#OLD SCHOOL ZEBRA GUM FULL#

We as kids took ownership and laid full claim to novelty foods and there was nothing adults could do to stop us. It didn't matter if a cereal tasted like cardboard or a gum tasted like unscented Silly Putty, it was ours. If they made it look fun in the commercial, you could bet we'd make it fun in real life. Like so many of our favorite snacks and candy in the 90s, we were foolishly lured in by a fast-talking anthropomorphic cartoon animal and vibrant neon colors. We'd suffer through endless wads of gooey, chewy, tastelessly bitter gum so long as it was colorful and came with a cheerful zebra on the package. It was one of those food fads for which we liked it because we liked it, and don't bother asking us any probing questions as to why. It was certainly a cheap thrill, and a short-lived one at that. Regardless of our questionable Fruit Stripe tattoo practices, the gum remained amongst our favorites for years. Sure, it wasn't necessarily the most attractive, or tastiest, or functional, or sensible, or.wait, where was I going with this? This non-toxic ink blob clinging to our taste buds was usually our greatest and wisest alternative. Namely, to put the tattoos on our tongues. It was time for us to take drastic measures. We usually ended up with more of a smudge than a zebra.

The temporary tattooing process was not quite as straightforward as they'd led us to believe. What could possibly go wrong?Īpparently, lots of things.

#OLD SCHOOL ZEBRA GUM SKIN#

The instructions were brief: simply wet the tattoo (nearly all of us subbed the verb lick at this point), and apply with pressure to the desired skin surface for about 30 seconds. There were no bells and whistles on this thing. The magic of the Fruit Stripe gum tattoo was in its pure, unadulterated simplicity. Each stick came with its very own temporary tattoo, because what kid doesn't want a semi-permanent splotch of color smack dab in the middle of their cheek? I know I was keen. Oh, the coveted tattoo! It was inexplicably desirable, despite the fact it was both worthless and blurry. They weren't taking their novelty product halfway, they were going for gold here. The Fruit Stripe people knew it would take more than a lamely-flavored albeit colorful gum to pique the fancy of children. Sure, there was a minor choking hazard, but that's a small price to pay for ten minutes of silence in the car. After all, a kid can't speak with a mouth chock full of Fruit Stripe gum. Alright, so this clearly was not the perfect solution and our teeth weren't bowing down in enamel-depleted gratitude, but our parents probably were big fans of this trick. It didn't take a genius IQ to figure out that adding another stick would freshen the ever-growing was of gum slowly taking over our cavernous mouthal cavity. It was wonderfully convenient that the gum tended to come in a large pack as it provided a handy solution for its minuscule flavor life. The system wasn't perfect, but it was sweet, which is usually more than enough to satiate even the most precocious of children. We could only assume that the red was in some way vaguely symbolic of wild cherry and a yellow/green combination of hues represented the lemon lime delegation. You'd have to be a taste connoisseur to distinguish between these subtle differences, so we relied on the vibrantly colored sticks of gum to show us the way. Though the gum claimed to come in a wide variety of fruity flavors, in reality it tended to come in a variety of fruity colors.

Is it not the most fantastically beautiful gum you've ever seen? Huh? Is it? Even though we'd experienced multiple times for ourselves the flightiness of the flavor, we continued to chew our beloved Fruit Stripe on the premise of its novelty alone. We never learned, particularly if we'd purchased a rather large pack of the gum. The alluring five juicy flavors drew us in time after time. The brand and its zebra mascot Yipes are decidedly kid-friendly, luring in children with promises of an enchantingly colorful sugar high. That's got to be some sort of consolation, right?įruit Stripe Gum was nothing less than a candy craze, launched in the 1960s but enjoying a serious rejuvenation of popularity throughout the 1990s. Case in point, the gum offers a mere three minutes of desirable flavor time followed by a persistent output of bland non-flavor for the duration of the chew. If you ever doubted that kids favor the immediate over the enduring, look no further for evidence than a fluorescent hued-stick of Fruit Stripe Gum. Instant gratification is most likely the only type of satisfaction they know, regardless of the longstanding consequences of their actions. Kids aren't usually the greatest long-term planners.

Old school zebra gum