Cuckoo for Super Bubble! (Bubble Gum Weekend)

Much has been made here of the days when bubble gum was often included free inside specially marked boxes of cold cereal.

I stopped buying cereal years and years ago, so I haven't noticed this practice lately. Indeed, I think I quit purchasing cereal even before the cereal price-gouging scandal broke in the mid-'90s. Perhaps the inclusion of bubble gum has since ceased for fear that it may rot the teeth of unsuspecting chewers.

Perhaps the most widely documented example of bubble gum in cereal was in the '80s when Cocoa Puffs periodically included a large piece of Super Bubble buried therein. I remember the pieces of gum being hoarded on the hutch in the kitchen back when I was a youngster. Although the pieces of Super Bubble were in plain sight, nobody chewed 'em - until finally I think some of the neighborhood kids grabbed them.

There's a consensus that all brands of bubble gum blew bigger bubbles in those days. That's borne out by a 1981 Cocoa Puffs ad that touts the Super Bubble promotion. The ad is part of a set of unrelated commercials and TV station bumpers which you can find here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQPwMGZ4ECc

The kid who bubbled in that commercial is as cross-eyed as Ernie!

Roads Scholars may be offended by the first commersh in that set, for although it claims to discuss US 1, the route marker uses the colors of an Interstate shield rather than a U.S. route sign.

And isn't that the late Peter Allen (the frequent 'Solid Gold' guest) in that WPIX ad?