FANS:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
MEMORIES:
Youth_Happiness remembers...This was so funny as a young child, the impression of seeing something in the pool that looked brown at ... More »
Posted on 10/14/08
PHOTOS:
Baby Ruth. Chocolate covered caramel-nougat and peanuts. Thick and sticky enough to pull teeth. What kids have drooled over since its creation in 1921. Perhaps the most controversial candies in existence?
The history behind the American classic is obscured at best. Many have just assumed it was named after famed American baseball player, Babe Ruth, whose star happened to be rising at the time Baby Ruth was created. Curtiss Candy Company, makers of Baby Ruth, maintains that the bar was named after the daughter of former president Grover Cleveland’s daughter; incidentally, a daughter that died at the age of 12 in 1904. More recently, explanations from outside sources have surfaced. Was it named after the granddaughter of a candy bar collaborator-turned-rival, George Williamson (who, in a similar controversy, may or may not have created the "Oh Henry!" candy bar)? It has been difficult for spectators, courtrooms and conspiracy theorists to straighten out completely, and to this day the candy bar remains one of the most bitterly disputed confections available.
One true claim to fame for the candy bar was that it was initially offered for 5-cents a bar, half the price of the competition! Sales were good, though they would skyrocket after a publicity stunt in 1923, during which Otto Schnering, the founder of Curtiss, had parachute-laden Baby Ruth bars dropped from airplanes above cities across the United States.
Kids weren’t the only ones to go nuts for the nutty bar – Hollywood had a ball with it in the 1980s. In The Goonies, the deformed brother of the Fratellis, Sloth, wants nothing more than a Baby Ruth, ripping through chains and knocking people over just to get his hands on the bar – turning a whole new generation of kids onto the chewy goodness known as Baby Ruth. In the 1980s film, Caddyshack, a Baby Ruth is tossed into the swimming pool causing panic and uproar, only to end with the pool drained and the groundskeeper taking a bite of the bar, to the shock of on-lookers.
One of the best things about Baby Ruth is that you can still find it in grocery and convenience stores to this day. You can also find it in ice cream form, perfectly reminiscent but made for a hot summer day. No matter how they came up with the name, it’s clear that Baby Ruth, America’s Baby, was built to last.
