Following in the footsteps of products like Topps/Bazooka’s Gold Rush and Leaf’s Gravel bubblegum, Mad Rocks was a late 1970’s bubblegum product that, up until a few months ago, I’d never heard of. Make the jump to check it out!
Mad Rocks was brought to market courtesy of the Philadelphia Chewing Gum subsidiary Swell and was sold in individual cellophane packages. Here’s the example I recently acquired and the one that illuminated me to the brand’s existence:
Philadelphia Chewing Gum – Swell – Mad Rocks bubble gum – 1.5 oz cellophane gum candy package – 1979-1980
It’s a neat little package featuring a fun caveman mascot and illustrated chiseled-rock logo. The gum itself was of the pebble-style made popular by Gold Rush gum and later copied by several other manufacturers.
Beyond that individual retail package, Mad Rocks also saw distribution via the vending trade as evidenced by the following vending machine insert card:
American Chewing Gum – Mad Rocks bubble gum – vending machine insert card – 1970’s 1980’s
The mascot and logo remains in place for the vending version of the product.
I suspect that Swell/American distributed this product under different names later on and if I ever find clear evidence of that, I’ll add that info here. For now this is all I’ve got to share on this previously-unknown bubblegum brand.
So it ends up being a short post for today but one that adds this delightful brand to the confectionery historical record. If anyone out there remembers Mad Rocks bubblegum, I’d love to hear about it. Let us know in the comments below. And that’s everything for today. See you next time!
I bet MAD ROCKS Bubblegum was not connected to MAD Magazine.