Not content with attempting to homogenise the planet, the almighty Masterfoods, Inc., aka Mars in the UK, have released a new variant of their Snickers bar. In the UK, we have two – the Snickers, which used to be the Marathon of yore, and Snickers Crunch, a more recent arrival. In the US, the Snickers Crunch is the Snickers Cruncher, and there’s an Almond variant too.

Now also available in the US are two flavours of Snickers Marathon, a new energy bar. “Hang on, Snickers Marathon?” I can hear you cry … well, perhaps not cry out as such, but mutter to yourself as to why Mars got rid of our beloved munchie brands throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Marathon became Snickers, Opal Fruits became Starbursts. They weren’t the only ones to blame: Rowntree’s Mintolas became Nestlé’s Mint Munchies, Jif became Cif, Oil of Ulay became Oil of Olay, Immac became Veet (eh?) … oh and Mars fecked with the Mars bar to make it more like a Milky Way, which itself was changed to become more like the American version — less like our own.

So — the point — Masterfoods are bizarrely reviving a brand in the US that they put to death 14 years ago in the UK. Why? I dunno, I only eat em :)

[via mini me(ish)]

update 2004-01-11: Oops, forgot about the Visible Mars Project … tsk!