About The Bubble Beeper
Before cell phone technology exploded, people needed ways of getting in touch with each other on the go. This is where beepers came into play. For those who are too young to remember, a beeper was a little black box you put on your hip. People could call it and send small messages to it. It was kind of the precursor to text messaging back when people only had landline phones.
In outrageous 90s fashion, toy beepers became a popular item. This included The Bubble Beeper, a box of chewing gum that looks like a beeper.
The wrappers on the individual sticks of gum were designed to look like beeper messages. This included phrases like ‘Sorry, line’s busy!’, ‘Urgent’, and ‘See you later’.
The Bubble Beeper was created by Amurol Products. This company is now a subsidiary of Wrigley’s. This company made many crazy 90s candies, such as Bubble Tape and Ouch! Bandaids.
I had totally forgot about this gum until my friend recently brought it up. I most definitely had this candy as a child. Like many 90s children, I also found the box to make for great storage after the gum was gone. In fact, that is my main memory of The Bubble Beeper. I can’t even tell you if the gum is good.
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The Bubble Beeper Concerning Parents
While The Bubble Beeper seems like silly marketing for kid’s candy, some parents in the 1990s had concerns about the product.
As stated previously, beepers were used for people who are on the go and needed the ability for multiple people to contact them. Obviously, beepers were popular with street-level drug dealers at the time. They were also popular with people in general, especially high-level professionals. I guess the parents at the time had a different perspective.
Though beepers are a completely innocent piece of technology, parents were concerned with the connection between criminals and beepers. Some even made outrageous claims that their children would be harmed because a criminal would think The Bubble Beeper was the real thing. Nothing says ‘there’s a rival drug dealer’ like a plastic box filled with bubble gum.
In reality, this seems to be another situation of parent-panic. It feels like there is always a product that is making parents worry about the future of their children. If the parents in the 90s only knew about TikTok.
With gangster rap being at the forefront of mainstream hip hop at the time, there was a lot of suburban outrage toward hip hop culture. I feel that The Bubble Beeper may have been caught in the culture crosshairs for a moment.
The Bubble Beeper In The Modern Era
Beepers have gone by the wayside, and there is not much room for The Bubble Beeper in the modern candy and gum markets. Children nowadays would not find the product to be relevant to modern culture.
However, there are plenty of nostalgia junkies that are looking to get their hands on The Bubble Beeper. A quick search of eBay shows that these candies are in hot demand. People will even buy the container without the gum. That said, I wouldn’t be chewing gum from the 90s at this point in my life.
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Do You Remember The Bubble Beeper?
We hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane with The Bubble Beeper. Do you remember this classic 1990s candy? Let us know on social media!