Old Fashioned British Sweets From Your Childhood

Image by brizzle born and bred
1953: Sweet rationing ends in Britain

Children all over Britain have been emptying out their piggy-banks and heading straight for the nearest sweet-shop as the first unrationed sweets went on sale today. Toffee apples were the biggest sellers, with sticks of nougat and liquorice strips also disappearing fast.

One firm in Clapham Common gave 800 children 150lbs of lollipops during their midday break from school; and a London factory opened its doors to hand out free sweets to all comers.

Adults joined in the sugar frenzy, with men in the City queuing up in their lunch breaks to buy boiled sweets and to enjoy the luxury of being able to buy 2lb boxes of chocolates to take home for the weekend.

Do you remember your favourite childhood sweets and the excitement of going to the local sweet shop and choosing from the vast array of jars on the shelves full of colourful mouth watering temptations?

They were weighed by the quarter on a big old fashioned metal scale pan and packaged into small white paper bags.

For many of us, the Saturday ritual of sweets-buying has lingered into adulthood, and it is heartening to find so many places selling from jars. Indeed, the Bonds sweets factory in Carlisle – a major supplier – is planning to redesign its plastic jars to be squatter and wider than usual: an echo of the prewar shape. Multicoloured jars lined up on shelves are very alluring, for many of us a potent reminder of a time when the local sweet shop represented a kind of El Dorado.

If you thought it was just kids who ate sugar confectionery you’d be wide of the mark. Many of the lines might have been developed for children but prove a hit with adults, too. Even the tough guys (and gals) in the British armed forces love their sweets according to NAAFI figures, servicemen and women in Afghanistan last year munched their way through 923,583 bags of Haribo.

Here in the UK, sweetie buying habits change as we hopefully head towards warmer weather, with more people opting for fruity sweets rather than chocolate bars.

THE SWEETS GRAVEYARD

Spangles

Dimpled, square boiled sweets in fruit-flavoured and Old English varieties. Spangles was a brand of boiled sweets, manufactured by Mars Ltd in the United Kingdom from 1950 to the early eighties. They were bought in a paper tube with individual sweets cellophane wrapped. They were distinguished by their shape which was a rounded square with a circular depression on each face.

The regular Spangles tube (labelled simply "Spangles") contained a variety of translucent, fruit flavoured sweets: strawberry, blackcurrant, orange, pineapple, lemon and lime.

Originally the sweets were not individually wrapped, but later a waxed paper, and eventually a cellophane wrapper was used. The tube was a bright orange-red colour, bearing the word "Spangles" in a large letters. In the seventies a distinctive, seventies-style font was used.

Over the production period many different, single flavour varieties were introduced including Acid Drop, Barley Sugar, Blackcurrant, Liquorice, Peppermint, Spearmint and Tangerine.

The Old English Spangles tube contained traditional English flavours such as liquorice, mint humbugs, cough candy, butterscotch and pear drops. One of the flavours was an opaque mustard yellow colour, and one was striped.

The sweets’ individual wrappers were striped, distinguishing them from regular Spangles. The tube was black, white and purple, and designed for a more mature and specific clientele than the regular variety.

Spangles were discontinued in the early eighties, and briefly reintroduced in 1994, including in Woolworths outlets in the UK. There are many nostalgic references to them from children who grew up with them. Spangles are associated with the 1970s and they, like Space Hoppers or the Raleigh Chopper, have become shorthand for lazy nostalgia for the time, as in the phrase "Do you remember Spangles?"

Today the Tunes brand is the only remaining relation of the Spangles brand, sharing the shape and wrapping of the original product. In the UK, Tunes no longer have the Spangles style packaging, and they are now lozenge-shaped.

Cabana bar

Very sweet coconut-centred chocolate bar with cherry twist made by Cadbury’s.

