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MEMORIES:
Kapatsos remembers...I still love bubblegum!!!! dont chew it as much as I did then but its hard to beat that sweet tast More »
Posted on 02/25/08
PHOTOS:
From bubblegum machines to bubblegum pop, bubblegum has bubbled its way up from under chairs and classroom desks and into the collective conscious of pop culture as we know it.
First surfacing as chewing gum, the Wrigley company distributed sticks of gum with its baking powder in 1892. It quickly became the main event, though, and Juicy Fruit and Wrigley’s Spearment went on the market the following year.
The actual patent holder for the Dubble Bubble formula – the first to be designed specifically for bubble-blowing – is in dispute due to a What’s My Line episode which featured the company’s accountant, calling him the creator of the chewy confection.
Despite the blew-ha-ha over Double Bubble, we’ve had a plethora of other bubbly choices over the years, including Bubblicious, Hubba Bubba, Big League Chew, Bazooka Joe, Bubble Tape… not to mention the holy grail of childhood: the machines that stood outside every K-Mart, or barber shop, or Ponderosa. Perhaps you recall countless youthful moments spent peering through the glass at the multicolored rows of gumballs… digging in your pocket to see if there just happened to be a spare quarter there… and if you got lucky, plunking it in and, like a kiddie slot machine, waiting (im)patiently to see which color came out.
Even the tobacco companies got in the game, figuring that bubblegum cigars and cigarettes would create little oral fixations early in the game, softening them up for the real to-backy ones later on.
The best part about bubblegum, naturally, are the bubbles. Bubble blowers come in a wide variety of ages and skill levels. Some can barely make it pop, others can blow a bubble as big as their head. Some can even do the extra-sneaky inverted bubble. You know… the one you suck into your mouth before it pops? Okay, maybe that one could have been a little dangerous, but we had it under control, man, we never lost control… Well, there maybe there was that one time it got caught in your hair, but the ice trick really worked—or barring that, peanut butter. Or scissors.
And it turns out that swallowed gum won’t stay in your stomach for years to come. Still, one never knows. Maybe you’re better off leaving it on the ground for some poor passer-by to pick up on the bottom of his shoe. (As a bonus, you might trap an errant cartoon character in the process, as was so common among the Looney Tunes lot.) Stuck or swallowed, sugar-free or sugared-up, bubblegum has been a part of childhood for generations—and likely, generations to come.
