‘Lanterns’: Every Easter Egg You Missed in the First Trailer

The upcoming Green Lantern TV series, Lanterns, is drawing inspiration from a variety of places. DC’s James Gunn has mentioned shows like Slow Horses as influences on the show’s realistic and mysterious storyline. Although Green Lantern is usually known for its epic, sci-fi space adventures, it’s also spent considerable time focusing on more down-to-earth stories.

As a big DC fan, the first trailer for Lanterns immediately gave me vibes of that classic period when Hal Jordan and Green Arrow hit the road, helping everyday people – you might know it as the ‘Hard Traveling Heroes’ storyline. This new series seems to be taking a similar approach, but instead of Oliver Queen traveling with Hal, it’s John Stewart! And from the trailer, it’s clear the dialogue is packed with little nods and references to other iconic DC comics moments, which is super exciting for longtime readers like me.

That’s only a small part of all the DC Comics references, hidden details, and secrets in the first Lanterns trailer. In our latest DC video, we’ll explain everything and show how this series fits into the larger DC Universe. Check out the full Lanterns video here:

Enjoyed our Easter egg hunt in the Lanterns trailer? You might also like our videos about hidden DC references in the new Supergirl movie trailer, why versus movies don’t work, and our interview with James Gunn and the team behind Peacemaker! Find even more content on the ScreenCrush YouTube channel – and don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss future videos. Lanterns arrives on HBO and HBO Max in August.

’80s Foods We Wish They Still Made

Bonkers

Bonkers was a popular, chewy fruit candy throughout the 1980s, famous for its bizarre commercials. These ads featured a woman with glasses correcting common misunderstandings about the candy (like the fact that it wasn’t gum!) while large fruits rained down, often on her family. Despite its popularity throughout the decade, Bonkers quickly lost customers and stopped being made just a few years later. Common flavors included grape, strawberry, and watermelon – my favorite! The watermelon Bonkers were particularly clever, featuring a green outer layer and a chewy red center.

C-3PO’s

If you grew up with the original Star Wars movies, you probably remember this cereal! C-3POs cereal came out with Return of the Jedi and was really popular in the mid-1980s. The cereal itself wasn’t anything special – it was just plain oat, wheat, and corn pieces – but the boxes were a big deal. Kids loved collecting the character masks on the back, wearing them as costumes, and often ignoring the cereal inside, which would sit in cupboards for months!

Disney Pops

Mickey Mouse ice cream bars are a timeless favorite at Disney parks and in stores everywhere. Back in the 1980s, you could also find Disney-themed popsicles! These fruity treats came in grape, cherry, and orange flavors and were shaped like Mickey, Donald, or Goofy. It’s a mystery why they stopped making them, especially since people still love both Disney characters and popsicles! I’d love to have a grape-flavored Donald Duck popsicle right now.

Ecto Cooler

Ecto Cooler is a classic example of a movie tie-in product. This bright green, citrus-flavored drink first appeared in the late 1980s alongside the popular Ghostbusters cartoon. Even after the cartoon and Ghostbusters movies ended, Hi-C continued making Ecto Cooler until the early 2000s. It’s made several comebacks as a limited-edition item with new Ghostbusters releases, and demand is so strong that people often resell bottles for surprisingly high prices – sometimes for dozens or even hundreds of dollars! That really shows how popular it is.

Five Alive

If you liked citrus-flavored drinks but weren’t a fan of Hi-C Ecto Cooler, Five Alive was another popular option. Its name came from the five different juices it contained: orange, grapefruit, tangerine, lemon, and lime. While Five Alive was discontinued in the United States in the 1990s, it’s still available in Canada. If you’re ever up north, I’d really appreciate it if you could bring me back a carton!

Fruit Corners Fruit Bars

I remember when Fruit Roll-Ups came out in the early 80s – it was like a fruit snack explosion! Suddenly, everyone was trying to make the next big thing, all competing for kids’ attention and trying to seem healthy because, well, it had fruit in it! As someone who grew up during that time and tried them all, I truly believe Fruit Corners Fruit Bars were the best. They took the idea of a Roll-Up and made it like a granola bar, which was genius. They had strawberry, cherry, grape, and orange-pineapple, and honestly, I’ve been searching for something that tastes like those cherry bars ever since. I’m not kidding! Those That’s It Apple and Cherry bars you can find now are actually the closest I’ve come to finding a replacement.

Fruit Wrinkles

Fruit Wrinkles were a fruit snack similar to Roll-Ups and Fruit Bars, but shaped like jelly beans. Ads highlighted that they had more fruit and less sugar than other snacks. However, as fruit snacks started becoming more elaborate, tied to popular kids’ movies and shows, simpler snacks like Fruit Wrinkles lost appeal and were eventually discontinued.

Giggles

Oreos dominate the sandwich cookie market today, taking up a huge section of the snack aisle with countless flavors (I personally drew the line at Sour Patch Kids Oreos!). But things were different in the 1980s, when several brands competed for customers. One popular option was Giggles, which were similar to Oreos but filled with both chocolate and vanilla creme, and featured a smiley face on the cookie itself (available in vanilla or chocolate). Considering Oreos release around 60 new flavors each week, it’s surprising they haven’t tried a vanilla and chocolate combination – it’s a really good idea!

Hostess Pudding Pies

Hostess is still a major player in the snack world, famous for treats like Twinkies, Ding Dongs, and Ho Hos. While you can still find their Fruit Pies, their pudding pies – a big hit in the 1980s and available in Vanilla and Chocolate – are now hard to come by.

