Tidal wane (Bubble Gum Weekend)

Brands of bubble gum come and go - but mostly they just go.

It would take a while to list all the gum brands that seem to no longer be in business or have become impossible to find.

Case in point is Tidal Wave. This short-lived brand of bubble gum flourished around 1983. Supposedly it had a juicy center, but I never tried it myself to see if it was easily bubbled. In fact, I don't ever remember seeing Tidal Wave except in the commersh.

Despite this, every time a conversation turns to gum, someone inevitably asks, "Remember Tidal Wave?"

Here's a controversial old ad for this now-defunct bubble gum. I'm embedding it here only because this brand is no longer produced:



That commercial generated controversy because, according to critics, it seemed to depict cultures that were not European-American as being primitive and helped feed negative stereotypes. Despite this ad being highly offensive, it aired frequently during afternoon cartoons.

I only present it here as sort of a museum piece. If you're old enough to use the Internet, then you're probably mature enough to understand that this ad is a quarter-century old and not be influenced by its outdated theme.

On the other hand, defenders of this ad claimed that it likely wasn't intended to offend. They felt that the imagery in this commercial seemed to be simply to introduce a new product to people who had never seen it before.

After the explorers plundered their cultural artifacts, the locals seemed content to blow bubbles through a pipe. It's unclear if this inspired the website years later in which a hapless gentleman mentioned bubbling through a kazoo.