Hey bubble gum blowers! (Bubble Gum Weekend)

"Hey bubble gum blowers!"

This has been a favorite greeting for years - regardless of whether the person being addressed bubbles.

This salutation originated in a 1997 commercial for Extra sugarless bubble gum.

I was floored when I first saw the ad - not because it was for gum. It was because it referred to people who bubble as "bubble gum blowers." Ask a bubbler if they are a "bubble gum blower", and you will likely receive a blank stare.

The ad has been posted on YouTube, but unfortunately, the audio is missing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS04iyZucbQ

I once discussed that ad in detail in The Last Word. And we kept ridiculing this commersh on a family trip to Chicago (the dreaded Par King trip). Although nobody in our group bubbled during this outing, we kept greeting each other by saying, "Hey bubble gum blowers!"

The commercial is also one of the most unintentionally absurd gum ads ever to hit the airwaves. It acts as if people build their lives around counting the number of bubbles they blow.

Also, the elderly man in the barber chair may be the oldest person ever to bubble in a commercial (though he has stiff competition from an aged woman in a Trident ad).

Gum. What an invention.