{"id":1040,"date":"2012-02-18T14:09:49","date_gmt":"2012-02-18T19:09:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/?p=1040"},"modified":"2012-03-02T01:42:21","modified_gmt":"2012-03-02T06:42:21","slug":"collecting-curlywurly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/?p=1040","title":{"rendered":"Collecting CurlyWurly"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I’ve long been uncertain of how the name of this bar should be written.\u00a0 Is it two separate words as in Curly Wurly, one word but with an oddly-placed capital like CurlyWulry, or is it simply a single name like Curlywurly?\u00a0 While I still don’t know for sure, I do know I love this chocolate bar.<\/p>\n

Cadbury introduced CurlyWurly in the United Kingdom in 1970.\u00a0 It was a long flat braid of chocolate-covered caramel, and it was a hit.\u00a0 Similar bars would soon appear from other confectioners – my childhood favorite Marathon bar among them.\u00a0\u00a0 So it was that childhood recollection of Marathon that first led me to the CurlyWurly as an adult.<\/p>\n

The best news about CurlyWurly is that it is still produced and sold in the UK, Europe, and Australia.\u00a0 If you’re in the US, and have ever gone hunting for a way to recapture your Marathon bar memories, you have inevitably been directed to the import of CurlyWurly bars.\u00a0 If you’ve done so, you’ve likely been pleased you did. \u00a0 They’re delicious.<\/p>\n

All Those Wonderful Wrappers<\/h2>\n

The first CurlyWurly wrapper I encountered was the one that came on the import bars I ordered back in 2007 or 2008.\u00a0\u00a0 It was also the first CurlyWurly wrapper in my collection:<\/p>\n

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UK - Cadbury CurlyWurly wrapper - 2008<\/p><\/div>\n

A year later I’d find my first vintage CurlyWurly wrapper.\u00a0 It came to me when I acquired a vintage packaging collection dubbed “The Munktiki Collection”<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 It was a good one and I believe it dates back to the first years of the brand:<\/p>\n

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UK - Cadbury's CurlyWurly wrapper - early 1970's<\/p><\/div>\n

With that wrapper in hand, I had the humble beginnings of my vintage CurlyWurly collection in place.<\/p>\n

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CurlyWurly buttons or "badges" - the most common CurlyWurly item I encounter.<\/p><\/div>\n

One of the coolest tie-ins done during the early years of CurlyWurly has to be the CreepyWurly Ghost Mobile mail-away.\u00a0 I would eventually find both the wrapper and the awesome mobile itself:<\/p>\n

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Cadbury's Curly Wurly - CreepyWurly Ghost Mobile wrapper - 1973<\/p><\/div>\n

As I’ve gotten to know British confectionery items of the 70’s, it’s clear they fed the kids’ love of monsters.<\/p>\n

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CreepyWurly mail-away Ghost Mobile - 1973<\/p><\/div>\n

Another cool CurlyWurly piece in my collection is this five-pack outer wrapper that featured a mail-away for dinosaur cards.\u00a0 I don’t know if the individual wrappers featured dinos on them as well – they might have and if they did, one day I hope to find one.<\/p>\n

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Cadbury's CurlyWurly - five bar multi-pack - prehistoric monster cards - 1970's<\/p><\/div>\n

Not long after I started collecting CurlyWurlys, I learned of British actor Terry Scott who in the 1970’s was the brand’s mascot\/spokesman.\u00a0 His zany television commercials made quite the impression on English youths.\u00a0 [I highly recommend seeking the commercials out on YouTube and the like.\u00a0 They might seem a bit dated and odd at first – especially for non-UK viewers, but they’ve grown on me.\u00a0 I find them quite delightful when I see them now.]<\/p>\n

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Curly Wurly magazine ad featuring Terry Scott -1974<\/p><\/div>\n

When I’d first seen this ad, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be neat to find that wrapper?”<\/p>\n

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Cadbury's CurlyWurly - NEW - chocolate wrapper - 1974<\/p><\/div>\n

Terry’s character did more than just commercials, he was also featured on the CurlyWurly wrappers themselves:<\/p>\n

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Cadbury's CurlyWurly T-shirt offer wrapper - with Terry Scott - 1970's<\/p><\/div>\n

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Cadbury's - CurlyWurly - Flip N' Fly offer - chocolate wrapper - 1976<\/p><\/div>\n

For the Flip N’ Fly wrapper, I also received a set of that actual Flip n’ Fly mail-away premiums.<\/p>\n

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CurlyWurly Flip N' Fly flyers - 1976<\/p><\/div>\n

Terry didn’t appear on every wrapper during this period, but even if he wasn’t on a wrapper for a promo, he often found his way onto related advertising.<\/p>\n

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Cadbury's - CurlyWurly - Bay City Rollers cards wrapper - 1975<\/p><\/div>\n

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CurlyWurly - double page ad from Record Mirror & Disc - January 24 1976<\/p><\/div>\n

