Today I get to share one of my favorite releases that came out of 1970’s Cadbury in the UK – Cadbury’s Monster Bars! Monster Bars were an imaginative and wonderfully-illustrated series of chocolate bar wrappers that received two different six-wrapper series, for a total of twelve awesome Monster Bar wrappers.
First sold by Cadbury’s of England, at least the first series would see a separate release from Cadbury’s Irish division as well as the Australian/New Zealand branch. Each division’s wrappers would also possess subtle differences.
We’re going to look at the originals first, than touch upon the regional differences. Let’s take a look:
Series One
UK – Cadbury’s – Monster Bar series one – Grerk the Giant Gorilla – candy bar wrapper – 1970’s
UK – Cadbury’s – Monster Bar series one – Henry the Dragon – candy bar wrapper – 1970’s
UK – Cadbury’s – Monster Bar series one – The Very Big Brontosaurus – candy bar wrapper – 1970’s
UK – Cadbury’s – Monster Bar series one – The Green Grokrumple – candy bar wrapper – 1970’s
UK – Cadbury’s – Monster Bar Series One – Abominable Snowman – 1970’s
Ireland – Cadbury’s – Monster Bar Series One – Dinosaur who had Dreams – 1970’s
Please note that my last series one wrapper, “The Dinosaur who DREAMS”, differs slightly from the other series one wrappers I’ve collected. It was produced out of the Dublin, Ireland Cadbury factory, as is indicated on the wrapper. The difference of the wrappers, beyond the Dublin indication itself, is that it does not include a printed-on price like those produced in England.
Next up, series two:
Series Two
UK – Cadbury’s – Monster Bar series two – Grog and Nog – candy bar wrapper – 1970’s
UK – Cadbury’s – Monster Bar series two – Hairy Mammoths – candy bar wrapper – 1970’s
UK – Cadbury’s – Monster Bar series two – Loch Ness Monsters – candy bar wrapper – 1970’s
UK – Cadbury’s – Monster Bar series two – no one can describe it – candy bar wrapper – 1970’s
UK – Cadbury’s – Monster Bar series two – The Most Important Woffler In The World – candy bar wrapper – 1970’s
UK – Cadbury’s – Monster Bar series two – The Murky Murgswump – candy bar wrapper – 1970’s
That’s the whole of series two. And with it, you’ve had the chance to see all the entries of this cool series that offered great colorful illustrations and wacky stories to go along with them. I don’t know if it’s entirely appropriate, but I’d like to categorize Cadbury’s Monster Bars as a confectionery cult classic.
I already described the differences between the Monster Bar wrappers produced out of England and those out of Ireland, but there were other differences between the Monster Bars that came out of the Australia/New Zealand branch of Cadbury and the English variety. I’d like to cover those next.
For the Aussie-NZ wrappers; first, the company is referred to as the singular Cadbury on the wrapper, rather than Cadbury’s. Also, the Aussie-NZ wrappers appear to be about 20%-30% smaller than their UK counterparts. Here’s a side-by-side comparison of “The Very Big Brontosaurus”:
New Zealand to UK Cadbury Monster wrapper comparison – 1970’s
As you can plainly see, the UK’s Brontosaurus was a little bit bigger than the one from Down Under.
So, if you were a real completest, you could assemble three different country sets of Monster Bar wrappers for series one. I don’t know if there was a series two out of Ireland or Australia-New Zealand, as I’ve yet to find any non-UK versions of them. But I am always keeping my eyes peeled.
A few years ago, when I was first learning about Cadbury’s Monster Bars, I found a fantastic website documenting one man’s personal recollections of them. He also shared images of the set of series one wrappers he’d assembled at the time. Dean Munday is the creator of that site and if you’d like to see what the early 70’s comic book ads for Cadbury’s Monster Bars looked like, you can view them by following this link. If you think these wrappers are cool, I recommend you check it out.
And that’s everything I’ve got to share with regard to one of my favorite 1970’s UK chocolate bar releases. I hope you enjoyed the look back at these wonderful releases.
See you next time!