Pineapple Mars

This early tropical-flavoured prototype was not a lasting success

Fry’s Five Centres

Follow-up to famous Fry’s Five Boys. Fry’s Cream is a chocolate bar made by Cadbury’s, and formerly by J. S. Fry & Sons. It consists of a fondant centre enrobed in dark chocolate and is available in a plain version, and also peppermint or orange fondant. Fry’s Chocolate Cream was one of the first chocolate bars ever produced, launched in 1866.

There are currently three variants of Fry’s Cream:

Fry’s Chocolate Cream
Fry’s Orange Cream
Fry’s Peppermint Cream

Over the years, other variants existed:

Fry’s Five Centre (orange, raspberry, lime, strawberry, and pineapple), produced from 1934 to 1992.

Fry’s Strawberry Cream
Fry’s Pineapple Cream

Cadbury’s also produced a solid milk chocolate bar called Five Boys using the Fry’s trademark in the 1960s. Cadbury’s produced milk and plain chocolate sandwich bars under the Fry’s branding also.

Fry’s chocolate bar was promoted by model George Lazenby, later James Bond actor, in 1962.

The Fry’s Chocolate bar was first produced in Union Street, Bristol, England in 1866, where the family name had been associated with chocolate making since circa 1759. In 1923 Fry’s (now Cadbury) chocolate Factory moved to Keynsham, England, but due to the imminent closure of the factory the production of the bar will move, possibly to Poland.

Banjo bar

Banjo is a chocolate bar once available in the UK. Introduced with a substantial television advertising campaign in 1976, Banjo was a twin bar (similar in shape and size to Twix) and based upon a wafer with a chopped peanut layer and the whole covered in milk chocolate. It was packaged in distinctive navy blue – with the brand name prominently displayed in yellow block text – and was one of the first British snack bars to have a heat-sealed wrapper closure instead of the reverse-side fold common to most domestically-produced chocolate bars at that time. It was available into the 1980s. There was a coconut version also available in a red wrapper with yellow text.

Aztec bars

So many sweet lovers would love to be able to enjoy Aztec bars again. Sadly it isn’t possible to buy Aztec bars at the moment. It was like a Mars Bar but not as sickly because it had nougat instead of toffee. It had a purple wrapper it was made by Cadbury’s.

Opal Fruits

Mars, the manufacturers, is bringing back the sweets for a limited period in conjunction with the supermarket chain ASDA.

The fruit chews that were "made to make you mouth water" were replaced by Starburst in 1998, the name under which they had been exported to the US in the seventies.

But the iconic British brand is being revived in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the change.

They will be available for an initial period of 12 weeks from May 10, exclusively in ASDA stores.

A spokesperson for ASDA said: "The demise of the Opal Fruit was mourned across the nation, and we’re really excited to be staging the exclusive comeback of this great British favourite."

Opal Fruits were initially introduced in Britain in the 1960s.

In 1998, the US brand Starburst was adopted in England in order to standardise the brand in the global marketplace.

Expectations are high that the move to bring back Opal Fruits will be popular with consumers.

As well as reverting to the original flavours of lemon, lime, orange and strawberry, the new Opal Fruits will be a strictly natural affair.

The limited edition will be produced using no artificial colouring or preservatives, a move that both ASDA and Mars hope will appeal to twenty-first century customers.

The return of Opal Fruits continues the recent trend of reviving classic brands.

Cadbury reintroduced the Wispa last year after an internet campaign which also involved protesters storming a stage at the Glastonbury festival.

Sherbert Fountain

Sherbet is sold in a plastic tube with twist-off lid, with a stick made from liquorice as a sherbet fountain. Many consumers regret the replacement of the former paper packaging, which allowed an extra dimension of enjoyment: the crushing of the caked lumps of sherbet as the paper cylinder was rolled between the hands. The top of the stick is supposed to be bitten off to form a straw and the sherbet sucked through it, where it fizzes and dissolves on the tongue, though many people prefer to either dip the liquorice in the sherbet and lick it off or to tip the sherbet into their mouths and eat the liquorice separately.

