Martinex1: Redartz recently mentioned seeing gumball machines during his recent cross country drive and it reminded me how much chewing gum was a part of my childhood When I ran to the local drug store for my comic books, I often would pick up a two-cent piece of gum. My Halloween bag was probably 50% gum-related treats. My sister had a plastic gumball machine. We had bubble blowing contests. We had discussions about which gumball color had the best flavor.
Part of my regular diet seemed to consist of Blow-pops, Bub Daddy sticks, Bubblicious, Bubble Yum, and Fruit Stripe Gum. Fruit Stripe had good flavors, but the taste wore off so quickly. I was a fan of Grape Bubble Yum which was consistently juicy. Hard gum, soft gum, sticks, gumballs, gum with flavor squirts inside, lollipops with gum inside - were all topics of my childhood cuisine. Wrigley flavors were too "adult" except for maybe Juicy Fruit. Big Red was definitely a bit harsh when I was youngster; the cinnamon flavor would burn. Baseball card gum was too hard and waxy. Bub's Daddy Sour Apple was delicious but hard to carry.
And then there was Bazooka! Bazooka may have been the king of gums for me. The taste was standard sweet bubble gum packed into a small ink rectangle. It was nothing special, but it was everywhere. Every store counter seemed to have a box or a clear plastic jar from which grubby hands could pull pieces. 1 cent. 2 cents. And eventually 5 cents. Only original at first but eventually grape flavored as well. Neatly wrapped in small rectangular packages, the product was perfect for purchase with my leftover coins.
And of course Bazooka was kid friendly because just below that wrapper and included in every piece was a joke insert including a Bazooka Joe and His Gang comic strip, a clever fortune, and an offer to purchase some cool item by collecting and mailing in the strips. Here are some samples:
There was Bazooka Joe himself, the baseball cap eye-patched wiseguy, Pesty his kid brother, and Mort his friend. I liked Mort for some reason and can recall pulling a turtle neck over my mouth and saying "I'm Mort!" and cracking some sorry excuse for a joke.
I had dozens of these stuffed in my nightstand drawer. Some were from the penny pieces, and some were from the larger Bazooka packs and those were worth five smaller jokes for trade. I think I was saving for a telescope, or a compass, or I vaguely remember some X-Ray specs (but I may have that confused). Alas, I never did send them in and at some point my large stack of Bazooka jokes found its way to the trash bin.
No chewing in school! But you can definitely chomp away today at BitBA! Cheers all!
