Crayola Is Retiring A Classic Color

On the heels of Monopoly retiring beloved pieces left and right, our memories of those halcyon childhood days are once again taking a hit: Crayola is retiring the dark yellow "Dandelion" crayon. The official announcement came Friday, March 31 — National Crayon Day — and Twitter is having some pretty colorful feelings about the shocking art supply news. Over Crayola's 114 years of production, the company has only retired a handful of crayon colors, many of which fall in the yellow spectrum. The '90s saw colors such as Maize, Lemon Yellow, Raw Umber, and Orange Yellow fade away, but Dandelion's ousting marks the very first time that the company has removed a color from its classic 24-pack. I am grateful to Dandelion for all its service coloring in suns and smiley faces in my elementary days — it will be dearly missed.

The announcement of Dandelion's retirement was planned for a live broadcast from Time Square Friday morning, but social media let the cat out of the bag a day early. A thoughtful shopper noticed a message about Dandelion's removal printed on the bottom of a box of 120 Crayola Crayons in a New Jersey Target and snapped a photo. Soon after, her son took to Twitter to spread the sad news in a major spoiler alert:

Following the unplanned tweet, Crayola released a tribute video detailing the many adventures that an animated crayon named Dan D. had enjoyed during his tenure. The send off seemed to sketch crayon retirement as a continuation of the adventure, finally free of the box. The people of Facebook were not so positive about the decision, leaving comments on the Live Video with the hashtag #Dontgo.

According to CNBC, Crayola will be replacing Dandelion yellow with a new hue from the blue family. Fans of the brand have been encouraged to help decide the new color's name and, of course, the people of Twitter were all to happy to jump in with their suggestions following the broadcast. The hashtag #NewCrayonColors has been trending on Twitter with a fair amount of NSFW suggestions to replace the innocent childhood fave. It seems the people of Twitter are "feeling blue" about the new addition:

Others suggest that replacing cheery yellow with a somber blue might not be ideal for these difficult times.

The posts soon took on a political edge; many aimed their crayon color suggestion at the current administration (and its lack of diversity).

The crayon color dispute has quickly become inspiration for many a political meme in the last few hours...

...with some fairly strongly worded suggestions for the government.

Crayola has opened a can of worms by asking fans to engage in the new color selection, and I can't wait to see what they choose! The new color is set to make its debut in May, but at this rate they will need more time to get a kid-friendly blue suggestion.

Image: Michael H/Photodisc/Getty Images