When paired with liquorice, sherbet is typically left unflavoured in a white form and with a higher reactive agent so that it causes a fizzy foam to develop in the mouth.

They are manufactured by Barratt, a subsidiary of Tangerine Confectionery.

Though some shops still sell the old-style only.

Sherbert Flying Saucers

These small pastel coloured rice paper sweets were shaped like a U.F.O. and contained delightfully fizzy sherbet.

Small dimpled discs made from edible coloured paper (rice paper), typically filled with white unflavoured sherbet (the same form as in Sherbet Fountains) These sweets had sherbert in the middle and a kind of melt-in-your-mouth outer shell.

Black Jacks Chews

Black Jack is a type of "aniseed flavour chew" according to its packaging. This means that it is a chewy (gelatin-based) confectionery. Black Jack is manufactured under the Barratt brand in Spain. Black Jack is very similar to Fruit Salad, which are also manufactured by Barratt.

Black Jacks are one of the most well-known classic British sweets. They`re aniseed-flavoured, chewy and black with a unique taste, and they make your tongue go black!

The original labels from the 1920’s pictured a grinning gollywog – unbelievably, back then images of black people were used to advertise Liquorice. This is seen as unacceptable today, of course, and by the late 80s manufacturers Trebor deleted the golly logo. It was replaced by a pirate with a black beard.

In the early 1990s the pirate logo was replaced by a rather boring black and white swirl design.

Cabana bars

Cabana bars died out in about 1984, and as they were made by Rowntree (sold to Nestle in 1989) they’re very unlikely to make a comeback.

Licorice Bootlaces

Long thin strips of licorice in the shape of boot laces.

Pineapple Chunks

Pineapple Flavour Hard Boiled Sweets.

Jamboree Bag

Bags of different sorts of sweets, with dodgy plastic toys and whistles etc, where are they now?

Rhubarb & Custard

Rhubarb and Custard flavoured boiled sweet, with it’s two colours.

Gobstoppers

Gobstoppers, known as jawbreakers in Canada and the United States, are a type of hard sweet or candy. They are usually round, usually range from about 1 cm across to 3 cm across (though much bigger gobstoppers can sometimes be found in Canadian/US candy stores, up to 8 cm in diameter) and are traditionally very hard.

The term gobstopper derives from ‘gob’, which is United Kingdom/Ireland slang for mouth.

Gobstoppers usually consist of several layers, each layer dissolving to reveal a different colored (and sometimes different flavoured) layer, before dissolving completely. Gobstoppers are sucked or licked, being too hard to bite without risking dental damage (hence the US title).

Gobstoppers have been sold in traditional sweet shops for at least a century, often sold by weight from jars. As gobstoppers dissolve very slowly, they last a very long time in the mouth, which is a major factor in their enduring popularity with children. Larger ones can take days or even weeks to fully dissolve, risking a different kind of dental damage.

In 2003, Taquandra Diggs, a nine year old girl in Starke, Florida, suffered severe burns, allegedly from biting down on a Wonka Everlasting Gobstopper that had been left out in the sun. Diggs and several other victims’ families filed lawsuits against Nestlé for medical bills resulting from plastic surgery as well as pain and suffering; the matters were later settled outside of court for an undisclosed amount.

A 2004 episode of the Discovery Channel television program "Myth Busters" episode subsection named Exploding Jawbreakers then demonstrated that heating a gobstopper in a microwave oven can cause the different layers inside to heat at different rates, yielding an explosive spray of very hot candy when compressed; Myth Busters crew members Adam Savage and Christine Chamberlain received light burns after a gobstopper exploded.

Acid Drops

Tongue-tinglingly sharp boiled sweets.

Barley Sugar

Barley sugar (or barley sugar candy) is a traditional variety of British boiled sweet, or hard candy, yellow or orange in colour with an extract of barley added as flavouring. It is similar to hard caramel candy in its texture and taste.

