What were the original five colors of M&M's candies?

The original colors of M&M's candies were red, yellow, violet, green and brown.

M&M's are "colorful button-shaped chocolates", each of which has the letter "m" printed in lower case on one side, consisting of a candy shell surrounding a filling which varies depending upon the variety of M&M's. The original candy had a milk chocolate filling which, upon introducing other variations, was branded as the "plain" variety.

In 1976, Mars eliminated red-colored M&M's because of health concerns over the dye amaranth (FD&C Red #2), which was a suspected carcinogen, and replaced them with orange M&M's. This was done despite the fact that M&M's did not contain the dye; the action was purely to satisfy worried consumers.

Ten years later, Paul Hethmon, then a student at University of Tennessee, started a joke campaign to reinstate red M&M's that would eventually become a worldwide phenomenon. Red M&M's were reintroduced as a result, and the orange M&M's that had originally replaced them were kept in production. In Europe, red M&M's contain the red dye carmine (E120, cochineal).

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.