For 75 years, it's pop goes the bubble gum

Monday, April 21, 2003

By AMANDA ROGERS
FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM

Hard to believe, but 100 years ago, bubble gum didn't exist. No bubble-blowing contests, no loud bangs from the back seat of the car on a long drive, no way for parents to hand over a few coins and satisfy their kids for hours.

This essential element of childhood was invented in 1928 by Philadelphia accountant Walter Diemer, who was working for the Fleer gum company. Fleer had been trying to come up with a gum that would produce bubbles but not stick all over your face. Diemer developed a recipe that produced elastic, but not sticky, bubbles.

Diemer wanted colorful bubbles, but the only food coloring he had was pink. Presto! Bubble gum was born.

Christened Dubble Bubble, the brand has been sold a couple of times, to Marvel Entertainment Group and then, in 1998, to Concord Confections.

The Dubble Bubble folks gave us some more eye-popping facts about our favorite bubble:

A Philadelphia grocery store sold the first 5 pounds of Dubble Bubble for one penny a piece. The store sold out within hours.
Dubble Bubble was included in ration kits for American soldiers serving in World War II.
The biggest bubble ever, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, was 22 inches in diameter, 1 1/2 times the size of a large pizza.
Only 2 percent of North American fourth-graders can blow a double bubble, a bubble inside a bubble.
A "triple whammy" is a bubble inside a bubble inside a bubble.
Sixty to 70 percent of bubble gum is sugar. (Sugarless gum loses about 50 percent of its mass in 10 minutes of chewing.)
Studies have shown that chewing gum actually helps people concentrate. (Perhaps the reason for those bubble gum chewing baseball players?)
Chewing gum burns about 11 calories per hour.
Scientists found a 9,000-year- old wad of chewing gum in Sweden.
If you swallow your gum, it won't stay in your stomach for seven years. It ends up in the same place the rest of the undigested portion of your food does.
Humans are the only animal that chews gum.
Detectives can find criminals by comparing their gum to their dental records.
To get gum off your clothes, rub ice over it, then scrape it off.
Chewing gum on an airplane will keep your ears from popping. Chewing gum makes your saliva glands produce 250 percent more saliva, so you swallow more and that balances the pressure in your head.
North American kids spend about a half-billion dollars on bubble gum every year, which translates to 40 million pieces every day, 1.6 million every hour, 26,000 every minute or 444 pieces per second.