Bubble Yum is a brand of

bubble gum Bubble gum or bubblegum is a type of chewing gum, designed to be inflated out of the mouth as a bubble. Bubble gum flavor While there is a bubble gum "flavor" – which various artificial flavorings including esters are mixed to obtain – i ...

marketed by

The Hershey Company The Hershey Company, commonly known as Hershey's, is an American multinational company and one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world. It also manufactures baked products, such as cookies and cakes, and sells beverages like milksh ...

. Introduced in 1975 by Life Savers, the bubble gum was the first soft bubble gum created. It was created by a homemaker in Fisk, Missouri, who named it "rubber bubblegum". She gave some to her son to pass out at school. She soon sold the recipe to the Life Savers candy division in St. Louis.

History

In 1977, rumors began to spread that the gum's soft, chewable secret was the addition of

spider Spiders (order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...

eggs. The Life Savers Company addressed the issue with an official full-page rebuttal printed in prominent U.S. newspapers (including ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''), to dispel the rumor and restore public confidence. Sales of the gum soon surpassed sales of Life Savers candy, and it became the most popular bubble gum brand.

Nabisco Nabisco (, abbreviated from the earlier name National Biscuit Company) is an American manufacturer of cookies and snacks headquartered in East Hanover, New Jersey. The company is a subsidiary of Illinois-based Mondelēz International. Nabisco' ...

bought Life Savers in 1981, and

acquired the Bubble Yum brand in 2000.

Mascot

Bubble Yum's official

mascot A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as ...

is Floyd D. Duck, an

anthropomorphic Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics t ...

punk-style

duck Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfamilies, they are a form ...

character.

References

External links

* {{Hershey The Hershey Company brands Brand name confectionery Chewing gum Products introduced in 1975 Urban legends