The Leo Burnett company helped launch and subsequently market the CurlyWurly with Cadbury, and beyond marketing to kids, they also targeted the parents that were buying.\u00a0 Here’s an ad designed to do just that:<\/p>\n

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CurlyWurly magazine ad - targeting parents - later 70's or early 80's<\/p><\/div>\n

Cadbury stretched the concept of CurlyWurly when they released this orange-flavored variety in 1997:<\/p>\n

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Curly Wurly Cool Orange - 15p chocolate bar wrapper - 1997<\/p><\/div>\n

Along my collecting way, I’ve discovered that CurlyWurlys produced in other countries often feature fun and different designs.\u00a0 The contemporary Australian CurlyWurly has its own unique wrapper:<\/p>\n

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Australia - Cadbury Curly Wurly wrapper - 2009<\/p><\/div>\n

Cadbury-Australia also released a short-lived banana-flavor CurlyWurly sometime in the late 1990’s – though I don’t have a wrapper for that one.<\/p>\n

Germany’s own contemporary wrapper for CurlyWurly still sports the brand’s original logo style:<\/p>\n

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German Cadbury CurlyWurly wrapper - 2009<\/p><\/div>\n

Display boxes for the 2009 German CurlyWurly featured a pair of animal mascots that do not appear on the wrappers themselves:<\/p>\n

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German CurlyWurly display box panel with mascots - 2009<\/p><\/div>\n

Using the same design as the UK at the time, this was New Zealand’s wrapper for their early 1990’s CurlyWurly launch:<\/p>\n

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New Zealand CurlyWurly wrapper - early 1990's<\/p><\/div>\n

As a collector, I’ve enjoyed the variety of designs that CurlyWurlys have provided from their various international incarnations.\u00a0 While on a trip to Paris just last fall, I convinced my girlfriend to take detour through a Monoprix store to look for candy and found this wonderful new French edition:<\/p>\n

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French CurlyWurly wrapper - November 2011<\/p><\/div>\n

Circling back to CurlyWurly UK, there have been several major revisions and evolutions of the wrappers as well as countless on-pack promotions which I expect I’ll be finding for many years.\u00a0 For a time in the UK there were also CurlyWurly Squirlies, small squiggles of caramel-covered-chocolate – but I’ve yet to find one of those packages.<\/p>\n

Most unexpected in this collector’s journey are a variety of wrappers that have proved to be incredibly elusive – the CurlyWurlys produced for the United States market.<\/p>\n

For a period in the 1970’s, CurlyWurly bars were actually packaged and sold by Cadbury’s US division.\u00a0 I’ve never found an actual wrapper – but I do have this small image of one:<\/p>\n

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CurlyWurly - USA release wrapper - mid-1970's<\/p><\/div>\n

Until recently, I’d assumed that was the only CurlyWurly style sold in the States, but just two months ago, I found this ad from a 1973 Chicago newspaper.\u00a0 Based on the timing, one can speculate that Cadbury rushed CurlyWurlys into US markets to deal with the release of Mars’ Marathon bar (a similar bar which also launched in the US in 1973):<\/p>\n

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CurlyWurly newpaper advertisement - Chicago Tribune comic section - Oct 7, 1973<\/p><\/div>\n

Though I don’t recall ever seeing these US CurlyWurlys in my youth, both are on the top of my long want-list.\u00a0 Someday I hope to track these down and add them to my collection.\u00a0 For now, I’ll have to keep looking.<\/p>\n

That brings us to my CurlyWurly timeline.\u00a0 I’ve included my own UK wrappers which range from the earliest sold, up to the current designs.\u00a0 Unfortunately, where UK wrappers are concerned I am missing large gaps, mainly from the early 80’s through the mid 90’s.<\/p>\n

I’ve also included the various international wrappers I own, or have images of.<\/p>\n

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CurlyWurly timeline by CollectingCandy.com<\/p><\/div>\n

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Closing out today’s coverage of CurlyWurly are these fun stills from the UK’s acclaimed series “Life on Mars” (I’m a huge fan).\u00a0 Seen here, the character Gene Hunt enjoys a CurlyWurly while using it to stir his tea.<\/p>\n

The CurlyWurly wrapper seen in these shots is vintage (the chocolate is not).\u00a0 During a 2009 interview, Phillip Glennister (Gene Hunt) was quoted:<\/p>\n

“We’ve still got the wrapper, it’s possibly the most important prop in Life on Mars, and it’s found its way onto the set of the Ashes..as well.”<\/p>\n

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Gene Hunt - Sam Tyler - CurlyWurly - Life on Mars<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve long been uncertain of how the name of this bar should be written.\u00a0 Is it two separate words as in Curly Wurly, one word but with an oddly-placed capital like CurlyWulry, or is it simply a single name like … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1970s","category-chocolate-2"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2aFGk-gM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1040"}],"version-history":[{"count":80,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1771,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040\/revisions\/1771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}