{"id":2750,"date":"2012-03-26T12:53:46","date_gmt":"2012-03-26T16:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/?p=2750"},"modified":"2014-03-28T00:51:12","modified_gmt":"2014-03-28T04:51:12","slug":"after-years-of-hunting-willy-wonkas-daredevils-discovered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/?p=2750","title":{"rendered":"After years of hunting – Willy Wonka’s Daredevils – Discovered!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Collecting candy is a crazy kind of hobby.\u00a0 Sometimes you can spend years hunting for any trace of a brand or piece of packaging, and never find one.\u00a0 But it’s not always so tough – typically there is a photo or a mention somewhere.\u00a0\u00a0 With Willy Wonka’s Daredevils, there was no such thing – until last week, this was one of what I call a Sasquatch of candy boxes.\u00a0 Before today, the only evidence you could find of these were the vague recollections and distant memories of those who witnessed them 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

So it is that I can state with some confidence that the title image for today’s piece represents the first the internet has seen of this hot cinnamon Gobstoppers cousin – well, aside from a sticker – but I’ll get to that.<\/p>\n

Released in 1982 by the newly-named Willy Wonka Brands division of Sunmark (formerly Breaker Confections) – Daredevils were very simply, a hot variety of Gobstopper.\u00a0 Rather than having multiple rings of flavors like their Gobstopper cousins, Daredevils had rings of hot, interspersed with rings of cool.\u00a0 A pretty great idea and I remember loving these.<\/p>\n

Because they were a childhood favorite, when I started collecting, I sought Daredevils out.\u00a0 At first, I didn’t even remember exactly what they were called, but then I happened upon a sticker sheet in an eBay lot of 1970’s and 1980’s premium stickers.\u00a0 This sheet of stickers was originally\u00a0 part of the Willy Wonka Fun Club Kit from the mid-1980’s, and it turned out to be my first collecting modern encounter with Willy Wonka’s Daredevils mascot:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Wonka Fun Club Sticker sheet – 1985<\/p><\/div>\n

Clipped from the side-panel of a 1985 Count Chocula cereal box, here’s a breakdown of what the entire Willy Wonka Fun Club kit consisted of (I’d love to find a complete one of these kits):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Wonka Fun Cliub kit image from Count Chocula box – 1985<\/p><\/div>\n

That sticker sheet is remarkable in that it provides names to Wonka mascots I’ve rarely, and in some cases, never seen used anywhere else.\u00a0 Even the Daredevil got a name.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Danny Daredevil<\/p><\/div>\n

I found that sticker sheet just over five years ago, and ever since, I’ve asked every collector I encountered if they had a Daredevils box, or had ever seen one.\u00a0 The answer was always no.\u00a0 But that all changed last week, and I am thrilled to report that a Daredevils box has found its way into my collection.\u00a0 So here it is, Internet – a tasty piece of 1980’s candy nostalgia you’ve never seen before:<\/p>\n

\"Sunmark

Sunmark – Willy Wonka’s – Daredevils hot jawbreaker candy – box – 1982<\/p><\/div>\n

A striking box with its black backround and graphic white logo.\u00a0 The logo features a style that is purposely reminiscent of Wonka’s main jawbreaker product logo of the time – Gobstoppers:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Gobstopper – Daredevils logo comparison<\/p><\/div>\n

As with any great collector-hunt, finding a piece like this is thrilling.\u00a0 But this thrill is even more profound as this Daredevils discovery is part of a much larger find:\u00a0 I have taken on the curation of another collector’s large confectionery preservation achievement – The L.M. Kallok Collection.\u00a0 I’ll be writing and sharing more about this wondrous collection in the coming months, both here and on my Flickr pages.\u00a0 So stay tuned – it’s going to be a lot of fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Collecting candy is a crazy kind of hobby.\u00a0 Sometimes you can spend years hunting for any trace of a brand or piece of packaging, and never find one.\u00a0 But it’s not always so tough – typically there is a photo … 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":[6,47,46,116,164],"tags":[1205,13,166,10,169,20,77,16,78,168,167,170,171,23,21,25,15,12,165,1220],"class_list":["post-2750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1980s","category-boxed","category-hard-candy","category-nestle","category-wonka","tag-1980s","tag-80s","tag-breaker","tag-candy","tag-cinnamon","tag-collecting","tag-collection","tag-confection","tag-confectionery","tag-daredevils","tag-devil","tag-gobstopper","tag-jawbreaker","tag-mascot","tag-packaging","tag-retro","tag-sweets","tag-vintage","tag-willy-wonka","tag-wonka"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2aFGk-Im","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2750","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=2750"}],"version-history":[{"count":65,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13868,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2750\/revisions\/13868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}