Barley sugars and other energy sweets are the only food allowed to be eaten in the New Zealand & Australian 40 Hour Famine, an annual event which draws attention to world hunger. A single barley sugar is allowed to be consumed once every 4 hours during the 40 Hour Famine. This applies to participants older than primary school age.

Bulls Eyes Humbug

Humbugs are a traditional hard boiled sweet available in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. They are usually flavoured with peppermint and striped in two different colours (often brown and tan). They have a hard outside and a soft toffee centre. Humbugs are typically cylinders with rounded ends wrapped in a twist of cellophane, or else pinched cylinders with a 90-degree turn between one end and the other (shaped like a pyramid with rounded edges), loose in a bag.

They are more often eaten in winter than summer, as they are considered "warming." The name of the candy is not related to the phrase "Bah, humbug" derived from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. That expression implies a general dissatisfaction with the Christmas season. However, offering humbugs around Christmas time is now seen by some as humorous or ironic, and was featured in an episode of Blackadder in this manner.

A similar sweet is "bulls-eye" which has black and white stripes like a humbug but is spherical like an aniseed ball. These are peppermint flavoured and are also known as bullets in the UK as they are similar in size to smoothbore musket balls.

Love Hearts

Love Hearts are a type of confectionery manufactured by Swizzels Matlow in the United Kingdom. They are hard, fizzy, tablet-shaped sweets in a variety of fruit flavours featuring a short, love-related message on one side of the sweet.

The sweets are small and circular, approximately 19 mm in diameter, and 5 mm in height (including the embossed decorations). Both sides are embossed with a decoration, the rear with a large outline of a heart and the front with the message within an outline of a heart. On the front of the sweet the embossing is highlighted with a red colouring.

The main body of the sweet is coloured in one of the 6 colours – white, yellow, orange, green, purple or red. Especially for the darker red and purple colourings this colouring is somewhat blotchy.

Fruit Salads

Fruit Salad is a type of "Raspberry & Pineapple flavour chew" according to its packaging. This means that it is a chewy (gelatin-based) confectionery. Fruit Salad is manufactured by Barratt in Spain. Fruit Salad is very similar to Black Jack, which are also manufactured by Barratt.

Sweet ‘Cigarette’ Sticks

(sticks wrapped in paper, in packs that looked just like real cigarettes)

Candy cigarettes is a candy introduced in the early 20th century made out of chalky sugar, bubblegum or chocolate, wrapped in paper as to resemble cigarettes. Their place on the market has long been controversial because many critics believe the candy desensitizes children, leading them to become smokers later in life. Because of this, the selling of candy cigarettes has been banned in several countries such as Finland, Norway, the Republic of Ireland, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

In the United States a ban was considered in 1970 and again in 1991, but was not passed into federal law. The U.S. state of North Dakota enacted a ban on candy cigarettes from 1953 until 1967. In Canada federal law prohibits candy cigarette branding that resembles real cigarette branding and the territory of Nunavut has banned all products that resemble cigarettes.

The Family Smoking and Prevention Control Act was misquoted as banning candy cigarettes. The Act bans any form of added flavoring in tobacco cigarettes other than menthol. It does not regulate the candy industry.

Candy cigarettes continue to be manufactured and consumed in many parts of the world. However, many manufacturers now describe their products as candy sticks, bubble gum, or candy.

Popeye Cigarettes marketed using the Popeye character were sold for a while and had red tips (to look like a lit cigarette) before being renamed candy sticks and being manufactured without the red tip.

Liquorice "Smoker’s Sets"

Sweet smokers sets with sweet cigarettes, tobacco and liquorice pipes. CONCERNS have been raised about the availability of candy-style imitation cigarettes. The sweets, which look remarkably like a hand-rolled cigarette and packaged in replica cigarette packets.

"Recently there has been a trend for buying so-called retro candy such as aniseed balls and spangles. It’s unfortunate that chocolate cigarettes have re surfaced but it’s not illegal to sell them and it’s really up to retailers to decide whether or not it’s a product with which they wish to be associated."

