July 25, 2006
Sensitive Man's Bubble Gum: Bazooka Joe & Friends Meet "Diversity"
Our favorite gum is (or, we should say, was) Bazooka bubble gum. We like the hard pink square that isn't chock-filled with softeners and bizarre flavors. Grape, Cherry, and Regular were just fine for us. At age 53, Bazooka Joe is just fine to us and doesn't need changes.
Now, however, political correctness has struck even our fave bubble gum and its emblematic American boy portrayed in the comics insert.
Bazooka Joe product managers at Topps claim that today's softened youth prefer "softer chews," and so the pink gum is being softened. Ditto for Bazooka Joe. He's being "diversified" along with his friends and given a girlie-man, hip-hop makeover. Say it ain't so, Joe!
Predictably, Bazooka Joe's new comic "friends" include a complete line-up of the left-wing version of diversity: a masculine Title IX-style chick, a European student, an environmentalist chick, and a hip-hop DJ. The only thing missing: a transsexual, lacto-ovo bra-burning Hezbollah member.
According to reports (scroll down):
Out with his rolled-up pants. In with a backward hat and ripped jeans.
HUH?!
Out with his old friends. In with a multicultural gang who will appear in Bazooka comics: tomboy Casey McGavin, German exchange student Wolfgang Spreckels [DS: Like Deiter from "Sprockets"?], greenie Cindy Lewis, sci-fi fan Kevin Griffin, and DJ Chen, who loves mixing records.
Another report on Bazooka Joe's unnecessary "extreme makeover," here.
More on Topps and Bazooka here.
Posted by Debbie at July 25, 2006 01:17 PM
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Comments
Honestly I never cared much for the gum when I was a kid but I still bought because I sure did like reading the comics. Too bad so many good things have to be sacraficed at the alter of multiculturalism!
Posted by: BEF ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.debbieschlussel.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at July 25, 2006 06:39 PM
I don't get the problem. They're trying to attract as many different kinds of kids to their product as possible. Sure, the art style is as lame as products that try to appeal to kids by using words like x-treme, but is Bazooka Joe not allowed to have friends that aren't "multicultural"?
Posted by: Manatoch at July 25, 2006 09:00 PM
Call it Bazooka Jane
Posted by: KOAJaps at July 26, 2006 02:30 PM
Bazooka Joe has undergone image changes for years.
Learn all about it:
http://www.geocities.com/myxzlpyx/bazookajoe/bazooka.htm
How dare Bakooka Joe change with the times! He should live in his white-bread 50's world forever!
Have you been a bigot all your life, Debbie?
Posted by: Avalon at July 26, 2006 10:58 PM
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