Tape Measure Job

I picked up an opened penny pack of circa 1950 Bazooka last month in large part due to the fact the bubble gum was still intact and not broken like one would expect after seventy five years in captivity. And yes, I know this is not normal behavior! So I thought a measured look at this prize was in order and am happy to report my findings.

The first packs of one cent Bazooka came out in the late summer/early fall of 1949 and included two series of comics: Spalding Sports Show and Historical Almanac.  These came in a foil wrapper that's pretty close to the one I am diving into here but has clear differences marking it as the ur-penny pack of Bazooka. Based upon the sheer amount of known subjects (over 120 at last count), Historical Almanac seems to have run for some time, whereas Willard Mullin's SSS was a licensing deal that looks to have concluded after its first run. My theory is that Historical Almanac was then printed along with a set of comics called either Sports Oddities and/or Know Your Sports, noting the former of those titles was bestowed by the American Card Catalog. Whatever you call it, these comics had the look of Spalding Sports Show to a degree but with no Willard Mullin art.  This came foil-wrapped like so in penny form:

I note that the white background behind "young America's favorite" was added after the debut run of Bazooka; if that motto is just printed on plain foil with no background it's from the first run 1949 packs, at least that's how I view it: This wrapper measures 2" x 2 13/16" if you're scoring at home.  Since there's no titles on the one cent version of the comics called Know Your Sports in nickel form, this may be a Sports Oddities example in terms of nomenclature but it's hard to tell as these are scarce little suckers overall and there could also be two very similar sets, or one with different styles:

That RBI mark has long since fallen BTW, and is currently held by Fernando Tatis who clocked two grand slams in one inning in 1999! Fred Merkle was the first to notch the feat in 1911, followed by Bob Johnson in 1937 before Tom McBride did it in 1945.  It was again reached in late 1950 and then several times thereafter until Tatis slugged his way to immortality.

The Bazooka proper came loosely protected (lengthwise it seems) in this little advert glassine strip, measuring 1 1/8" x 2 7/8":

The bubble gum resembled the Topps Gum of the era, which Bazooka was rapidly forcing out of the limelight:

7/8" x 1 3/8" on that gum tab folks, plus it's 3/16" high, but note it was a double stack, so 3/8" high as packed as these two long-fused pieces show:

None of the production marks or packaging rips known with Topps Gum and pretty much every small tattoo issue from the company through the 1970's can be seen, so it's pretty clear Bazooka had a discrete production line.

I really dig the pre-Bazooka Joe comics and little inserts Topps marketed as they tried to find their way with what was once the world's most famous bubble gum.  Hopefully more foil-wrapped items turn up every now and then for further examination!

Five In Hand

Well Friend o'the Archive Lonnie Cummins has done it again-he's sent along a penny tab version of the circa 1949-50 Topps Sports Oddities, a Willard Mullin illustrated set much like the same year's Spalding Sports Show and where the one cent comic is linked to the five cent version known as Know Your Sports.

(10/29/20 NOTE: I don't know as much as I thought!  I have been advised the Sports Oddities/Know Your Sports are not by Mullin-artist is presently unknown.)

Here's what I know about these sepia colored comics; I'm a Willard Mullin fanatic, so will be going well off script in describing the first's historical background:

Spalding Sports Show is designated in the 1960 American Card Catalog as R414-1 and is thought to contain 25 subjects.  It's known on one cent wrapper reverses only (early Bazooka comics were affixed to the underside of the outer foil wrapper) and the illustrations first appeared in an annual promotional pamphlet issued by A.G. Spalding & Bros. in support of their sponsored program on NBC Radio.  There is a 1944 issue with a photo of Base Ruth on the cover:

I believe that is the first of its kind as the year prior Spalding sponsored a show called "Baseball Quiz" that was hosted by the Babe. This Saturday morning kids show, which premiered in 1943, ran for five weeks or so in June and July before reappearing in late August and airing until just before Thanksgiving.  The show then returned on July 8, 1944 as "Here's Babe Ruth" but must have morphed into Spalding Sports Show at some point soon thereafter, most likely in the fall as the name was still unchanged in August --which is the latest I can track in '44-- and was off the air before Hallowe'en.

I'm not sure of the content in 1944's pamphlet but all of the issues after that year are Mullin tours-de-force. They featured a couple pages of Spalding equioment ads while the rest was all Willard.

In 1945 it wasn't only the pamphlet that got the full Mullin treatment; check out this killer newspaper ad:

There were multiple versions of the ad as well; Mullin was quite prolific. Here's the actual 1945 issue, with a selfie of sorts:

1946 brought more media ads (as did every year thereafter) and a new pamphlet:

The cover is almost a study in noir:

The 1945 and 1946 pamphlets are tough to find, no doubt quantities were limited by the war effort the first year and ongoing supply shortages the second. The '44 seems a bit easier, possibly because the Ruth connection raised retention rates but it's not exactly common.

