CULTURE WATCH : A Piece of History to Chew On

P OP!

Every parent of a bubble-gum chewing child dreads that sound. It signifies a struggle to remove sticky pink stuff from cheeks, lips, noses, even hair.

But kids love bubble gum. In 1991 they chewed 150,000 pounds--15 million pieces--of the primarily pink gum each day , according to Zillions, Consumer Reports for Kids.

Parents hate it. It sticks to pants (especially inside pockets), furniture, carpets, hair (where it usually has to be cut out), the bottoms of shoes, sandals and bare feet. Through the years, parents have admonished their children that chewing, popping and blowing bubbles just plain looks tacky.

First marketed in 1928, Dubble Bubble bubble gum sold for a penny apiece. Last year bubble gum sales were $1.2 billion, according to Adweek Marketing Week.

Why pink? It was because “pink food coloring was the only thing I had on hand,” according to inventor Walter Diemer as reported by Robert Hendrickson, author of “The Great American Chewing Gum Book.”

Today, bubble gum can be found in a rainbow of colors and flavors. It’s been marketed in Scotch-tape style rolls, in tubes and controversially as cigarettes and chewing tobacco.

The Topps Co. still produces Bazooka Bubble Gum, complete with Bazooka Joe comics, although Joe is now pushing 40.

And that staple of young boyhood, the baseball trading card, is still sold with a piece of the pink.