For over half a century, buying a piece of Bazooka gum meant getting a tiny comic strip along with it — a one-panel joke and a fortune-cookie-style trivia line, wrapped around a pink slab of gum in the same blue, red and yellow wrapper for decades.
A Brooklyn candy company's gum
Bazooka gum was launched in 1947 by Topps, a company founded in Brooklyn in 1938 by Joseph, Abram, Ira and Philip Shorin. Topps had started out selling chewing gum to fund a candy business and would go on to become far better known for trading cards, but Bazooka — named after the shoulder-fired weapon that was newly famous after the Second World War — became one of its longest-running products.
The comic strip that made it iconic
- 1953 — Bazooka Joe, a gum-chewing kid in an eye patch and sailor cap, debuts on the wrapper.
- Artist — Wesley Morse drew the strip until his death in 1963; Topps creative director Woody Gelman shaped the character and format.
- Format — each wrapper carried a short one-panel gag plus a separate fortune or trivia line, and wrappers could be mailed in for prizes through a mail-order catalogue.
From comics to collectibles
By the 2000s the comic strips had been replaced with puzzles, trivia and jokes aimed at a changing audience, and Topps quietly dropped the Bazooka Joe character from the wrapper in 2012. Original 1950s-70s wrappers are now genuinely collectible, traded much like the trading cards Topps is famous for. The gum itself, sold in small individually wrapped squares, remains part of the wider world of American candy and retro sweets that never really went away in the UK.
Frequently asked questions
Who makes Bazooka Joe bubble gum?
Bazooka bubble gum is made by Bazooka Candy Brands, a division of The Topps Company, which was founded in Brooklyn, New York, in 1938.
When did the Bazooka Joe comic strip start?
The Bazooka Joe character and comic-strip wrapper were introduced in 1953, created by artist Wesley Morse and produced under Topps executive Woody Gelman.
Why does Bazooka Joe wear an eye patch?
The eye patch was simply a distinctive visual trait chosen to make the cartoon character instantly recognisable on the wrapper, alongside his sailor cap and striped shirt; no in-universe backstory was ever given for it.