Ballin'

Well Hallowe'en, or what passes for it now, is a couple of days away kids!  Every year, when it rolls around, I am reminded of one of my favorites as a trick-or-treater, a sleeve of Bozo bubble gum balls.  I was all about chocolate and bubble gum as a kid, with the chalky Necco wafers, Mary Jane's and the like going to my dad straight out of my bag, while I hoarded $100,000 Bars, Baby Ruth's, Almond Joys and any and all bubble gum.

Bozo, at the time (mid 60's to mid 70's) came in a clear sleeve.  This promo ad gives you a good idea of the look:

I always seemed to get the assorted flavors and the whole shebang got popped into my mouth in one swoop once opened.  Happy days!

Bozo was a very early Topps product, sold in bulk originally to the wholesalers, who in turn supplied the folks with vending machine routes and businesses.  It was a very important early line for Topps and they were able to avoid a lot of packaging costs by dealing in bulk.

This July 29, 1950 Billboard article indicates a surge in popularity for ball gum, which caused some consternation at Topps (or more likely, their PR firm).  At a guess, this is when all those red topped Oak vending machine "trees' started appearing in the exit corridors and vestibules of grocery stores:

Bozo popped up in something resembling the party-sized Bazooka boxes found in stores for a spell in the 1960's but it seems to have flitted in and out of US retail consciousness for a couple of decades, possibly due to waxing and waning legal issues with Bozo the Clown.  It seems to have had a more sustained existence in Canada and there were countertop vendors that carried the branding, distributed by O-Pee-Chee:

I think a good supply of "new old stock" Bozo gumball machines has been unearthed as you can find those pretty easily in close to pristine condition.  Those were clearly designed to sit on a countertop as the top just screws off.

There were four or five flavors available along with the assorted:

I'll have to hit up my grand-nieces and nephews next week to see if Bozo even makes an appearance anymore!

Driven Batty

I started delving into 1968's Batty Book Covers a few posts ago when discussing some Basil Wolverton original art used by Topps in that set and also the same year's Ugly Hang-Ups. 1967-69 was the era of very large Topps products and Batty Book Covers are no exception, coming in at 11 1/16" x 18 13/16".

Obviously designed to be used to cover textbooks, the set was clearly a 1968 issue as detailed on the box:

Looks like Topps had a promotional deal going on ("Sale-A-Bration") with this box, possibly indicative of poor sales.

The wrapper is, well, batty:

The checklist is handy but inaccurate:

No. 5 is listed as "Wacky Packages" but it ended up being something called "Topps Is What's Happening" presumably because of worries over potential legal issues with the former's intended subject:

(Courtesy The Sport Americana Price Guide to the Non-Sports Cards Number 4 by Chris Benjamin)

Intriguingly, you can see the baseball card depicted is a fair approximation of the burlapped 68's. No less than 13 Topps products are shown, including Bozo gumballs, which is helpful to me as I have been trying for ages to track when they went from bulk wholesale product to retail packaging. I like the checklist appearing on the product itself as well.

Here are a few others, it's a great (and very tough) set and the covers are quite fragile as these examples from an old Legendary auction show:

That looks like Paul Coker artwork on the left panel (UPDATE 11/11/23-It's not-Mark Newgarden advises it's in Art Spiegelman's hand) and I see Jack Davis's hand on the main part of the cover above.  The whole set is peppered with art from MAD artists and it's amazing.  Look at the ad section from the above example (click to blow it up):

Here is more Davis, look at this tableaux!

The left panel has the instructions and they are classic-check out no. 4:

Legendary also had a concept sketch from the set:

Topps had some great artwork early on (1950-51) but it's got nothing on their late 60's output.

Oh, Canada!

Up North things are a little different.  Some parts of Canada speak French, nickel packs held four cards and their football fields have a 55 yard line.  And sometimes their package design cards just do something weird.

Take, for example, these 1963 Flag Midgee cards on Bozo Gum side panel:

Bozo, you will recall, was a gumball brand introduced by Topps in the late 1940's which migrated up to Canada for a spell before reappearing in the U.S. in the 1970's (near as I can tell).  Flag Midgee cards were originally a Topps issue in '63, amidst a wave of panelization that petered out quickly. Here's a regular panel as issued by Topps:

The reverse is informative:

The Bozo cards would be blank backed of course.  There is also a reference on one of the Benjamin Sport Americana Guides about blank backed cards being found in cereal boxes.

There are 99 cards in the Topps set (33 panels) but as you cna see below, only 36 in the Canadian version (12 panels) and the cards have been reoriented to the vertical:

In the Topps set those cards are numbered, from top to bottom, thusly: 16, 99, 94. I'm not sure if that corresponds to the original Topps ordering or not.  I'm also not sure of the full Canadian checklist as cards from that country are not was well documented as ones from the U.S. The box above is an O-Pee-Chee product, although it's hard to read in the scan.  It's a neat little set with a bit of a twist, eh?

Who Ya Callin' Bozo?

Around the time Topps introduced its new penny-sized Bazooka bubble gum tabs in 1949, they also started shipping a product known to millions but recognized by very few as one of their items. In October of that year bulk shipment of Bozo ball gum commenced. Sold in packs of 140,170 or 210 initially, by 1950 the line had stabilized at nine flavors (and colors) and was on the verge of national distribution, which was achieved just a couple of months later.  Early trade ads also make obvious a particular point; the gum does not seem to have been licensed from or named after Bozo the Clown:

Bozo was a huge part of Topps early success and shows the importance of their automatic vending division.  They just kept cranking out gumballs in the early days, without any need to really market the product except to the trade.  They also avoided having to pay for fancy packaging as Bozo ball gum was originally sold in those red penny vending machines we all remember from the supermarket or corner store:





Later iterations would be sold at retail.  By 1974 you could buy a gumball for two cents over-the counter.

That little ad is interesting and I blew it up and reoriented it for a better look:

In addition to apple there was orange, cherry, grape and hot (is that a flavor?) There was a larger packaging configuration too and this is the one I recall, from 1975 or so :

That came in a box like this and went for a dime:

This gumball machine hails from Canada:

That Parents Magazine recommendation was also something that applied to Bazooka in a campaign coordinated by Topps around 1949, so that's an early machine. I believe Bozo is still an active brand in Canada but don't think it is owned by Topps anymore.  I suspect they sold the line off around 1998 or so and intend to do some more research to find out. 


A number of scans above were provided courtesy of www.collectingcandy.com - go give Jason some love!