Aniseed Balls

Aniseed balls are a type of hard round sweet sold in the UK, New Zealand and Australia. They are shiny and dark brownish red, and hard like Gobstoppers.

Aniseed Balls are something you either love or hate! They are flavoured by aniseed oil (obviously!), and have a very strong aniseed flavour. They last for a long time in the mouth before dissolving and in the centre of the ball is a whole rapeseed that can be crushed.

Butterscotch

Butterscotch is a type of confectionery whose primary ingredients are brown sugar and butter, although other ingredients such as corn syrup, cream, vanilla, and salt are part of some recipes.

The ingredients for butterscotch are similar to toffee, but for butterscotch the sugar is boiled to the soft crack stage, and not hard crack as with toffee. Butterscotch sauce is often made into a syrup, which is used as a topping for ice cream (particularly sundaes).

The term butterscotch is also often used for the flavour of brown sugar and butter together even where actual confection butterscotch is not involved, e.g. butterscotch pudding.

Food historians have several theories regarding the name and origin of this confectionery, but none are conclusive. One explanation is the meaning "to cut or score" for the word "scotch", as the confection must be cut into pieces, or "scotched", before hardening. It is also possible that the "scotch" part of its name was derived from the word "scorch".

However, the word was first recorded in Doncaster, in England, where Samuel Parkinson began making the confectionery in 1817. Parkinson’s Butterscotch had royal approval and was one of Doncaster’s attractions until it ceased production in 1977. The recipe was revived in 2003 when a Doncaster businessman and his wife rediscovered the recipe on an old folded piece of paper inside one of the famous St Leger tins in their cellar.

Butterscotch is an example of a genericized trademark, originally a trademark of Parkinson’s.

Jelly Babies

Jelly babies are a type of soft confectionery that look like little babies in a variety of colours. There are currently several companies that make jelly babies, most predominantly Trebor Bassett (part of the Cadbury Group of companies, and famous for their liquorice allsorts) and also Rowntree (Nestlé).

Jelly Babies were launched by Bassett’s in 1918 in Sheffield as "Peace Babies" to mark the end of World War I. Production was suspended during World War II due to wartime shortages and the fact that the name had largely become ironic. In 1953 the product was relaunched as "Jelly Babies". In March 1989 Bassett’s were taken over by Cadbury Schweppes who had earlier acquired the Trebor brand.

Jelly Babies manufactured in the United Kingdom tend to be dusted in starch which is left over from the manufacturing process where it is used to aid release from the mould. Jelly Babies of Australian manufacture generally lack this coating.

Like many gummy sweets, they contain gelatin and are thus not suitable for vegetarians.

A popular science class experiment is to put them in a strong oxidising agent and see the resulting spectacular reaction. The experiment is commonly referred to as "Screaming jelly babies".

Each Bassett’s Jelly Baby now has an individual name and shape, colour and flavour: Brilliant (red – strawberry), Bubbles (yellow – lemon), Baby Bonny (pink – raspberry), Boofuls (green – lime), Bigheart (purple – blackcurrant) and Bumper (orange). The introduction of different shapes and names was a new innovation, circa 1989, prior to which all colours of jelly baby were a uniform shape.

Jelly Babies are similar in appearance to Gummi bears, which are better known outside of the United Kingdom, though the texture is different, Jelly Babies having a harder outer "crust" and a softer, less rubbery, centre.

In 2007, Bassett’s Jelly Babies changed to include only natural colours and ingredients.

In the early 1960s, after Beatles guitarist George Harrison revealed in an interview that he liked jelly babies, audiences showered him and the rest of the band with the sweets at live concerts and fans sent boxes of them as gifts.[citation needed] Unfortunately American fans could not obtain this soft British confection, replacing them with harder jelly beans instead. To the group’s discomfort, they were frequently pelted with jelly beans during concerts while in America.

