When I was a child, there was no grape flavored JELL-O. I used to wonder why. After all, they had all of the other common fruit flavors. It seemed odd. And I kept running into other people who had wondered the same thing! Somehow I'd stumbled on one of the great unspoken mysteries.

I even incorporated it into my Champions RPG Campaign as a running gag. The joke lost a lot of its steam, though, when one day Kraft foods pulled a nasty trick on me. In April of 1994, they introduced grape JELL-O into the market.

Finally, my curiosity got the better of me and I tracked down the JELL-O home page (yeah, it has its own web page - scary) and looked around. I sent them a message (I'm "S", quoted there at the bottom), and this is what they had to say:

From: OnlineTeam3@Kraftfoods.com
Thank you for visiting our Web Site.

Our JELL-O Brand Gelatin Dessert Grape Flavor was 
discontinued in the 1960s due to lack of consumer 
interest.  The flavor was reintroduced in April 
of 1994 and is still available today.

We hope this information is helpful to you.  
Please visit us again soon.
-----------------------------------------------------
According to the "Cool History of JELL-O", "Grape 
reappeared with the help of dinosaurs from Jurassic 
Park" in the 1990's".  I would like to know:

a) When (and why) did Grape JELL-O originally 
   "disappear" from the market, and 

b) When (month and year) was the flavor 
   reintroduced?

Thanks,
S

The story doesn't end there, though. I lamented to one of my players about how the joke was a little killed by the re-introduction of Grape Jell-O into the market. Ever helpful, he suggested, "Well, why don't you make it white grape JELL-O instead?" This was in 1997, the year that Kraft Foods, Inc. introduced a new flavor of JELL-O. Guess which flavor? (According to the promotional materials, you make it with club soda instead of water to make it "sparkling").

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