1947 though, gave us this beauty, which set the visual pace going forward:

1948 re-introduced the orange color scheme
:

And then 1949 brought two different editions.  The first repeated the cover above but added sub brands Reach and Wright + Ditson to the cover text:

I have to think that came out at the tail end of the 1948-49 radio season.  Here' an interior shot where the resemblance to the forthcoming Topps comics is apparent:

Things got back to normal on the cover again in June of '49 when print ads started appearing for this one; I'd say the radio season back then started roughly when kids got out of school for the summer. Mullin drew himself into this one:

1950 brought an indication the radio season spanned New Year's:

1951 continued the theme and you will note a store stamp on this example, plus another Mullin appearance. Great promo item, right? You can see why Topps licensed the artwork given the reach of the publication:

Then 1952 brought the end of the era with TV presumably killing the radio show and associated sponsorship off:

I should probably show a Spalding Sports Show comic or six after all that, sorry if you've seen these here before:

Sports Oddities may not have derived from the Spalding Sports Show pamphlet art as I suspect Topps just engaged Mullin directly. I have no idea if the set even has a name in one cent form, Jeff Shepherd christened it such years ago and I'm keeping it that way. The contrast on this scan from Worthpoint, via Lonnie, is turned way up but these are not as quite as dark as R414-1:

It was on the back of a wrapper like this:

Topps used that Bazooka wrapper in 1949 and 1950 from what I know if, mixing in the white background behind "young America's favorite" with one that was solid. I believe these came after the Spalding Sports Show comics because that specific image appears on a five cent wrapper where the comic is called Know Your Sports.  It took Topps a year or so to realize you could market the same thing on the one and five cent comics without hurting sales, which is why I lean toward this set being issued after Spalding Sports Show.

Here's the big boy, with the one cent comic shown above repeated in the upper right corner:

Here's five more:

That last one came affixed to this wrapper:

Here's a six pack of Sports Oddities penny tabs, half are found on the five cent wrappers above:

And here is the best one of all, scan courtesy of Mr. Cummins; I'm not sure it's by Mullin though:

(UPDATE 9/21/20-I snagged a 1948 edition of the SSS after I published this post and this is the Matty; it was redrawn for some reason when Topps issued the comic.  Compare to the image below Matty, which has one of the Spalding Sports Show vignettes faithfully reproduced to the left of Shag Shaughnessy).

I think it's safe to say the checklist can be derived from a combination of large and small versions. I'll leave it at a visual checklist for now, which is a 14 count by my math.

These penny comics may also have been mixed in with another unnamed set dubbed Famous Events in the 1960 American Card Catalog and dubbed R411-4 by Burdick. There's two styles of these (the font along the bottom is different), so specifically dating this mess is almost impossible. At least one date repeats and it's highly doubtful all, or anything near 366 potential calendar days were issued:

Sepia soon gave way to color on the penny comics but remained on and off on the five cent versions into about 1953; a purple shade was added for a short time as well but it's unclear how many series of comics were given this treatment.

Boom Goes The Dynamite!

OK, since I inadvertently published the Woody Gelman magazine spread six days early, this will be a sorta-short Saturday post today, a fishing expedition to boot.  Actually, I'm trying to gather more information and fill in checklists on the early Bazooka comics and trays before Bazooka Joe supplanted them all in 1954.

But first, some tray action as I was rolling through the always fun and informative Vintage Non-Sports Forum the other day when I happened upon a message from Jeff Forteza showing (quite clearly) 17 of the 18 tray cards from the very early (and crude) Story of the Atom Bomb (R709-3) tray set that cradled a five cent roll of Bazooka 70 odd years ago:

The missing card #6, which is why I am showing these.  Can anyone provide a scan or a title for it?

Speaking of early Bazooka, R414-1, is a Bazooka comic insert set that came in some of the earliest one cent packs of Bazooka. The set count, from what I have found reading through the scant documentation available, is 25.  I own a type example and they are difficult to find but a Pinterest page by Tracee Stewart gives us five more beyond the mine:

I have this one in my collection but I'll use her scan as the comic is in far better shape than mine:

So 24% of the checklist is now known.  Who else can help out with scans?

A related set is Sports Odditities, which I think is the one cent version of a nickel wrapper feature called Know Your Sports. I'm not 100% on that but there larger comic looks like it could be broken down quite easily into single panels.

Two penny singles are known to me:

These are clearly Willard Mullin pieces, just like Spalding Sports Show. His genius is on display with that boxing comic!

