Whatever Happened To 54321 Chocolate Bar?

While many mainstream chocolate bars that we loved back in the 1980s are still being produced today, there are some that remain firmly stuck in the decade! 54321 was one such bar - so whatever happened to it?

As the name of the bar suggests, it consisted of five different parts; wafer, crispy rice, caramel, fondant, and milk chocolate. I used to adore them, but it seems that everything I grow fond of (including Spira and Banjo) gets discontinued for one reason or another! 

54321 was made by Crawford's (who also made Bandit), at their Binn's Road factory in Liverpool. The brand was sold to United Biscuits in 1960.

Sadly, it was discontinued in 1989 due to poor sales.

TV Adverts

You can enjoy watching an old TV advert from 1982 in the video above, which is the original one.

The ad features one of the most catchy and memorable tunes of the decade, and includes a song that many will instantly remember. The original tune was performed by Manfred Mann and reached No.5 in the UK singles chart during 1964. But it will remain an 80s song for anyone who grew-up in the decade. It was also the theme tune for the 60s pop music show Ready Steady Go, which I'm too young to remember. 

Do you recognise the astronaut in the ad? Look again, it's none other than Rik Mayall, who, of course, starred as Rick in the anarchic BBC comedy The Young Ones in the same year.

The lyrics were altered for the advert, so here's a remindinder of them; 

"Chocolate flavour coating comes first in 54321. 

Then crunchin' through light, crispy rice, 54321. 

Chew, chew, chew a caramel top for you, 54321. 

A-ha, wafer and fondant, too, 54321 (repeated three times)".

The Manfred Mann song was used in two more adverts in the 1980s, although they featured different imagery.

We have been unable to determine the exact year of this advert, but it is from the 1980s and features the comedian and host of the ITV game show 3-2-1, Ted Rogers, who is pretending to struggle with his legendary "321" hand gesture. He passed away on 2 May 2001, aged 65. 

Did you notice that the bars shown at the very end of the advert had a different font?

Wrappers

The wrapper was purple (very similar to the Cadburys colour) with a yellow, futuristic computer font. However, this font had an major issue, and you may notice that the "4" on the bar above looks rather like a "9"! Well, you'll notice on the next image below(featuring a pack of five bars), that they resolved this issue by using a slightly different font.

On 6th May 2021, the WIlts and Gloucestershire Standard reported an old 54321 wrapper has been found in Fairford, by a litter picker.

I hope that you enjoyed reading about what happened to 54321. You may also like our post Whatever Happened To Drifter?