Jelly babies are popular with several of the Doctors in the television series Doctor Who. The Second Doctor was the first to have them in his pockets. The Fourth Doctor had them throughout his time on the show. They also appear briefly with the Tenth Doctor In the 2007 episode "The Sound of Drums", The Master is seen eating them.

Dolly mixture

This is a British confection, consisting of a variety of multi-coloured fondant shapes, such as cubes and cylinders, with subtle flavourings. The mixtures also include hard-coated fondants in "round edged cube" shapes and sugar coated jellies. They are sold together, in a mixture in a medium-sized packet. It is produced by various companies in different countries; the most popular brands are those produced by Trebor Bassett (now a part of the Cadbury’s consortium)

Bonbons

The name bonbon (or bon-bon) stems from the French word bon, literally meaning “good”. In modern usage, the term "bonbon" usually refers to any of several types of sweets and other table centerpieces across the world.

The first bonbons come from the 17th century when they were made at the royal court especially for children who were eating them and chanting bon, bon!, French for good, good!.

Bonbon is also a colloquial expression (as in, "She sat around all day eating bon-bons while her husband was at work."). This sweet inspired Johann Strauss II to compose a waltz named, "Wiener Bonbons".

Chewits

Chewits is the brand name of a chewy, cuboid-shaped, soft taffy candy manufactured by Leaf International.

Chewits was launched in the UK in 1965. The sweets were originally manufactured in Southport, but after the closing of the factory in 2006 manufacture was moved to Slovakia. The original flavours consisted of Strawberry, Blackcurrant, Orange and Banana. Over the years more exotic flavours such as Ice Cream, Cola, Rhubarb & Custard, and Blue Mint were introduced as limited edition flavours. New Chewits pack designs, formats and flavours were launched in 2009.

Currently Chewits core flavour range includes Strawberry, Blackcurrant, Fruit Salad, Ice Cream and Orange. Ice Cream Chewits, originally released in 1989, were re-introduced in 2009 following an online petition and demand expressed on Facebook and Bebo.

Chewits were first advertised on television in 1976. The original advertisements featured the ‘Monster Muncher’, a Godzilla-resembling mascot on the hunt for something chewy to eat. The first ad featuring the Muncher threatening New York was made by French Gold Abbott and created by John Clive and Ian Whapshot. The first ad was so successful the sequel was delayed. The ‘Monster Muncher’ chomps and tramples humorously local and well-known international landmarks such as Barrow-in-Furness Bus Depot, a London block of flats, London Bridge, the Taj Mahal, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the Empire State Building. The ‘Monster Muncher’ could only be quelled by a pack of Chewits.

A spin-off computer game, The Muncher, was released for the ZX Spectrum in 1988.

The original adverts used claymation special effects, similar in style to those made famous in the movies of Ray Harryhausen. They also included a voiceover style reminiscent of a 1950s radio serial.

A subsequent advertisement, originally aired in 1995, plays on the over-the-top advertising style of the post-war era. To the tune of bright 50’s era orchestration, a salesy narrator exhorts viewers to try a variety of chewy consumer items in the essential guide to a chewier chew. The ad shows the ‘Monster Muncher’ sampling items such as Wellington boots, a rubber boat and a rubber plant in order to be ready for the chewiest of chews – Chewits.

In the late 1990s, Chewits experimented with ads showing multiple news casting dinosaur puppets. The catchphrase advice at the close of each ‘broadcast’ was to "do it before you chew it". This style of ads was relatively short-lived for Chewits.

With a change of advertising agencies, the puppets were replaced by colourful 2D animations. The ‘Monster Muncher’ was re-introduced as ‘Chewie’ in two popular adverts from this time. In the first, which aired in 2000, Chewie roller skates on two buses through a busy city scene. The second, which went out a year later in 2001, shows Chewie waterskiing at a popular seaside resort. The ads included a rendition of the 1994 hit song ‘I like to move it’ by Reel 2 Real, with the chorus, "I like to Chewit Chewit."

