{"id":345,"date":"2012-02-07T13:02:13","date_gmt":"2012-02-07T18:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/?p=345"},"modified":"2012-03-02T01:58:53","modified_gmt":"2012-03-02T06:58:53","slug":"its-called-soft-chunk-or-when-bubblicious-was-new","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/?p=345","title":{"rendered":"It’s called soft-chunk! Or when Bubblicious was “New!”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before I get to the subject of today’s post, I wanted to thank everyone for giving CollectingCandy.com such a terrific response yesterday.\u00a0\u00a0 Thanks for the Tweets, the site mentions, the comments, and the e-mails.<\/p>\n

I approached that first article with the goal to write the kind of history that I would want to read, but had never really seen before.\u00a0 I’m gratified that people enjoyed my approach.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 I think this is going to be a lot of fun.<\/p>\n

My post today is kicked off by a piece of packaging I only acquired this week.\u00a0 I’ve been looking and hunting for this one for the past few years, and finally tracking it down was pretty exciting.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s an example of the very first Bubblicious bubble gum wrapper – Bubblicious’ “rookie card” if you will.<\/p>\n

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Bubblicious - New! - 15-cent bubble gum pack wrapper - 1977<\/p><\/div>\n

It was 1977, and following the huge success of Bubble Yum’s earlier launch in 1975, Warner-Lambert answered with Bubblicious.\u00a0 [Note: Wikipedia identifies Bubblicious as following after the success of Hubba Bubba – but that’s not accurate.\u00a0 Hubba Bubba followed later, in 1979.\u00a0 We will forgive the Wiki – candy history is tough – but we are here to help.]<\/p>\n

Bubblicious was the second major brand to enter the blockbuster new “soft chunk” gum category at the time.\u00a0\u00a0 For the next 25 years, Bubble Yum, Bubblicious, and Hubba Bubba ruled the category.<\/p>\n

Though I’m going to put together a comprehensive feature on soft-chunk gum for CC down the road, I did want to share a cross-section of packaging to enjoy today [Note: Even this is incomplete – also, the third pack from the bottom is not technically part of the timeline – it’s a 1980’s Canadian package design.] :<\/p>\n

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Bubblicious Watermelon packaging timeline - 1979-2012<\/p><\/div>\n

While soft-chunk is no longer the category leader that it used to be, it’s still out there.\u00a0 It can be tough to find, and you might get the idea that the flavor assortment is more limited than it used to be.\u00a0\u00a0 If you do enough hunting, though, you might find all of the flavors currently available (I’m a big fan of the cotton candy flavor).<\/p>\n

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Bubblicious flavors and packaging style on shelves in 2012<\/p><\/div>\n

That’s all for today’s post.. well… okay, one more visual — my collection of exotic Bubblicious flavor packs from Japan.<\/p>\n

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Japanes Bubblicious flavors and packages - 2009-2011<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before I get to the subject of today’s post, I wanted to thank everyone for giving CollectingCandy.com such a terrific response yesterday.\u00a0\u00a0 Thanks for the Tweets, the site mentions, the comments, and the e-mails. I approached that first article with … 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":[24,6,5,34],"tags":[1206,1205,27,13,37,33,43,10,45,20,16,32,21,25,42,15,12,44,11],"class_list":["post-345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1970s","category-1980s","category-bubble-gum","category-gum-2","tag-1970s","tag-1980s","tag-70s","tag-80s","tag-bubble-gum-2","tag-bubblegum","tag-bubblicious","tag-candy","tag-collect","tag-collecting","tag-confection","tag-gum","tag-packaging","tag-retro","tag-soft-chunk","tag-sweets","tag-vintage","tag-warner-lambert","tag-wrapper"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2aFGk-5z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345","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=345"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1795,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions\/1795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}