Fizzies came in seven flavors- orange, cherry, grape, lemon-lime, strawberry, and root beer. Each package contained eight tablets for just eighteen cents. The tablets were made by the Emerson Drug Company, the same company that made Bromo-Seltzer in 1957. In 1962 Warner-Lambert bought the company and made Fizzies available internationally.
You simply dropped a tablet into water and watched the water come to life with bubbles as it turned the water to the color of the flavor. My memory was that it gave a diluted flavor to the water. Adding additional tablets did little more to add flavor. Was my memory the same as yours?
By 1968 Fizzies had double the sales of Kool-Aid. Fizzies were sweetened by either cyclamates or saccharin which were both banned by the Food and Drug Administration. They reissued the tablets with instructions to add sugar, but by then the attraction to Fizzies fizzled out.
Fizzies made a come back in the 1990’s sweetened with NutriSweet but it was short lived when the company went out of business. There was also another short-lived attempt to revive the product in the early 2000’s but only lasted until 2016. Probably the closest on the market today would be the orange flavored Airborne Immune Support Supplement.
