Jamila Rizvi Thursday 23 August 2012 12:02pm

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Paddle Pop Lion

by JAMILA RIZVI

Yesterday brought the freezer-breaking news that Paddle Pop – who have been dutifully serving the tastebuds of Australians during stinking hot summers since 1953 – have changed the taste of their banana flavoured ice cream.

Being more of a chocolate girl myself, I didn’t give it a second thought until it was confirmed that yes, there have been drastic calorie-reducing changes to that flavour too. What gives Paddle Pop?

This from news.com.au:

After a scientific taste-test on Today, Lisa, Georgie & Mia pronounced the flavour unchanged.

PADDLE Pop devotees are going bananas over a decision to change the taste of one of their iconic flavours….fans who had loved the flavour for decades began complaining the new mix tasted “rubbery” and artificial…

On its website Streets said the Paddle Pops had the “best taste ever” and were full of “milky goodness”.

Marketing director Andrea Martens said yesterday the mix had changed for nutritional reasons.

Vegetable oil had been eliminated and each serve now contained about 27 per cent fewer kilojoules and 34 per cent less saturated fat.

“This proactive change will provide Australian parents and children with an even healthier treat option that is more nutritionally sound than many alternatives,” she said.

“It’s something that we’re proud of and something we believe parents will welcome.”

I consider myself a generally progressive and liberal person when it comes to my outlook on the world. I’m all for innovation and hope and change and all that – godammit, I’ve got an Obama for President poster on my living room wall.

But this? This is down right outrageous. Some things just shouldn’t be tampered with.

And one of them is how things were in your childhood.

I’m a child of the 90s. I was 13 when we cheered in the new millennium and it’s just a fact that things were better back then. What things, you ask? Well Paddle Pops tasted like Paddle Pops are supposed to, for a start.

The Backstreet Boys

There was none of this manufactured, they-all-look-the-same-how-do-you-pick-your-favourite-anyway boy bands like One Direction. Instead, there were the Backstreet Boys, NSync, Boyzone.

Sure they didn’t write their own music but they had matching outfits, and hats and coordinated, in-unison dance routines involving chairs. And they didn’t care who I was, where I was from or what I did – so long as I loved them.

Fashion wasn’t high. Only sneakers were. They were platformed in fact – in an effort to pay homage to the Spice Girls and their girl power mantra. We wore our hair either plastered down against our skulls with too much wet-look gel or pinned up with glittery butterfly clips. Pants were easily removable: they snapped or they zipped and they were almost always made of tensile.

In the 90s we didn’t need poor Australian imitations of American reality television because we had Round-the-Twist and Genie from Down Under and Heartbreak High. Everything I know about boys I learned from Heartbreak High. True Story.

Eric was Banana Man, Johnson hung out with all his friends and the current Government could learn a thing or two from Captain Planet about how to sell an environmental message. Seriously, what can kids today learn from a cartoon girl in a pink dress who just wants to explore things?

It was a simpler time. A kinder time. And a time when Paddle Pops still tasted like Paddle Pops. And things were as they should be.

Come on a trip down memory lane with us – do you recall any of these?

Discman

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What have I missed? What else was better in the 90s?