In 2003, after a further shift in advertising agencies, a new ad was aired showing a wide range of animals auditioning to be the new face of Chewits. The ad announced the return of the iconic dinosaur Chewie mascot, now dubbed ‘Chewie the Chewitsaurus’.

In 2009, Chewits introduced the new Chewie the Chewitsaurus look, showing a contemporary, computer-game-style slick design. Chewie the Chewitsaurus features on all Chewits packaging and sponsorship activity.

Fizzy Cola Bottles

Remember that fizzy, sour cola taste you used to get from these? I think these are another sweet you either love or hate. Real cola tasting Giant fizzy bottles.

Milk Bottles

These white milk bottle shaped chewy white sweets are also known as milk gums. They were pretty popular in the UK, and are still selling well today repackaged as retro sweets.

Pacers

These were a kind of Opal Fruits spin-off, but came in peppermint and spearmint flavours. They were discontinued sometime in the 80’s.

Sweet Bananas

These yummy sweet bananas, soft, juicy chews with a lovely mellow banana flavour.

Mackintosh’s Toffee

Mackintosh’s Toffee is a sweet created by John Mackintosh.

Mackintosh opened up his sweets shop in Halifax, Yorkshire, England in 1890, and the idea for Mackintosh’s Toffee, not too hard and not too soft, came soon after. In 1969, Mackintosh’s merged with rival Rowntree to form Rowntree Mackintosh, which merged with Nestle in 1988.

The product is often credited with being over 100 years old.

The toffee is sold in bags containing a random assortment of individual wrapped flavoured toffees. The flavours are (followed by wrapping colour): Malt (Blue), Harrogate (Yellow), Mint (Green), Egg & Cream (Orange), Coconut (Pink), Toffee (Red). The red wrapped toffees do not display a flavour on the wrapper. The product’s subtitle is "Toffee De Luxe" and its motto "a tradition worth sharing".

Space Dust

Space Dust the candy that pops when placed in your mouth.

Bazooka bubble gum

It was first marketed shortly after World War II in the U.S. by the Topps Company based in Brooklyn, New York. The gum was packaged in a patriotic red, white, and blue color scheme. Beginning in 1953, Topps changed the packaging to include small comic strips with the gum, featuring the character "Bazooka Joe". There are 50 different "Bazooka Joe" comic-strip wrappers to collect. The product has been virtually unchanged in over 50 years.

The Topps company expanded the flavors, making them Original, Strawberry Shake, Cherry Berry, Watermelon Whirl, and Grape Rage. The Strawberry flavor is packaged in a pink and white wrapper and the Grape in a purple and white wrapper. Bazooka gum can also be found in a sugar free variety with the standard bubble gum flavor and a "Flavor Blasts" variety, claimed to have longer lasting, more intense taste. Bazooka gum comes in 2 different sizes.

Bazooka bubblegum is sold in many countries, often with Bazooka Joe comic strips translated into the local language. Bazooka gum is sold in Canada with cartoons in both English and French, depending upon the city. In Israel, manufactured under license to Elite, the cartoons are written in Hebrew. The gum was also sold in Yugoslavia and later in Slovenia until the local licensee allowed their license to expire in 2006. The "Bazooka Joe" cartoons are about "Bazooka Joe" and his friends. There are also "Bazooka Joe" t-shirts in return for 15 Bazooka Joe comics and .99 while supplies last. But the offer has been discontinued.

In May 2009 it was announced that the Bazooka Joe comic was to be adapted into a Hollywood movie.

Traffic Light lollies

These were a red yellow and green lolly that was a childhood favourtite sweet for many.

Black Magic Chocolates

What a huge disappointment these chocolates are!! A few years ago Nestle made an almighty mistake by doing away with THE best brand of dark chocolates, favourites of many thousands of people, and replacing them with cardboard pretend chocolate squares which tasted cheap and nasty. Most boxes ended up in the bin. Last year I had a letter from Nestle saying they were bringing the classics back, fantastic, I was straight to the shop for some, so bad was my addiction, but horribly they are nothing like the originals.

