{"id":15690,"date":"2014-11-18T16:34:24","date_gmt":"2014-11-18T21:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/?p=15690"},"modified":"2014-11-18T20:25:45","modified_gmt":"2014-11-19T01:25:45","slug":"out-of-retirement-big-league-chew-cotton-candy-and-strawberry-are-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/?p=15690","title":{"rendered":"Out of Retirement: Big League Chew Cotton Candy and Strawberry are Back!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CC_BigLeagueChew_CottonCandyOutofRetirement_TITLE<\/p>\n

Big League Chew bubblegum first hit the market back in 1980<\/a> and at the time, came in only a single flavor.\u00a0 Since then, quite a number of flavor extensions have been released with a few of them becoming part of a long-reigning standard Big League Chew assortment like grape and watermelon.\u00a0\u00a0 Still other flavors have seen their glory days pass them by and been put into retirement.<\/p>\n

Today, I’m happy to report that two previously-retired Big League Chew flavors have made a triumphant return in 2014: Slammin’ Strawberry and Curveball Cotton Candy!<\/p>\n

Both Big League Chew Slammin’ Strawberry and Curveball Cotton Candy were most recently on store shelves about a decade ago.\u00a0\u00a0 Since that time we can assume they’ve been enjoying a relaxed retirement full of career recollections.\u00a0 So before we get to their triumphant return, let’s take a look at the origins of Big League Chew Strawberry and Cotton Candy flavors.<\/p>\n

Big League Chew Strawberry was actually one of the very first BLC flavor spinoffs.\u00a0 It joined Original and Grape as one of the early 1980’s flavors, and featured a package with a Bill Mayer-illustrated<\/a> mascot:<\/p>\n

\"Amurol

Amurol – Big League Chew Strawberry – Free Bat & Ball Set – bubblegum package – 1992<\/p><\/div>\n

Big League Chew Curveball Cotton Candy on the other hand didn’t make it’s first appearance until much later – most likely right around 1999-2001.\u00a0\u00a0 Unfortunately, I don’t have an original Curveball Cotton Candy Big League Chew package in my collection, but I did find this image in my archives.<\/p>\n

\"Big

Big League Chew Cotton Candy – Image source unknown.<\/p><\/div>\n

Since taking over the Big League Chew license from Wrigley, Ford Gum has been pretty creative, releasing a number of fun product extensions like bubblegum pops and bubblegum balls.\u00a0 Even so, I was still surprised when I came across these out-of-retirement flavors.\u00a0 Though it initially caused me to do a double-take, I was pleasantly surprised when I looked down and saw this staring back at me:<\/p>\n

\"BLC

BLC – Cotton Candy and Strawberry return POP display – Summer 2014<\/p><\/div>\n

Here are scans of the two packs:<\/p>\n

\"Ford

Ford Gum – Big League Chew Curveball Cotton Candy – 2.12 oz bubble gum pouch candy package – Summer 2014<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Ford

Ford Gum – Big League Chew Slammin’ Strawberry – 2.12 oz bubble gum pouch candy package – Summer 2014<\/p><\/div>\n

The main package artwork for Slammin’ Strawberry and Curveball Cotton Candy has not changed from the versions that were on shelves a decade ago, but the rest of the design has been brought up-to-date with current Big League Chew packaging.\u00a0 Most notable is the addition of the “Official Bubble Gum of Ripken Baseball” across the top — an indication of Big League Chew’s association with Cal Ripken’s youth baseball enterprise<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s pretty awesome to see these two flavors come out of retirement.\u00a0 And who knows, with any luck we’ll eventually get to see even more forgotten flavors (or new ones) make the Big League Chew scene.\u00a0 Here’s hoping!<\/p>\n

For those keeping score, this brings the variety of currently-available Big League Chew flavors to a total of six!\u00a0 Here’s the standard four:<\/p>\n

\"Ford

Ford Gum – Big League Chew – standard flavor assortment – 2014<\/p><\/div>\n

That’s everything for today’s post and the\u00a0 return of these two retired Big League Chew flavors.\u00a0 See you next time!<\/p>\n

\"CC_BigLeagueChew_CottonCandyOutofRetirement_CLOSING<\/p>\n

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

Big League Chew bubblegum first hit the market back in 1980 and at the time, came in only a single flavor.\u00a0 Since then, quite a number of flavor extensions have been released with a few of them becoming part of … 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":[6,35,5,34],"tags":[1205,1207,39,271,37,33,321,316,328,351,332,14,324,78,333,1150,32,21,209,15,348,11],"class_list":["post-15690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1980s","category-1990s","category-bubble-gum","category-gum-2","tag-1980s","tag-1990s","tag-baseball","tag-big-league-chew","tag-bubble-gum-2","tag-bubblegum","tag-candy-collecting","tag-candy-collection","tag-candy-collector","tag-candy-wrapper-collection","tag-candy-wrapper-collector","tag-collectible","tag-collecting-candy","tag-confectionery","tag-confections","tag-cotton-candy","tag-gum","tag-packaging","tag-sports","tag-sweets","tag-vintage-candy-wrapper","tag-wrapper"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2aFGk-454","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15690","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=15690"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15708,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15690\/revisions\/15708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}