A likely reason for their disappearance is the high fat and unhealthy ingredients they contained. Even today’s apple pies aren’t exactly good for you; Hostess states a single cherry pie has 8 grams of saturated fat and 25 grams of added sugar – that’s half your daily recommended amount! But let’s be honest, they tasted amazing, so maybe health concerns weren’t a priority for some.

Jell-O Pudding Pops

Pudding was incredibly popular in the 1980s – it seemed like people couldn’t get enough of it! It came in all forms, from individual cups and pies to even frozen Pudding Pops. Jell-O heavily promoted their Pudding Pops with a massive marketing campaign, including memorable commercials starring Bill Cosby. These came in flavors like vanilla, chocolate, and swirl. At their peak, Jell-O sold $100 million worth of Pudding Pops in just one year, but eventually, demand dropped and they were discontinued.

Kudos

Do you remember Kudos bars? They were incredibly popular in the 1980s, originally available in flavors like Chocolate Chip, Nutty Fudge, and Peanut Butter. Made by Mars, they were a unique snack – healthier than a candy bar, but still a tasty treat. Many people loved them, and they were sold for several decades until being discontinued in the 2010s.

Mr. T Cereal

In the mid-1980s, Mr. T was a huge pop culture icon, largely thanks to his roles in Rocky III and The A-Team. He was instantly recognizable with his mohawk, denim clothing, and lots of gold chains. His popularity with kids led to a strange animated TV show where he played a gymnastics coach who also solved mysteries. From 1984 to 1993, Mr. T’s face was on boxes of a popular Quaker cereal shaped like the letter ‘T’ and made from corn and oats. The cereal even appeared in the opening scene of Tim Burton’s Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, which helped keep it well-known for years.

O’Grady’s Chips

O’Grady’s was a potato chip brand from the 1980s that didn’t survive the intense competition. They marketed themselves as having thicker-cut chips with a bolder cheese flavor. Fans especially loved their Au Gratin flavor, claiming it was much better and cheesier than anything available now.

Peanut Butter Boppers

One Reddit user perfectly described why people loved Boppers: “They were like the best parts of a granola bar, but without the granola! As a peanut butter lover, I still miss them.” Absolutely! These crunchy, peanut butter-filled bars need to be brought back. Luckily, Nature Valley, the original maker, does share a recipe on their website if you’re feeling ambitious and want to try making them yourself.

Product 19

Product 19, easily recognized by its red box and mysterious name (said to be because it was the 19th recipe Kellogg’s tested), was a popular cereal throughout the 1980s and 90s. Kellogg’s originally marketed it in the 80s with the unusual claim that it was highly nutritious, despite not tasting like it. While people once might have chosen cereal for health reasons, that’s largely changed, and Product 19 was discontinued in 2016.

Quackers

For generations, kids have loved the satisfying crunch and cheesy flavor of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers. In the 1980s, Nabisco tried to challenge Goldfish with a similar snack called Quackers – these were shaped like ducks and also tasted like cheese (a surprisingly tasty sour cream and onion flavor was also available). However, Quackers disappeared by the end of the decade, leaving Goldfish as the dominant snack once again.

Slice

Pepsi frequently launches new lemon-lime sodas to challenge Sprite and other competitors. Currently, they offer Starry, but previously sold Sierra Mist and, before that, Slice (which replaced Teem). Slice even expanded to include Mandarin Orange and apple flavors – honestly, we could always use more apple soda! When Slice first came out, Pepsi heavily promoted its 10% fruit juice content, positioning it as a more natural option. This worked well initially, but they later changed the formula and reduced the amount of juice. Despite trying different packaging and marketing throughout the 1990s, Slice was eventually replaced by Sierra Mist in the early 2000s.

Sunkist Fun Fruits

Still reminiscing about old fruit snacks? Here’s another one! Sunkist Fun Fruits were about the same size and shape as Wrinkles and came in cherry, orange, strawberry, and grape flavors. Interestingly, even though they were called Sunkist, they weren’t made by the Sunkist company. Instead, Leaf Confections licensed the Sunkist name to make the snack seem more authentically fruity. (Today’s Sunkist Fruit Snacks are made by General Mills.)

Tato Skins

While many potato chip brands exist, Tato Skins, made by Keebler in the 1980s, were unique. They were made from whole potatoes, including the skin, to mimic the taste of a baked potato. Popular flavors included Original, Sour Cream & Chives, Cheddar & Bacon, and Bar-B-Que. Today, you can find a similar snack called TGI Fridays Potato Skins Snacks, but fans of the original Tato Skins believe they don’t quite measure up.

WWF Superstars of Wrestling Bars

During the 1980s, when Hulk Hogan and the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) were incredibly popular, WWF Superstars Ice Cream Bars were created to appeal to young fans. These treats featured vanilla ice cream between vanilla cookies and a layer of chocolate, with images of WWF stars like “Macho Man” Randy Savage and Ted DiBiase on top. Though designed to take advantage of the wrestling craze on Saturday morning TV, the ice cream bars were actually quite delicious and continued to be made even after the WWF’s popularity declined in the early 1990s. Nostalgia for the original bars led to a brief revival in 2020, when Good Humor released “WWE Super Stars” featuring modern wrestlers like John Cena and Roman Reigns on vanilla ice cream sandwiches. While tasty, these new bars didn’t stay in stores as long as the original WWF ones.

2026-03-05 17:59