{"id":7340,"date":"2012-11-11T15:00:54","date_gmt":"2012-11-11T20:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/?p=7340"},"modified":"2012-11-11T15:00:54","modified_gmt":"2012-11-11T20:00:54","slug":"the-brief-run-of-americas-curly-wurly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/?p=7340","title":{"rendered":"The Brief Run of America’s Curly Wurly!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Cadbury’s Curly Wurly has been a staple of British confectionery since its introduction in 1970.\u00a0 But few people know that it was given a couple early shots at success here in the United States as well.\u00a0 Today, I’m going to take a look at the brief run of Cadbury’s American release of the Curly Wurly bar.<\/p>\n

I’ve mentioned the American Curly Wurly in my first big coverage of the topic back in February – Collecting Curly Wurly.<\/a>\u00a0 Since then, I’ve uncovered new information and picked up some great American Curly Wurly materials that allow me to put together a reasonably complete look at the USA release of the brand.<\/p>\n

Until recently, I had long-assumed that Cadbury brought their Curly Wurly over to the United States after the similar Mars Marathon bar<\/a> was released here, but it turns out that’s not the case.\u00a0 [I should note that the history of the Mars Marathon bar predates its domestic release – the story is a bit serpentine, but you can read about that here.<\/a>]\u00a0 Curly Wurly’s American release predated that of the Marathon by a handful of months.\u00a0 It was first announced in the candy trades in the summer of 1973:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

USA – Cadbury Curly Wurly trade announcement – August 1973<\/p><\/div>\n

The initial trade ad focused on the twisty shape of the bar:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Cadbury USA – Curly Wurly trade ad – August 1973<\/p><\/div>\n

Many Americans might have first seen the Curly Wurly bar in this newspaper ad from October 1973.\u00a0 It features a pair of mascots that I’ve never found anywhere else:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Cadbury – Curly Wurly- newspaper ad – Chicago Tribune comic section – Oct 7 1973<\/p><\/div>\n

The following year in mid-Summer, Cadbury highlighted the Curly Wurly along with the entire Cadbury USA lineup:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Cadbury USA – CurlyWulry trade ad – July 1974<\/p><\/div>\n

The ad received a minor tweak just a few months later.\u00a0 The line about “an English group” was removed.\u00a0\u00a0 I can only speculate as to why the change was made.\u00a0 Perhaps there was a concern that the line might confuse distributors into thinking the Cadbury lineup was a high-priced import.\u00a0 Here’s the revised ad:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Cadbury USA – CurlyWulry trade ad – September 1974<\/p><\/div>\n

That early 70’s Curly Wurly wrapper is pretty basic, but I’m a Curly Wurly collector so it’s one that stands on my ever-growing want-list.<\/p>\n

I haven’t found any clear evidence of the bar still being sold in 1975, but I also haven’t found that it was discontinued.\u00a0\u00a0 The one thing that I have been able to determine is that, by late 1976, the American Curly Wurly had a different look.\u00a0 Whether that was a redesign or relaunch, I have yet to determine.<\/p>\n

Unlike the original USA Curly Wurly, the 1976 redesign brought in a much more lively look.\u00a0 The logo has a bit of a Willy Wonka flair to it that I really like.\u00a0 Here is what the later-1970’s American Curly Wurly looked like:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Cadbury USA – Curly Wurly chocolate bar candy wrapper – 1976<\/p><\/div>\n

In the late 70’s, Cadbury also released a fun-size offering of Curly Wurly.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Cadbury USA – Curly Wurly – Family Pack 12oz candy package outer bag – 1977<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Cadbury USA – Curly Wurly – fun size candy bar wrapper – 1977<\/p><\/div>\n

So, Curly Wurly had two distinct looks during it’s time as a Cadbury USA product.\u00a0 Based on everything I’ve been able to turn up, it appears that by 1979, Cadbury USA ended distribution of the American Curly Wurly.<\/p>\n

While the American release was short-lived, the UK Curly Wurly bar continued on and became a timeless classic — still in production to this day and marking its 42nd birthday this year.<\/p>\n

And that’s everything I’ve got on the brief run of America’s Curly Wurly.\u00a0 I hope you’ve enjoyed the look at this short-lived import.<\/p>\n

See you next time!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cadbury’s Curly Wurly has been a staple of British confectionery since its introduction in 1970.\u00a0 But few people know that it was given a couple early shots at success here in the United States as well.\u00a0 Today, I’m going to … 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":[24,75,123,56],"tags":[317,562,641,1217,642,321,316,328,351,332,14,324,78,333,638,637,21,15,12,348,11],"class_list":["post-7340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1970s","category-british","category-cadbury","category-chocolate-2","tag-1970s-candy","tag-1970s-chocolate","tag-70s-chocolate","tag-cadbury","tag-cadbury-usa","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-curly-wurly","tag-curlywurly","tag-packaging","tag-sweets","tag-vintage","tag-vintage-candy-wrapper","tag-wrapper"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2aFGk-1Uo","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7340","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=7340"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7369,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7340\/revisions\/7369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}