Super Seventies Sales Sensations

A trio of Seventies Topps sell sheets today kids, as I'm feeling a little nostalgic for what I consider to be a decade very much unlike any other.  The last good time, in many (but not all) ways!

Anyhoo, we've seen Topps "package" promotions before but I've only covered those involving card and sticker issues.  Those were used to burn off products that weren't 't selling well or where Topps overestimated demand for ones that were. Here, given that Ring Pops and Big Mouth, both top sellers,  are in the deal, it looks like Topps was trying to piggyback Smooth 'N' Juicy, which was their tepid answer to Bubble Yum's unrelenting assault, and Sugar Free Bazooka, which was not exactly a carbon copy of the original, plus some candy items.

Much cooler all around was this as for Cherry and Grape Bazooka, which were both tasty treats I enjoyed at the time, especially the latter...

...but what caught my eye was not the dual flavor box but rather the canister in the lower right corner.  As you can see it clearly states Flavor Mates.  Well, the last time we saw examples from that brand they were a sugarless bubble gum, so did Topps just have extra canisters displays lying around because nobody liked the gum?

And speaking of things nobody liked, it's Bubble Fudge!

Let's conclude with something a little more novel, sent along some time ago by Friend o'the Archive Lonnie Cummins:

The commodity code on this pins it to 1970 and the only reason it would have the code is so Topps could track income and expenses on an aggregate basis.  The idea persisted for at least another year and then may have been curtailed as Topps reined in costs as they prepared for their March 1972 IPO. By the time they issued the Countermates (I never know if that should be one word or two, nor did Topps!) sell sheet that we kicked things off with today, I guess they started tracking things in a different way.

Oh, Fudge!

Gary Gerani has spent over half a century entertaining people.  He's a well-known screenwriter in La La Land, an author and, to the point here, has created and/or contributed to hundreds of trading card and sticker sets.  This envious career arc essentially started at Topps way back in 1972 when he joined the New Product Department under the tutelage of Len Brown and Woody Gelman. He's now started to write a series of books that will take a decade-by-decade look at his trading card endeavors and his first volume tackles the Seventies in highly amusing fashion.

So I was in the middle of reading his enjoyably flippant book, which is titled The Card King Chronicles Vol. 1, when I happened upon a couple of paragraphs about a 1975 product called Bubble Fudge. It tickled a vague memory of seeing such a thing back in my reckless youth, although I'm pretty sure I never tried it, generally preferring my chocolate, then and now, in bar or better yet, ice cream form (chocolate chip to be exact). A little digging turned up a production piece for the outer wrapper and it is clearly part of the Super Bazooka line of softer gums Topps was somewhat urgently manufacturing at the time: 

That line was started by Topps to counter the very real threat of Bubble Yum, which had been introduced by Life Savers earlier that year and was laying waste to Bazooka's market share. Super Bazooka launched with a product called Smooooth N' Juicy and Topps kept coming up with new twists for the line, one of which was Bubble Fudge.  Five pieces look to have come overwrapped in that pack, as I found this out there in the wilds of  Pinterest:

That's clearly a promo shot but I can't say it made the product look appetizing. As it turns out, that image was either used in or created for a 1979 commercial for the product, starring Johnny Bench. Despite the misgivings of Mr. Gerani, it seems like the flavor was around for a few years and it may still exist overseas.

At the same time I was looking up Bubble Fudge, I found an eBay auction with a piece of Hot Bazooka, which, as it turns out, is a rare item.  Alas, I was too late but did get a couple of images:

I could not discern the last digit of the commodity code but a little goggling revealed this was a 1973 product. Jason Liebig, no surprise, over at his wonderful Collecting Candy blog has all the fiery details on this product. Now, I need to go find me a Hot Bazooka wrapper....