Almanac: The inventor of bubble gum
And now a page from our “Sunday Morning” Almanac: January 8th, 1998, 19 years ago today … the day bubble gum inventor Walter Diemer died at the age of 93.
Diemer was working in Philadelphia for the Fleer Candy Company in 1928 when he accidentally stumbled upon the winning formula.
He made it pink, he said, because that was the one food color he happened to have on hand.
Accident or not, Fleer’s “Dubble Bubble” brand inflated rapidly from that small beginning.
A 1950s promotional film proudly showed off Fleer’s production skills, as well as the bubble-blowing prowess of its staff.
By the 1970s, other companies had joined the bubble battle, including Life Savers, which was consumer testing its Bubble Yum brand.
Not that bubble gum is just for the young, as our own Charles Osgood learned from Life Savers President William Morris:
“One of the things that we missed in our projections [is] what we call the closet chewer, which is the adult bubble gum chewer,” he said. “We never looked at the adults.”
From big league athletes to the Guinness World Record holder, there’s clearly no shame in being an adult bubble gum chewer.
Nor is there any sign (in the business sense, at least) of the bubble bursting any time soon.
For more info:
- Double Bubble bubble gum
- Bubble Yum bubble gum (Old Time Candy)
