Sundae School

Some of you may recall my semi-recent piece on Sparklers Bubble Gum. The US and Canadian releases differed a bit on these colorful 1960's offerings and the continued evolution of this multi-flavor confection on both sides of the 48th Parallel eventually led to it devolving into a specific flavor  offering.  That flavor was cherry, or flaming cherry to be precise, although it's possible other flavors were also jailbreaked:

It's not at all clear to me why a specifically flavored product had four unrelated fruits plus a schematic of the Coronavirus joining the cherry in orbit here.  I do note the spiky gumball was featured on both earlier products of this chewy confection, so that tracks given both were branded as Sparklers. I'm guessing they added cinnamon to the cherry flavoring to get the desired effect but this doesn't seem to be related to the Hot Bazooka flavor that came around in 1973.

The "new Grape" product flat beneath our flaming cherries is intriguing and there was a "new Cherry" as well; if this was all from an archive if some sort I'm guessing these products could have played a part in the evolution of Sparklers into good ol' flavored Bazooka (which is the Fruit Sundae" flavor as originally concocted):

This flat, which is from the US, possibly dates to 1967 (January if the inked in figure is correct but it may be a red herring), although I suspect the Flaming Cherry Sparklers were a couple of years earlier:

I'm still working on the stamp numbers off to the right as I feel like the second digit it a 5 and not a 3 but if it's the latter, the stamp was applied on June 8, 1967. (Update: 10/27/25: It does appear to be a 3, so it's June of '67.)

Will more Sparklers items show up?

Orbital Mechanics Mate

I regret I don't have any Christmas-themed objet's d' Topps to share this year but have no fear -a whole buncha of product updates from Friend o'the Archive Lonnie Cummins are here!

Further to the goodies passed along by Jason Rhodes a month or so ago, Lonnie has provided images of an OPC Sparklers Bubble Gum retail box:

Compare that to the US version:

What's odd is that the lip-licking kid has been redrawn (a tip o'the Santa hat to Mark Newgarden for that observation). It's slight but the two images not the same.  The fruits orbiting his head are new as well. I get the additions to his noggin's solar system but the changed main image is a little mystifying. Also of note, the gum count has doubled, to 160 pieces of "ballgum" as they say up North:

The back panel is fruity:

The U.S. box had a Bazooka ad but in in Canada a side panel recreated the image from the (U.S.) box top, with the sparkly gumballs in orbit.

Speaking of fruity gum, a Wild Cherry Flavor Mates wrapper also exists:

That makes five flavors now:

Banana

Fruit Punch

Grape

Orange

Wild Cherry

Interestingly the Banana and Fruit Punch flavors are clearly identified as having "Imitation Flavor" on the main "splash" of their wrappers and both of those carry a commodity code.  The Orange and Wild Cherry flavors only note natural and artificial flavors in the ingredients indicia and carry no code, so I wonder if they predate their imitation brethren?  The codes started sometime in 1966 and while there could have been tests of the product, or a tweaking of ingredients it may have just been a matter of timing on each wrapper's design and implementation. 

I'm still looking for a good scan of the Grape wrapper and any other variants that might exist but this blurry image (also from Lonnie) is inconclusive as to what is written thereon, but don't believe I see a commodity code or any large "Imitation Flavor" wording, so it adheres to the present "no code/no imitation" protocol:

Lonnie also sent along a much more vivid partial box cover scan that makes me think our flavors have maxed out at five:

That's all four known individual fruit flavors indicated, with fruit punch implied, I guess! That's some enticing artwork but I don't think it helped sales much.

Have a great holiday everybody!

Bubble Gum Byways

Some odds and sods today kids!

Friend o'the Archive Jason Rhodes passed along this little bit of fun some time ago and I'm just now managing to show it. I would have bought this product had I seen this box:

That looks really cool, right?!  I'm estimating it as early Sixties, based upon the box-bottom indicia:

Can't say I've seen many, if any,  80 count boxes from that era but this was one.

Another weird one was Giant Bubble Gum, which I believe was a twist wrap product from around the same time, maybe even a smidge earlier. This is courtesy of Lonnie Cummins:

A short time ago I took an unexpected peek at Topps Flavor Mates gum, which was one of the things packed into the mysterious Wild Animal Surprise Box.  It's a byway in Topps history but the highlighting  of  Imitation Flavor is not something they would often promote.  Here's a Fruit Punch flavor, to go along with the previously seen Grape, Orange and Banana:

I think that commodity code ends in a -9...

...so it's 1969 addition to the line as the Banana flavor included in the Wild Animal box dates to 1968, while the Orange has no code that I've seen and the Grape is indeterminate due to lack of a good scan.

Finally, how about some original artwork for Gold Rush, as painted by Norm Saunders, as shown at normansaunders.com:

What's really neat about that artwork is his children, David and Zina, were the hand models:

Gold Rush was always a favorite of mine and when it was all chewed up, which didn't take very long, you got a little pouch that could hold all sorts of things:

Sorry, no Turkey Bubble Gum to show as we approach Thanksgiving!