Food & Drink

Not your average Bazooka Joe

The bubble gum icon is undergoing a makeover

By Derrik J. Lang
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Friday, June 09, 2006

NEW YORK — Don't let the silly grin - wider than usual - or the newly ripped tear in his jeans deceive you. He may still seem like the ol' pal you've known all your life, the happy-go-lucky guy with the mysterious yet undeniably cool eyepatch.

But there's something different about him now. Did he really ditch his friends? Are those new shoes? Is he using a new shampoo?

He's tilted his trademark cap backward on top of his golden coif, which is fuller than usual. These are bold alterations for such a traditionalist. But those aren't the only attributes that seem out of the ordinary. Beyond the superficial, just what is it about this trusted icon that's changed?

Well, today, Bazooka Joe means business.

After years of disappointing sales, Topps, the New York-based company responsible for Bazooka and baseball cards, is relaunching the bubble gum brand with a new logo, new texture, new price, new product line, new comics and a new gang.

Same Joe. Mostly.

"He's been contemporized a bit to make him more relevant to kids today," says Scott Silverstein, Topps' president.

Long before Ashton Kutcher was punking celebrities, the advertising icon was causing corny havoc on the inside of bubble gum wrappers around the world. He was added to Bazooka — named after the instrument, not the weapon — in 1953 to appeal to children. More real than Ronald and less omnipresent than Mickey, Joe and his comic antics and twisted fortunes ("It's time to make an important change. Start with your socks.") helped to build a brand before suits knew what that meant.

"For some reason, the kids of America just took to Bazooka Joe," says Arthur Shorin, Topps' chairman. "Even today, kids read the comics. They say, 'These are really goofy.' But every time, they read the comic."

With the relaunch, those infamous comics will look both less and more colorful. Less because they're no longer in color. More because Joe will be joined by a new multiethnic gang that includes a tomboy, an Asian-American DJ, an environmentalist, a German exchange student, an Urkel-like nerd, and Mort, Joe's turtleneck-wearing B.F.F.

Not only is Joe receiving a new social circle, but the gum is now softer, wrapped in twist packaging and more rectangular than square. There's also new products — bubble gum bits and lollipops. The changes required Topps to modify their formula and move manufacturing from Tennessee to Mexico.

Extreme brand makeover

Updating well-known icons is nothing new. Lately, personified brands from the raisin-totin' Sun-Maid to spill-swipin' Brawny Man to beer-servin' St. Pauli Girl have experienced extreme makeovers. All have walked a fine line between maintaining their trusted sensibility while forging into the 21st century, leaving shoppers to wonder just how fair the supermarket metamorphosis will go.

Botox for Betty Crocker? Lasik for Charlie Tuna? Maybe Bazooka Joe, whose vision has always been 20/20, will finally take off that silly eye patch. Or not

"No one would dare remove Bazooka Joe's eyepatch," says Silverstein.

The more brands change, the more they stay the same.

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