Let’s
begin with some significant numbers.
Years: 100+
Toys: 23,000,000,000
Those figures refer to Cracker Jack. Cracker Jack is the sticky, filling-removing,
box of popcorn sold in the snack aisle.
The popcorn was, more often than not, stale with the consistency of damp
cardboard, albeit covered with caramel, and a Spanish peanut or two added for
flavor.
This stuff was pretty tasty, as a kid. Now, it is similar to those old 1950’s space
movies that featured a guy parading about wearing a deep sea diver’s helmet and
a gorilla suit. Back then it was
great! Today it is simply cheesy. But I digress.
However, the big draw was not to get to the crunchies inside
the box. It was for the prize.
As a kid I recall my Mother opening a box of Duz. Yes, Duz.
Duz was the powdered laundry detergent that sold countless
boxes of detergent that didn’t contain lye. The
ads touted Duz would ‘keep your hands from turning red.’ They would turn red because the active
ingredient in the soap was lye. Lye is very
caustic. Amen.
EasternShoreFishAndGame.com bonus: In case you don’t know why soap operas are
called soap operas, they were traditionally sponsored by soap companies, hence
the moniker.
In any case, my Mother would get a box of Duz from the
grocery store and quickly opened it to see what sort of dinner plate or drinking glass
she received as a prize. She was usually
delighted although we wound up with nine dinner plates, two juice glasses, and
three tea cups without saucers.
Oh, the humanity.
But, providing dinnerware inside a box of laundry detergent was
incentive to purchase a product again and again.
Cracker Jack did something similar, but directed at kids.
They enclosed toys to help induce a sale, which included
plastic jewelry rings, one-inch tall camels, miniature books, water-soluble
tattoos, vehicles and whistles. I likely
collected most of those items, all of which now reside in the county
landfill. Of course, they are now
collector’s items fetching many cents each.
But the point of this story is to sadly announce that
Frito-Lay, owner of Cracker Jack, has announced the demise of the tangible
toys.
Perhaps today’s kids are too stupid to not being able to
recognize those cheesy additions are playthings, or perhaps there’s a fear that
a few stupid children might ingest them.
It is likely a cost-saving move that is going to save Frito-Lay
nine-dollars a year in plastic gifts.
Their solution is to imprint the bag – not box – with an
ever-useful QR code. The munchers will
be able to scan the code with their cell phones, which will take them to a
video game.
