Okay, friends, you asked for it, you got it.
The single most requested item that I cover over the time that I Remember JFK has been in existence is Fizzies.
Unfortunately, I, for some bizarre reason, have no recollection of Fizzies. That has been what has held me back from writing about them. However, a recent traffic blast (thanks, wired.com) has brought in a host of new visitors, and I received another handful of Fizzies requests.
You have to keep the customer happy, right? So, without further ado, here is I Remember JFK's article on Fizzies.
It all started sometime in the 1950's. Nobody seems to know exactly when. But the who is indisputable: the Emerson Drug Company.
Emerson had an extremely successful product on their hands: Bromo-Seltzer. It was (and still is) a wonderful antacid powder that fizzes like crazy when added to water. Bromo had been around forever, but the developers at Emerson wanted to push it to new heights by giving it fruity flavor.
The results were less than spectacular, but all that research and development didn't go to waste. Enter Fizzies.
There is something very mystical about watching a dry substance dropped into water and seeing it begin to fizz. It touches us deeply in the soul, in places that itch that we are not even aware need to be scratched. Ergo, the success of Bromo, Alka-Seltzer, and a host of other products that provide us with the soul-satisfying fizz.
The R&D gang at Emerson saw a potential outlet for their fruity flavors: kids.
With that, Fizzies, compressed into easier-to-package tablet form, hit the shelves in 1957.
They did well, but sales exploded in the 60's. Soon, they were on the shelves of candy stores in two forms: a pack of eight, and individual tablets in the penny candy section.
Man, why don't i remember these? my guess is that Moonwink Grocery must not have seen fit to carry them. Perhaps they weren't available in northeast Oklahoma.
But the rest of the USA went nuts over them. Kids would mix them in water (sometimes two different flavors at once), or, on a dare, might pop the tablet into their mouth to create a human volcano of fizz.
Parents were aghast of such doings, warning their children that swallowing a Fizzy may well cause a stomach explosion.
Indeed, parents were the target of Fizzy magazine ads as well. Fizzies used cyclamate as a sweetener, therefore making for a guilt-free sweet treat for weight-conscious adults.
By 1969, Fizzies' popularity was at its peak. Enter the federal government.
The cyclamate ban of 1969 put many of the brand names that we grew up with out of business, including Fizzies. Emerson held on as long as they could, trying in vain to market a version that required sugar and ice, but Fizzies were done.
Nutrasweet's introduction made for a short-lived resurrection of the Fizzies brand in the early 1990's. But the magic was gone.
Nowadays, Fizzies have been brought back yet again with Sucralose sweetener. You can order them here if you have a hankerin'.
But, if you don't mind, I would prefer a time capsule, so that I could march into Moonwink Grocery in 1968 and ask Mark, the owner, "Where are the Fizzies that kids all over the country are going nuts over?"
Comments (4)
I remember Fizzies. I grew up in Dallas. We'd get them at Woolworth's in the Inwood shopping center. They had a great candy section until they went out of biz. My favorite flavor was root beer!
Remember Astro pops with the wax at the bottom near where you held it?
A great book to read is Candy Freak by Steve Almond. Steve went around a few years ago and found out about some of the candy we remember and some that is still made. Great book! (It does have some adult language in it so not for the kiddies.)
Posted by Alison Swann | August 15, 2008 1:12 AM
Posted on August 15, 2008 01:12
You betcha we had Fizzies at our house when I was a child in the 1960s!
From personal observation, I can confirm that eating a Fizzy would not cause a stomach to explode. I had a younger brother who was very fond of eating Fizzies.
As I recall, Fizzies came in a whole bunch of flavors. Couldn't name them all, but I remember that at one time, they even made a root beer flavored Fizzy. We tried them. It seems to me that those weren't so good... but perhaps that's my adult brain kicking in and thinking that root beer Fizzies just sound pretty atrocious. Either way, I don't think that A&W would have faced any serious competition from the Fizzy people!
Posted by Kenosha Mom | August 15, 2008 8:54 PM
Posted on August 15, 2008 20:54
Ron,
You missed the quintessential IRJFK / Fizzies connection. They were invented for Emerson Drug Company by Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings, JFK’s high school roommate (and best friend) at Choate Prep School in Connecticut. Lem was homosexual and had supposedly had a crush on JFK but by most accounts it was not reciprocated, however Lem was given his own room at the Camelot Castle (a.k.a. The Whitehouse) until that fateful day. See The man who invented Fizzies
Our family jumped on the Fizzies bandwagon as soon as they were marketed in our area of VT as they were an inexpensive alternative to soda Grape, Raspberry and Root Beer were our favorites and they tasted OK but the Cola Fizzies tasted similar to the Metracola my mother would drink on the Metracal diet plan (any boomers remember Metracal?) It was likely the sodium cyclamate that gave it and Fizzies the woody aftertaste that was like sucking on a Popsicle stick long after the quiescently frozen confection had been consumed. My sister and I often would pop the tablets into our mouths to simulate “foaming at the mouth” thereby grossing out the neighborhood kids.
My father also made and bottled homebrewed root beer from Hire’s extract, water, sugar and yeast complete with corked bottle caps and a mechanical capper that was similar to a car’s bumper jack. It was mildly alcoholic and packed a real punch. I would drink a quart while watching Saturday morning cartoons and swear I got a buzz (maybe it was the sugar...)
When I was about 10 or so I was introduced to Bromo-Seltzer by my grandmother who used it to cure headaches. I developed a taste for it and probably drank it more than I should have. She also drank Brioschi, a lemony flavored effervescent sodium bicarbonate with the acid/base combo responsible for the fizz in all these “just add water” concoctions which I also liked (but not as much as Bromo.) I later found out in General Science that it contained sodium bromide which was in a class of tranquilizing drugs that had a high potential for abuse, and presumably due to that potential, Bromo-Seltzer removed the sodium bromide from its formula. This sedative quality gave rise to the term “bromide” for a dull person or platitude.
(from Wordsmith.org)
In earlier times, potassium bromide used to be taken as a sedative. So any statement that was intended to be soothing ("Don't worry, everything will be OK.") acquired the name bromide. Eventually any commonplace or tired remark and anyone uttering such remarks came to be known as a bromide.
Posted by Burt | August 18, 2008 9:17 PM
Posted on August 18, 2008 21:17
No one's brought this up yet, but the most famous thing I remember about Fizzies is their commercials and their slogan: "Have a happy Fizzies Party!" That expression became as common in the early 60's as "where the rubber meets the road," "no fuss, no muss," and "less work for mother." "It's like a regular 'happy Fizzies party'" is still in my vernacular (not that too many people understand when I say it--but it's just an involuntary utterance.)
The Happy Fizzies Party later evolved into other forms of entertainment brought on with consumables by mouth, and one wonders whether it was Fizzies that really started the whole process of boomers getting a buzz on!
Posted by Richard Roll | September 2, 2008 2:01 AM
Posted on September 2, 2008 02:01