{"id":15583,"date":"2014-11-12T16:00:49","date_gmt":"2014-11-12T21:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/?p=15583"},"modified":"2015-02-17T11:46:00","modified_gmt":"2015-02-17T16:46:00","slug":"when-packaging-was-a-toy-junior-mints-and-their-1975-circus-animal-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/?p=15583","title":{"rendered":"When Packaging was a Toy – Junior Mints and their 1975 Circus Animal Series!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CC_Junior<\/p>\n

Though it is a much more unusual occurrence today, there was a time when companies routinely built more tactile fun into their packaging, especially when it was for a product aimed at kids.\u00a0 They were often producing packages that could serve as hand-puppets<\/a> or boxes featuring cut-out masks<\/a> or cars and playsets<\/a>, allowing emptied boxes serve as toys of a sort.\u00a0 Talk about added value.<\/p>\n

Such was the case when Nabisco put out a “Circus Animal Series” of Junior Mints fun-size Juniors boxes back in 1975.<\/p>\n

The mid-1970’s was an era when the former Welch’s family of confections – brands like Sugar Babies, Sugar Daddy, Frappe, Pom Poms (later to be re-branded as Junior Caramels) and Junior Mints – were owned and distributed by Nabisco.\u00a0 At the time, a standard Junior Mints box looked like this:<\/p>\n

\"Nabisco

Nabisco – Junior Mints – 3 1\/2 oz candy box – 1976<\/p><\/div>\n

Nabisco had a long history of turning their packaging into playthings (I’ll get to that in a minute) so we can assume that creating their Junior Mints “Circus Series” box was a somewhat organic idea.\u00a0 Here’s what they looked like:<\/p>\n

\"Nabisco

Nabisco – Junior Mints Juniors – Circus Animal Series – 9 oz multi-bag candy package – 1975<\/p><\/div>\n

That package contained smaller fun-size boxes and each one featured a two-sided circus cage illustration.\u00a0 When I acquired that large package, it included a number of the smaller boxes but there was only one design box – so I don’t know if there were other animal combinations offered.\u00a0 Here’s the one I have:<\/p>\n

\"Nabisco

Nabisco – Junior Mints Juniors – Circus Animal Series – Lion-Tiger Juniors size candy box – 1975<\/p><\/div>\n

[Edit:\u00a0 After publishing this post, I came across a trade clipping describing the Nabisco “Build Your Own Circus” promotion, which this Circus Animal Series packaging was a part of.\u00a0 See below.]<\/p>\n

\"Nabisco

Nabisco Confections – Build Your Own Circus – trade clipping – April 1975<\/p><\/div>\n

What might not be obvious to some is that Nabisco had been doing this kind of thing with their boxes for decades.\u00a0 In fact, they had been making their boxes serve as circus animal cages since the early part of the 20th century through their Nabisco Barnum’s Animals brand.\u00a0 Here are a few I have from the 60’s-70’s era:<\/p>\n

\"Nabisco

Nabisco – Barnum’s Animals Crackers – assorted cookie boxes – Late 1960’s to Early 1970’s<\/p><\/div>\n

Interestingly, this is not the only piece of 1970’s confectionery packaging I have that purports to recreate the circus experience in cardboard.\u00a0 Here is a Milky Way “Pantry Pack” box featuring circus-themed punch-outs:<\/p>\n

\"M&M

M&M Mars – Milky Way candy bar – 15-count Pantry Pack box – Circus Act Punchouts – 1970’s<\/p><\/div>\n

\"M&M

M&M Mars – Milky Way candy bar – 15-count Pantry Pack box – close-up 1<\/p><\/div>\n

\"M&M

M&M Mars – Milky Way candy bar – 15-count Pantry Pack box – close-up 2<\/p><\/div>\n

It would appear that the circus was a pretty popular theme back then.<\/p>\n

I’ve covered similar play-value packaging in past articles, so I’d like to highlight some of that in today’s post.\u00a0 First, there’s Ferrara Pan’s Atomic Fireballs Fire Truck packaging<\/a>, which is one of my all-time favorites.<\/p>\n

\"1975

1975 \u2013 Ferrara Pan \u2013 Atomic Fire Ball \u2013 Fire Engine novelty candy box<\/p><\/div>\n

And then there’s the Milk Duds Learn-to-Spell boxes (featured in my 86-year Milk Duds retrospective<\/a>), a format and packaging range quite similar to the Circus Series Junior Mints release, as each small box allowed for creative fun:<\/p>\n

\"Milk

Milk Duds Famous Caramels Juniors \u2013 Learn to Spell Boxes \u2013 candy bag \u2013 1970\u2019s or 1980\u2019s<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Milk

Milk Duds Juniors \u2013 Learn to Spell boxes \u2013 1970\u2019s 1980\u2019s<\/p><\/div>\n

So those are some other examples of this kind of packaging-as-toy concept, a concept which is rarely found today.<\/p>\n

And yet, there are still examples that pop up every once in a while.\u00a0 I picked up a fantastic one just last month.\u00a0 It’s a Target-exclusive version cereal box for Kix and it sports a whole lot of colorful, die-cut, pop-out animal fun:<\/p>\n

\"General

General Mills – Kix – Pop Out Build and Play – Target exclusive – cereal box – September 2014<\/p><\/div>\n

\"General

General Mills – Kix – Pop Out Build and Play – close-up<\/p><\/div>\n

Fun stuff, and it really does warm my crafty, old-school heart to see things like this still being done from time-to-time.<\/p>\n

And that’s everything for today’s look back at when packaging was a toy and the Junior Mints Circus Series.\u00a0 See you next time!<\/p>\n

\"CC_Junior<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Though it is a much more unusual occurrence today, there was a time when companies routinely built more tactile fun into their packaging, especially when it was for a product aimed at kids.\u00a0 They were often producing packages that could … 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":[24,6,47,56,99,59,127],"tags":[317,321,316,328,351,332,1142,14,324,78,333,1143,101,21,450,1082,15,348,1141,11],"class_list":["post-15583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1970s","category-1980s","category-boxed","category-chocolate-2","category-cookies","category-mars","category-novelty","tag-1970s-candy","tag-candy-collecting","tag-candy-collection","tag-candy-collector","tag-candy-wrapper-collection","tag-candy-wrapper-collector","tag-circus","tag-collectible","tag-collecting-candy","tag-confectionery","tag-confections","tag-junior-mints","tag-nabisco","tag-packaging","tag-packaging-design","tag-papercraft","tag-sweets","tag-vintage-candy-wrapper","tag-welchs","tag-wrapper"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2aFGk-43l","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15583","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=15583"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16732,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15583\/revisions\/16732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}