Jello Pudding Pops – A Taste of Childhood

Surfing the boards the other day, I came across an idea for making Jello Pudding Pops. The concept of the pudding pop was developed and marketed by the General Foods company in the 1980’s in an effort to boost the slumping sales of their Jello pudding products. They hired comedian Bill Cosby for the advertising campaign, which was extensive and probably has more to do with the nostalgic feelings people have for pudding pops today than the actual pops themselves.

Not great quality, but the idea is cute:

The ads did a lot to boost sales for the company, but after General Foods was sold to Kraft, times changed. While the name brand “Jello” may once have represented a wholesome snack that moms would want to give to their kids, by the 90’s the name had become associated with less respectable concepts like Jello shots and wrestling. Perhaps that association caused another decline in sales, or perhaps Kraft folded the concept into its Popsicle brand, but for whatever reason, by the mid-1990’s the pudding pop was no longer sold.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the wholesome goodness of frozen pudding in your own home today! You can make and freeze them yourself. I had some molds, but you could even do this with Dixie cups and popsicle sticks. The photo on Pinterest looks like this:

To start,  I assembled the tools and ingredients.

Then I mixed the pudding,

and poured it into the molds.

Before long, it was hanging out in the freezer, making friends with some of our other frozen treats.

The next day, we took the pops out of the freezer and ran the molds under hot water to remove them.

And voila! Frozen pudding, on a stick, a.k.a. wholesome goodness. Just an aside here: Can you think of anything today that is marketed as “wholesome”? The advertising world has gone from buzzwords like “goodness” to other words like “extreme”. That’s progress, I guess. Any way, I used instant pudding for these, but looking back, I think the non-instant might have been even better, in terms of the final consistency. It was good, but a little more custardy than I remember the originals being.