It’s been a month since our last Wacky Wednesdays column, so I’m excited to bring you our first installment for 2013. From the just-released Wacky Packages Old School series 4 comes a parody of the classic Pearson’s Nut Goodie – Not Goodie!
I’ve mentioned in the past that due to my historical packaging collection, I serve as an informal consultant to David Gross, the artist behind the Wacky Packages Old School series. Dave will sometimes call upon me to help track down or help determine the style of packaging that was used for a product during the Old School era (the mid-1970’s). Sometimes, I end up having the only image of said packaging – so it makes it quite a lot of fun.
In the cases when I’ve provided the product reference scan/photo, it makes it easy for me to collect the package version that a Wacky is based on – because I already have it as it’s based on the very wrapper I already own. Such was the case with Old School 4’s Not Goodie.
Let’s take a closer look at the parody sticker:
Wacky Packages Old School 4 – Not Goodie
And here’s my scan – as you will see – it’s a perfect match:
Pearson’s – Nut Goodie – candy bar wrapper – 1970’s
Doing a parody of Nut Goodie presented an interesting problem for Dave, as the product was not generally distributed to the East Coast and he’d never seen one before. So, while I could provide Dave a scan of my 1970’s Nut Goodie wrapper, he still needed to figure out roughly what the shape of the package was with the candy still in it.
I described it to him as a peanut cluster, but that was a bit too vague. Not having easy access to a modern Nut Goodie here in New York City (though I’m sure a few specialty stores carry them), I provided him with the following image of what they looked like in the 1930’s/1940’s:
Pearson Nut Goodie historical image – Source: The Chocolate Chronicles by Ray Broekel
Seeing the historical Nut Goodie image along with my vintage wrapper was enough for him to give shape and form to his Not Goodie parody.
And that’s the story of how I helped bring a Wacky Packages sticker to life.
See you next time!
Whoa. When my husband and I got married in 2011 we handed out Nut Goodie’s straight from the factory to our guests as gifts. One of my friends, who came to the wedding from NYC, ate 4 of them. He couldn’t believe how good they were! Coming fresh from Pearson’s assembly line in St. Paul, MN, I knew how yummy they were! Keep in mind, they aren’t just nut clusters, it’s their use of real maple syrup in the nougat that gives it it’s unique flavor. In some of parts of the country they are still called, “Maple Nut Goodies”.