Dentyne, Schmentyne

June 30, 2006 8:42 PM

It's not your grandfather's Bazooka Joe. The ol' reliable chewing-gum icon gets hipsterized and multicultified, with a new DJ buddy and an African-American nerd sidekick. The classic pink mouth-filling wad in the goofy wrapper has also been reformulated, apparently. Note that it's not the first time Joe has tried to be down with teh youth, with decidedly mixed results. Next up for Bazooka Janes in Japan: gum that enhances your bustline. (Bazooka Joe previously chewed over here.)
posted by digaman (20 comments total)

We have heard you America!
posted by digaman at 8:54 PM on June 30, 2006

There's even a new lesbian tomboy sidekick.
posted by digaman at 8:56 PM on June 30, 2006

The Poochification of America continues...
posted by dhammond at 9:24 PM on June 30, 2006

Can you ruin something that sucked in the first place?
posted by L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg at 9:36 PM on June 30, 2006

Can I still save up wrappers for spy cameras and Bazooka Joe frisbees? And will they also have a Hebrew version?
posted by Guy Smiley at 9:53 PM on June 30, 2006

Hmmm, only about 20 years late. How does a company that slow stay in business?
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 10:10 PM on June 30, 2006

As Cherrie saw it, Bazooka’s chief problem was the fact that the tiny comics that come wrapped around the gum weren’t funny to anyone born after 1962...
"We had passed from being quaint, cozy humor to being your grandpa’s joke,” Cherrie...said recently."

Now, that's gotta be wrong. Bazooka jokes were my grandpa's jokes when I was a kid in the 1980's. I think Cherrie meant "great-grandpa's joke".
posted by Bugbread at 10:21 PM on June 30, 2006

Man, that article is full of gems:

Topps artists developed five new sidekicks, including an excitable German named Wolfgang Spreckels. “We want Joe to be beyond this Americancentric guy,” Cherrie said. “...What better way to accomplish that than with an exchange student?”

You mean the German exchange student whose likes are "America and rock music" and hangs out at McDonald's? Yeah, way to move the focus off America.
posted by Bugbread at 10:27 PM on June 30, 2006

"Hmmm, only about 20 years late. How does a company that slow stay in business?"

By making a whole bunch of other products that actually do sell, I'd guess. :-)
posted by drstein at 10:31 PM on June 30, 2006

I can't belive this is a New Yorker article.
posted by Paris Hilton at 10:33 PM on June 30, 2006

"Zany antics". 'Nuff said. ctrl-w.
posted by loquacious at 10:37 PM on June 30, 2006

I liked the rock hard gum and the quaintly antique humor of the comics.

Then again, I rarely bought any, so I guess I don't count for much.
posted by ikkyu2 at 10:40 PM on June 30, 2006

Kids would like Bazooka Joe much better if he actually had a Bazooka and just blew crap up. Well... I would like it, anyway.
posted by banished at 11:06 PM on June 30, 2006

How does a company that slow stay in business?

baseball cards

article - “Are you kidding? Ten bucks a ticket? It was horrifying!”

i thought they were going with post 1962 jokes ...
posted by pyramid termite at 11:14 PM on June 30, 2006

In 30 years, I fortell that whatever replaces The New Yorker will be talking about how whatever replaces Garbage Pail Kids will have to crank it up a notch or two.
posted by Mr. Six at 1:10 AM on July 1, 2006

I don't much like this Bazooka Joe Blue.

Bring back Bazooka Joe Original. In glass bottles, and with real sugar, please.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:56 AM on July 1, 2006

Well done everyone for ignoring the "chewing gum that gives you double-size breasts" section of this post. As a guy I have mixed feelings about that; do I even want my breasts to be bigger?
posted by imperium at 5:42 AM on July 1, 2006

This was one of my favorite parts of the New Yorker article:

"Cherrie knew that he was talking about Bazooka. Once Topps’s prize product, the brand had lost its cachet. Cherrie responded, 'Mr. Shorin, not only do I know it but I have been coveting this brand my whole career. Nobody understands the power of Bazooka better than I do.'"
posted by digaman at 8:10 AM on July 1, 2006

Well done everyone for ignoring the "chewing gum that gives you double-size breasts" section of this post.

Sorry, mate. I actually looked this up first.
posted by SPrintF at 9:49 AM on July 1, 2006

As a guy I have mixed feelings about that; do I even want my breasts to be bigger?

But they'd be firmer too...
posted by porpoise at 4:42 PM on July 1, 2006