Good & Plenty
Good & Plenty is an American brand of licorice candy. The candy is a narrow cylinder of sweet black licorice, coated in a hard candy shell to form a capsule shape. The pieces are colored bright pink and white and presented in a purple box or bag.
Good & Plenty was first produced by the Quaker City Confectionery Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1893 and is the oldest branded candy in the United States. Warner-Lambert purchased Quaker City in 1973 and sold it to Leaf Candy Company (owned by Beatrice Foods) in 1982. It is now produced by Hershey Foods, which purchased Leaf in 1996.
Beginning in 1950, a cartoon character named "Choo-Choo Charlie" appeared in Good & Plenty television commercials. A railroad engineer, Charlie would shake a box of the candy in a circular motion, imitating a train's pushrods and making a sound like a train.[1] Advertising executive Russ Alben wrote the "Choo-Choo Charlie" jingle.[2]
The pink candies are colored with a red dye called K-Carmine, produced from the crushed bodies of the female cochineal insect. Current packaging lists the red dye as "artificial color (K-Carmine and Red 40)".
According to writer Judy Dutton and scientist David Sugarman of the Ontario Science Centre, the scent of Good & Plenty candy is one of those (with that of cucumber) that women find most alluring.[citation needed]
Outside North America [edit]
London drops are a similar candy sold in Finland and Sweden.
In popular culture [edit]
- In the Everybody Loves Raymond episode called "Snow Day", Robert separates his candies into "Goods" (pink) and "Plenties" (white): there are more white candies, but they do not taste as good as the pink. Robert names his smaller Good & Plenty bits "Cuties."
- In The Sopranos episode, "Watching Too Much Television", Paulie Gualtieri tells Johnny Sack he yearned for Good & Plenty candy while in prison.
- In the opening credits for Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert's Sneak Previews, Ebert's name appears on a tub of popcorn and Siskel's on a Good & Plenty box.
- In The Simpsons episode "Bart's Inner Child", Homer's newspaper advertises a free "Good N' Plenty collection" along with a free flame thrower, free gravedigger's lantern, and free "Greatful Dead tix."
- On an early episode of Late Night with David Letterman, musician Paul Simon recounted a story about how, as a child, his former badmate Art Garfunkel would shake boxes of Good & Plenty whenever he was in a candy store to determine which box held the most candy before buying one, to ensure he got value for money. Garfunkel confirmed his story on a follow-up episode.
References [edit]
- ^ Good & Plenty, Hershey's.
- ^ Russell, Mallory (2012-08-28). "Former Ogilvy Creative Director Russ Alben Dies". Advertising Age. Retrieved 2012-10-02.
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