While
jawbreakers have been known as gobstoppers
in the United Kingdom for at least
eighty years, the fictional Everlasting
Gobstoppers first appeared in Roald
Dahl's 1964 children's book Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory, and later
in its two movie adaptations (the
1971 musical Willy Wonka and the Chocolate
Factory and the 2005 Tim Burton adaptation
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).
In
Dahl's story, Everlasting Gobstoppers
were designed by Willy Wonka, the
owner of a massive chocolate factory,
for children with "very little
pocket-money", and were purported
to last forever, as the name suggests.
If someone bit an Everlasting Gobstopper,
the person would break their teeth.
In the 1971 film, Wonka's exact words
on the subject were "You can
suck 'em and suck 'em and suck 'em,
and they'll never get any smaller".
In the original novel,
the Everlasting Gobstopper looked
like a normal round jawbreaker which
flashed with a variety of colors.
A product called Everlasting
Gobstoppers was introduced in 1976
by the Chicago candy company Breaker
Confections, which had licensed the
"Willy Wonka" name in 1971
so that it could be used as a merchandising
tie-in for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate
Factory.
The Willy Wonka Candy
Company brand is now owned by Nestlé.
The
first real-life Everlasting Gobstoppers
had the size and appearance of normal
jawbreakers. There were layers of
jawbreaker candy within, each layer
with a different color.
Everlasting
Gobstoppers originally lasted longer
than the usual jawbreakers of the
period; however, parents' groups,
concerned with the possibility that
large jawbreakers (including the Everlasting
Gobstopper) might be a choking hazard,
persuaded the manufacturer to reduce
the candy to approximately 40% of
its original size.
The
reduction was done in stages, with
the smaller Gobstoppers originally
marketed as "Mini" Gobstoppers
while the larger candies were slowly
phased out.
The
miniatures, now simply marketed as
standard Everlasting Gobstoppers,
are now small enough that they can
be crunched through to the soft core
right away with no ill effects.
TM