The nickel version may or may not add five additional subjects (and I also need nickel wrapper scans beyond this one):

Know Your Sports may, in turn, be part of a larger group of comics that don't seem to have any connection and which encompass puzzles, Daily News Comic Strips and DC comic characters, plus some stuff I probably don't even know about.  If you assume 25 penny size comics make up the set, like Spalding Sports Show, then five larger ones might be the entirety of the five cent wraps for this (sub) series. These could have been interspersed with SSS as well.

I'll have another request like this coming up in the near future but the 1947-54 pre-Joe period is hard to cipher and research is hampered by how few of these comics have survived since they were affixed to the interior of the foil wrappers until Topps started individually wrapping their famous bubble gum in the early 50's. The outside wrapper then protected the whole shebang. And don't get me going on the survival rate of the trays.....

In The Year Of '49

An almost 72 year old oddity is upon us today campers, as we look at some very early Bazooka comics that are among the biggest obscurities ever issued by Topps.

I've posted previously on R414-1, the essentially unknown one-cent Bazooka comic dubbed Spalding Sports Show (SSS) and featuring artwork from Willard Mullin that was issued, per Jefferson Burdick, in 1949.  That set may or may not be complete at 25 subjects and I'll be damned if I can find a full checklist anywhere.  Well another, similar comic from it has turned up and is intriguing.

I'll show our new comic first, it's kinda batty:

Compare that to a SSS subject:

Not the same issue, nor are the foil outer wraps quite the same.  This is the foil overwrap for our newbie:

It's close to but not quite a match for the SSS foil:

Ignore the differences in albedo, which is just a result of different scan settings, and look near the top.  These wrappers seem identical except for the lack of a white background behind "Young America's Favorite" on the Spalding Sports Show wrapper. There may be a slight difference in the indicia but things are too reflective on the new one to tell for sure..

This points to the next round of comics likely issued just after the initial runs of SSS comics (Topps would print two series at once sometimes for Bazooka comics through 1954 or so but I believe the outer wraps would be consistent when they did so as these were copyrighted).  There is a set known colloquially as Sports Oddities that fits the bill though. I've got a boxing example from what I think is the same set as our 'batty" example above that I have attributed to that name.  This is scanned along with its foil wrapper, which is a match for our newly found treasure:

I think this issue is related to 1949's Know Your Sports, which appeared with the five cent Bazooka rolls of the time.  The penny version just appropriated single panels of the nickel's:

As penny Bazooka tabs started appearing in the late summer or fall of 1949, Sports Oddities seems like a 1950 issue to me but that is up in the air presently.

I'm working on cataloging as much as I can about the very early Bazooka issues for the second edition of my book detailing the early Topps days through 1956.  Other projects are also in the works but this one will likely happen first, so if you have any examples from the pre-Bazooka Joe era, please contact me. I have some but am looking for a larger collection of images to pick from.

Foiled Rotten

BFF o'the Archive Jeff Shepherd recently listed some rare Bazooka five cent foil wrappers on eBay, many with comics still attached to their underside.  I've got a few of these myself (there's over a dozen different from the "foil" era), just added a couple of the below, and can attest how difficult these early Bazooka wrappers are.  They are very delicate and very old, not a great confluence of circumstances for survival. Shep seems to have rounded up the rarest ones for this offering though.

The foil wrappers, introduced in 1947 in nickel form were mostly similar to this one on the outside, with some slight variation over the years, although the earliest ones didn't have the Parents Magazine seal:

They only sold nickel packs of Bazooka until mid-1949 when the penny tabs came out but I'm not addressing those in this post.

The oldest of these Shep offerings also Willard Mullin artwork, namely the 1950-ish Know Your Sports, which is also known as Sports Oddities in some circles.  Behold the master:

Yes, that is a reference to the Harlem Rens in the lower right corner, who were founded before the more famous Globetrotters. It seems like the fact the team had been together 28 years when the comic was released would help date the issue but it's complicated. The Rens were founded in 1923 but had moved to Dayton, Ohio after the war, disbanding after the 1948-49 National Basketball League season when the NBL merged with another league to form the NBA (the NBL was integrated, the NBA would not be until their second season), so....I think Mullin jumped the gun and missed the team's dissolution.  So it's 1950-ish for this one.

If you think that's one tough, here's an even tougher one, with two known comics having survived in the series.  Topps obviously had an affinity for the bazooka!

The Bob Burns story can be found here and and the Topps Bazooka story has been covered here before. Click the links at right for a boatload of Bazooka posts if that one doesn't do it for you.

Pixie is from 1953 and hardly ever seen:

Lots to do there!

Last up is a late entry, namely an oddball from 1969 that harkens back to the originals of the 40's and 50's:

Love the discount sticker from Grant's!

Even the comic was a throw back, although Bazooka Joe had reigned supreme since his introduction in 1954 and the phasing out of the third party produced comics:

Based on that fortune, I'll bet someone just got their clock cleaned!  It's a little odd to see a sepia Joe in the late 60's but what the hey.