Today’s Now I Know focused on Kinder eggs — which are banned in the United States.  A reader (thanks Adam!) alerted me to another product called the Wonder Ball — originally, “Nestle Magic” — which followed the same pattern: chocolate on the outside, toy surprise within.  

Here’s an ad for it, below.

So what happened?  The New York Times has the story, but the gist: in July of 1997, the Food and Drug Administration told Nestle that the product violated the law; Nestle marketed the product anyway while lobbying Congress to revise the law; the Mars company (a Nestle competitor, and maker of M&Ms) fought back with their own lobbying team; Nestle ended up capitulating a few months later.

In 2000, another candy company re-released the product under the Wonder Ball name, but instead of hiding a toy in the candy, they hid … more candy!  The product lasted until 2004.