Bubblegum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other uses, see Bubblegum (disambiguation).
Bubblegum is a type of chewing gum that is especially designed for blowing bubbles. It is usually pink in color and has a particular flavor. Bubble gum tends to be more viscous than standard chewing gum in order to facilitate bubble blowing. Some brands are especially non-sticky, such as Big League Chew, Bubble Yum and Bubblicious.
In the United States, bubble gum is often dispensed by gumball machines.
The act of blowing bubbles with bubble gum is often called bubbling.
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[edit] History
The first bubble gum formulation, Blibber-Blubber, was developed in 1906 by Frank Fleer. However, the gum was never marketed, as the taste was very bland.
According to a 1970s Smithsonian magazine article, Walter Diemer, an employee of the Frank H. Fleer Company, improved the Blibber-Blubber formulation in 1928, resulting in the first commercially successful bubble gum, Dubble Bubble.
When developed, it is said that the new bubble gum was pink because it was the only food coloring available in company stock at the time. Dubble Bubble's pink color set a tradition for nearly all bubble gums to follow.
During World War II, another gum manufacturer, The Topps Company, marketed a brand of bubblegum under the name Bazooka. Beginning in 1953, Topps added a small comic strip packaged with the gum featuring the character Bazooka Joe who became the newest craze in the bubblegum industry.
In 2000, Dubble Bubble instituted a national bubble blowing contest in the United States for children aged 12 and below held at branches of Wal-Mart. This has been repeated every year since then. In 2003, the contest spread to the United Kingdom.
So-called bubblegum flavor is a variable mixture of esters such as ethyl butyrate or ethyl acetate, essential oils such as wintergreen or orange, and flavoring chemicals such as ethyl maltol, maltol, benzaldehyde (cherry), and vanillin (vanilla). Most blends are proprietary and, thus, secret. No one chemical corresponds to bubblegum flavor.
[edit] Inventor disputed
Some might say the true inventor and patent holder of Dubble Bubble is seldom publicly acknowledged, based on a poorly documented story about confusion created by a popular 1960s game show called What's My Line?.[citation needed] According to the story, seeking to include the inventor of bubble gum in its line-up of guests; the writers for What's My Line? consulted with the Frank H. Fleer Company. In the 35 years that elapsed since getting a patent on Dubble Bubble, the true creator of the formula, Gilbert Mustin, Sr., had died. Realizing that the publicity opportunity was too valuable to decline, the Fleer Corp. decided to cast Walter Diemer (Gilbert Mustin's accountant, who knew nothing about chemistry at the time of bubble gum's invention) as the charmingly haphazard inventor of bubble gum. The July 1990 edition of Smithsonian magazine followed suit, publishing an article on the inventor of bubble gum, whom they claimed to be Walter Diemer. After interviewing the elderly Diemer, who at this point was consumed by senility, Smithsonian portrayed Walter Diemer as the undisputed hero of children across the world. To this day, Diemer is publicly acknowledged as the accountant who accidentally invented Dubble Bubble. So far, according to the story, no publication has acknowledged the fact that Gilbert Mustin's name lies on the original 1928 patent for bubble gum.
The credibility of this story depends upon a citation for the purported 1928 patent. Looking under the U.S. patent classification most frequently used for such gum inventions (namely 426/3, 426/4, 426/5, and 426/6) one will find that G.B. Mustin filed for three patents: one on 10 November 1926 and two on 10 September 1928, respectively under the titles of "Method of Making Chewing Gum Sandwiches" and "Chewing Gum and Method of Making the Same" all issued 29 July 1930 under patent numbers: 1,771,506; 1,771,981; and 1,771,982. The latter two inventions are chewing gum improvements that could possibly describe the bubble gum formula prior to it actually being called "bubble gum". Furthermore, the first patent found within the classification numbers provided above that referred to "bubble gum" was issued to Richard P. Dyckman in 1936 for "Bubble Chewing Gum" (U.S. patent# 2060461). Meanwhile any U.S. patent from Walter Diemer remains to be found.
(See Discussion tab above.)
[edit] In fiction
In many cartoons, bubblegum is used as a trap so that when someone steps in it, they get stuck in the sticky mess, sometimes resulting in the person taking off his/her footwear.
In a Bonanza Big Little Book, Little Joe and Hoss encounter a city-dwelling cowboy wannabe who is infamous for chewing bubble gum.
