BUBBLE GUM

By MARGO HARAKAS
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
lose your eyes, take a whiff, and instantly you recognize -- bubble gum.
For three generations, this page-sticking, hair-snarling, sole-gumming, face-smearing, desk-marring, snap, pop, slurp concoction has fascinated the kids among us.
And all because an accountant, not content with juggling numbers, started juggling ingredients as well.
In 1928, Walter Diemer, accountant for a Philadelphia chewing gum company called Fleer, was messing around, trying to come up with a more elastic, less sticky bubble-producing chew when he hit upon a formula that shortly would be dubbed Dubble Bubble.
Like the repetitive Bs, the well-masticated gob burst from the mouth into slick, wet, lip-kissing bubbles.
Success was instantaneous. The first five-pound block sold out within hours for a penny a pinch. A new rite of childhood (as well as the concept of food as plaything) was born.
Key anniversaries
Now owned by Concord Confections, Dubble Bubble this year celebrates the 75th anniversary of Diemer's gummy achievement. At the same time, rival Bazooka Bubble Gum, creation of Topps Confections, marks the 50th birthday of its signature character Bazooka Joe.
Were Diemer around for the festivities, he would undoubtedly be awed by the jaw-breaking numbers engendered by his modest invention: 444 pieces of bubble gum chewed in North America every second, 1.6 million pieces every hour, 40 million pieces a day. He'd especially be impressed with revenue figures for his gooey mouthful, half a billion dollars annually for Dubble Bubble and its imitators, just in North America.
Pieces of the past
In the early years, twist-wrapped DB was more or less the whole chew, pushing ahead with other innovations such as coupling baseball cards with gum in 1930 and introducing square-wrapped pieces in '37. Not until '47, when Bazooka burst onto the scene with its own comic-wrapped wad, was there real competition. Six years later, Topps introduced Bazooka Joe, the wisecracking kid with an eye patch and an attitude. The brainchild of Woody Gelman and Ben Solomon, who worked on the first animated versions of Popeye and Superman, Joe was Bazooka's answer to Dubble Bubble's comic character, Pud.
Originally, Joe wore rolled-up jeans, nondescript shoes and a baseball cap with the bill pointed forward. His latest makeover in 1996, by Craig Yoe, former creative director for Jim Henson's puppets, has him decked out in baggy jeans, still an eye patch, and a cap with the bill turned backward.
Joe is renowned for such pithy sayings as:
A penny for your thoughts, but I expect change.
It's time to make an important change. Start with your socks.
A penny saved makes cents.
If at first you don't succeed, you're doing it wrong.
DB's Pud, while adorable and tongue-in-cheek, is admittedly less flamboyant. As Paul Cherrie, senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for Concord Confections, put it, "Pud is known for his personality rather than trademark lines."
Both Pud and Joe are guys' guys. Not surprising, because the biggest consumers of bubble gum are boys. Boys account for about 65 percent of the market, Cherrie said. But although boys have the numbers, the girls have the titles.
Competition
"Our last three crowned champions have been girls," said Cherrie, whose company, in conjunction with Wal-Mart, has sponsored for the past four years the Dubble Bubble National Bubble Blowing Contest.
This year's winner was Aina-Soe Cambridge of Chicago, who took the title with a 14-inch bubble. Last year's winner was Britney Radford of Tulsa, who captured the honors with a 13-incher, the same-size airy creation that made Anna Hansen, a 10-year-old from Cape Coral, the 2001 victor.
According to The Guinness Book of Records online, the biggest bubble gum bubble ever recorded was a 23-inch globe blown by Susan Montgomery Williams of Fresno, Calif., in 1994. Williams described herself at the time as a 20-year veteran of bubble blowing.
For most aficionados, however, chewing is a pastime, not a competitive sport. A pastime whose invention, at least some believe, is worthy of celebration.
If all that's not enough to prove the old wad still has buzz, there's the new Matt Damon movie, "Stuck on You." Dubble Bubble, it's rumored, has a pivotal role in the film, scheduled for release Dec. 12. So what if the gum doesn't get billing. It's a nice tribute on the 75th anniversary of the sticky stuff.