<P> The original color of M&M's candies are red, yellow, violet, green and orange . </P> <P> In 1976, the Food and drug Administrtion released a study that links red dye food coloring to cancer . Though Mars did not use this dye they decided to pull the red M&M's from the market to avoid possible misunderstandings . The red candy were reintroduced to the market ten years later . </P> <P> In early 1995, Mars ran a promotion in which consumers were invited to vote on which of blue, pink, or purple would replace the tan M&M's . Blue was the winner with 54% of the votes . It replaced tan in late 1995 . Consumers could vote by calling 1 - 800 - FUN - COLOR . Ads for the new blue colors featured a plain and an almond blue M&M character as Red and Yellow take notice of trying to do takes in the commercial by painting themselves blue where they appear on stage with B.B. King singing the blues, but the filmmakers had to cut the scene as they were not the real blue M&M's; another featured Red and Yellow holding their breath to look like the new blue M&M's, where Steven Weber sees the three M&M's, Red, Yellow, and Blue; and one more featuring Weber talking to the blue M&M if he had dived into the chocolate pool, but did not . </P> <P> In 2002, Mars solicited votes in their first ever "M&M's Global Color Vote" to add a new color from three choices: aqua (turquoise), pink, and purple . Purple won and was featured for a limited time . To help the colors get votes, Ken Schrader and his MB2 Motorsports team, who was sponsored by M&M's at the time, ran four paint schemes during the 2002 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season representing the promotion (one for aqua, one for pink, one for purple, and another one with all three colors on the car .) Specially marked packages of M&M's were released in Japan . Finding a bag of all purple M&M's entitled the customer to a prize of 100 million yen (equivalent to approximately USD $852,000). </P>

When did they stop making light brown m&m