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!
10 comments:
Not much of a gum chewer any more; I kind of left that behind sometime in my mid-'20s. But when I was a kid, I liked gum as much as the next guy, and in my (Catholic) elementary school, it was sort of the forbidden fruit, because we weren't allowed to chew gum. Not just during class (which would have been a reasonable restriction, I think) but anywhere on the school grounds, at any time, even during recess. Obviously, most of the kids did just that: chew gum during recess as a form of rebellion - the more daring kids would even blow bubbles when the teachers weren't looking.
Back then, i.e., mid- to late '70s, Bubble Yum and Bubilicious were all the rage. Personally, I really liked Fruit Stripe, and stuck with it well into my college years. And yes, the flavor did wear out pretty fast - I overcame that problem by just adding another stick, so that I'd sometimes have about 5 pieces in my mouth at the same time.
Welp, MX, you've answered one lingering child-hood question that haunted me & my pals: "Is there anyone in the world that really collects these Bazooka Joe comics?" You yourself are indeed that nigh-mythical being whose existence we pondered! (Heh-)
Your survey of the chewing & bubble-gum landscape is VERY much in line with my own, it is--- really good post!
I don't know how any child could chew Big Red, even though that's who it was marketed to. FAR too sharp and strong for a kid's sense of taste. It honestly made the glands at the back of my throat hurt.
A couple of other notable gum choices:
- You have something like it pictured, but there were a couple of other foot-long type bubble-gum sticks that we were very fond of, one was grape and the other was cherry, I believe. Very sweet, nicely soft-- although they did also lose flavor quickly, so you'd keep biting bigger and bigger hunks off of them.
- The HUMONGOUS 1-1/2" diameter (or so) jaw-breaker gumballs that you could get for 10-cents (then 25 cents) from the machine at our grocery store. Roughly the outer 50% of the shell was that diamond-hard jaw-breaker candy, which covered a gumball center. Put one of those in your mouth, and you were reduced to mime-only communication for about half-an-hour. (The ones that were jawbreakers the full way through were actually what I preferred, though---)
Y'know-- for some reason, I would insist on still chewing that awful trading card gum no matter how unpleasant it was. The idea of just throwing it away was still the greater evil in my mind. Do we all recall how it would just keep pulverizing into smaller and smaller particles in your mouth? Taking what seemed like an eternity before it would absorb any saliva at all and actually soften into (more or less) regular gum-?? Man, working through that substance was an act of snack-food(ish) dedication. . .
HB
Great topic, I can relate to so much of what has already been said.
I did love the flavors of Fruit Stripe best, but I agree, it did not last long at all. Similarly, loved Freshen-Up, that little burst in the middle was so great, but likewise short-lived.
Bubble Yum, Bubblicious, and Bubble Yum...the big 3. I think I was partial to Bubble Yum, but any of those did just fine. Really enjoyed looking back through those old Bazooka Joe comics too of course!
I remember many a night playing wiffle ball in the neighborhood and breaking the Big League Chew out...emulation of our sports heroes to some extent, but so soft, tasty, and ideal for cutting right to huge bubble blowing.
And HB, I hear you on the trading card gum. It never occurred to me to throw it away, I attempted to chew it every time (though I agree, pulverize into smaller bits is much more accurate). I can still recall the smell of breaking open a fresh pack of Topps baseball (or similar) set of cards mixed with that gum...great memories!
Sorry, typo, meant to say Bubble Yum, Bubblicious, and Hubba Bubba!
Fun topic, Marti!
Edo is spot on regarding the best technique to prolong the Fruit Stripe flavor: a continuing addition of more gum. Maybe that was intentional; they got you to chew a whole pack quicker that way.
HB- right there with you on the big gumballs. Grape was always tops, but I recall a red cinnamon gumball that I loved. Don't recall the specifics, other than it was about the size of a quarter and was red hot (but not too hot).
I always liked the Ford gum that you could get at stores everywhere, usually in a machine dispenser dedicated to some charity (March of Dimes, or some such). They were smaller pieces, but you got a couple of them. They were kind of like Chiclets. Oh, speaking of Chiclets: anyone else love the packs of tiny Chiclets? Little bitty bits of color; you had to shake out most of a pack to have enough gum for a satisfying chew. Loads of fun, though.
And that trading card gum? Rock hard and nearly invulnerable. I bought a few packs of old Topps Baseball cards once, which still contained ten-year-old sticks of gum. Couldn't tell any difference.
Back in the '60s and '70s, I preferred the red-white-yellow-and-blue packaged Super Bubble bubble-gum for 2 cents each! They were bigger and a little rounder than Double-Bubble and I always thought the flavor was better and lasted longer.
I haven't chewed gum in years, but as a kid I loved it. I liked the usual--Hubba Bubba, Bubblicious, Bubbble-Yum--plus a few others like Chiclets (but only the coloured ones). You're right about Baseball (and Hockey) Card gum, it was gross; it had that weird powder on it ... I always gave mine away.
In Canada, we didn't have Bazooka Joe (at least not around here), we had Dubble Bubble. It wasn't great, but it only cost two cents, so it was affordable. The comics in Dubble Bubble were called Funnies With Pud and were pretty insipid, as I recall. There was also a gum called Chews that was really sour when you first put it in your mouth, but sweetened up later. And there was a gum with a liquid centre, but I can't remember what it was called.
Thank you for the link Mike Wilson. That was incredibly interesting. I had no idea Archie had a bazooka-like strip in Blony.
HB, you are so spot on about those jawbreakers. We were definitely reduced to pantomime and drool when eating one of those. Was that even safe? Do they make those anymore?
That baseball card gum was made to be moisture free so it did not affect the cards. And they coated it with corn starch so it wouldn't stick to the paper. I remember it crumbling in my mouth also - just horrible. But it didn't stop me from chewing it.
Does anybody recall Gold Rush gum? It came in a little sack and looked like gold rocks. I liked that gum but the little bag did not hold much.
That Bazooka gum was so hard you could dislocate your goddam jaw chewing that stuff.
Why was Joe wearing a patch, anyway? Did somebody throw a piece of that hard-ass gum at his eye?
If you had to chew a thousand packs of that gum to get a free bike, you'd be the kid in the neighborhood with a new bike and no teeth.
M.P.
Bubble Yum and Bubblicious were great. Gum came with the baseball cards too. I think i received a home run book from Bazooka Joe Gum. Another great gum was Fleer. Usually had a bucket of gum at the counter.
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