The dont taste or smell the same, the centres are hard and taste of chemicals, like long gone off chocolates. The bottom line is this, why change them in the first place? and when you realised you had made a mistake why not bring back the originals instead of these tacky replacements. very sad, and I still havent found any chocs like Black Magic, I still have original boxes with ribbons from the 1950’s, now they were class.

Texan

Ultra-chewy, chocolate-covered nougat bar launched in the mid-70s; disappeared in the mid-80s.

Banjo

Boring two-fingered wafer bar, lasted for most of the 80s.

Callard & Bowser Creamline Toffees

A 2001 casualty; they were better than Toffos.

Amazin Raisin

1971-78 – the sweets equivalent of rum’n’raisin ice cream.

Freshen Up

Chewing gum with a liquid centre, an 80s innovation.

Bluebird Toffee

A classic, but a recent casualty of confectionery industry takeovers.

Jap Desserts

These old coconut sweets (coconut was often known as ‘Jap’) died a death in the early 2000s.

Counters (Galaxy)

Harmless chocolate beans cruelly cut off.

Pink Panther

Extraordinary strawberry-flavoured chocolate bars, thin like Milky Bars. An acquired taste.

Bandit

Wafer biscuit – a challenger to Penguins.

Club bars

From Jacobs. The full range has been withdrawn, but Orange is still available. Symbol guide: plain = jack of clubs; milk = golf ball; mint = green leaf. Bog-standard but likable for thick chocolate.

Nutty Pure

80s bar, with a smoky brown see-through wrapper. Peanuts encase a fudge-type caramel log centre.

Double Agent

Extremely artificial blackcurrant- or apple-flavoured boiled sweets, with a sherbet centre and spy questions on the wrapper. Classic cold war confectionery.

Mighty Imp’s

Mighty Imps were really old fashioned licquorice and menthol pellets that used to turn your tongue black… lovely!

They were sugar free and were marketed to help you keep a clear voice and protect against a sore throat (due to the menthol content I suspect).

Zoom

This ice lolly on a stick was shaped like a rocket and was made up of three sections, each with its own distinct flavour. In sequence this was lime, lemon and strawberry.

Refreshers

Fruit flavour fizzy sweets in a roll. Raspberry, lemon, lime and orange flavours. Refreshingly fizzly.

White Chocolate Mice

These white chocolate mice were cream flavoured and are silky smooth on your tongue. You certainly will not want the cat to get these sweet mice!!

The top 10 Best Sales – Through the ages

1966

1 Mars bar
2 Cadbury’s Dairy Milk
3 Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum
4 Milky Way
5 Polo
6 Kit Kat
7 Crunchie
8 Wrigley’s Arrowmint Gum
9 Rowntree’s Fruit Pastilles
10 Maltesers

1978

1 Mars bar
2 Kit Kat
3 Cadbury’s Dairy Milk
4 Twix
5 Yorkie
6 Milky Way
7 Bounty
8 Maltesers
9 Aero
10 Smarties

1988

1 Mars bar
2 Kit Kat
3 Marathon
4 Wispa
5 Polo
6 Extra Strong Mints
7 Fruit Pastilles
8 Flake
9 Rolo
10 Double Decker

1997

1 Kit Kat
2 Mars bar
3 Cadbury’s Dairy Milk
4 Roses
5 Twix
6 Wrigley’s Extra
7 Quality Street
8 Snickers
9 Maltesers
10 Galaxy

2004

1 Cadbury’s Dairy Milk
2 Wrigleys Extra
3 Maltesers
4 Galaxy
5 Mars bar
6 Kit Kat
7 Celebrations
8 Quality Street
9 Haribo (total sales)
10 Roses

Can anyone add to the list?

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