s basically like if you took a Nestle Crunch bar, and smashed it with a hammer. Good stuff right there.
Cookie Dough Bites
The texture of these bad boys was seriously off. It was...chalky? But somehow also tasted like someone was chewing on them already? And then covered in cheap milk chocolate? Now that I think about it, I’m not sure why I loved these. Buncha Crunch was way better. I guess it was just the idea that it was something semi-unacceptable (eating raw cookie dough) mixed with the fact that if you bit into them, you could see little chocolate chips. It’s the same reason why I loved Smores Poptarts. If I scraped the top layer of the Poptart off by running it through my bottom teeth, I could see the stripes of the chocolate and the marshmallow. Wow I was a strange little kid.
BONUS: The time that my sister, friends, and I stopped at Target before going to see Alice in Wonderland and bought the biggest sized lemon lime Gatorade that they had along with a bunch of Dixie cups.
I fell asleep during that movie, but not before I was able to sneak in that Gatorade that was no joke the size of twenty normal Gatorades. It had one of those plastic things on the lid that you had to hold to pour the Gatorade out so it wouldn’t spill, because it was really heavy to pour on its own. What a terrible idea.