COURAGEOUS BLAST:
THE LEGACY
OF AMERICA'S
MOST RADICAL
GUM.
BY JACK PENDARVIS
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Conrad Hatcher
PROJECT MANAGER
Look. We all knew we had something awesome. The suits didn't know. They were all like, "Whoa!" They were like, "Dude!" I didn't care what they said. I was like, "Dude, we're going to make a gum that's, like, radical and everything?" And they were all, "Whatever."
Wayne Goodwin
VP—MARKETING
I suppose I had some misgivings of a practical nature. But I think you will find that, overall, there hasn't been a more enthusiastic supporter of the gum. I sensed from the very beginning that we were on to something quite important here. The undiscovered country, if you will. Uncharted waters. Here there be monsters. Bracing, exciting stuff. Danger, Will Robinson! Wonderful stuff. Fearless.
Bravo Jones
LOGO DESIGNER
Conrad is a risk taker. I will give him that. I'm a truth teller. A lot of times that freaks people out. I always say, "Look, I'm just being honest." You know, "You're fat, you're a pig," or whatever. For example, at the first meeting with Conrad, I say, "Hey, what's the name of this gum?" I mean, I can do a lot of things, and do them fantastically well, but I'm not a miracle worker! Am I? Maybe I am. Otherwise, I honestly believe there would have been a gum in the stores with no name on it. And that would have blown people's minds. Not in a good way.
Conrad Hatcher
PROJECT MANAGER
I was trying to get inside the customer's head or whatever. So I was like, "What's in this package of gum, dude?" And then I was like, "I don't know, but it better be gum." Like I was having two parts of the same conversation, but there's only, like, one of me there. Weird.
Wayne Goodwin
VP—MARKETING
There's a lot of talk right now about courage and whatnot, but whenever I'm pressed for a definition I just say, take a look at It Better Be Gum. Try to place yourself in what was really a gum vacuum at that time and imagine It Better Be Gum bursting forth like some sort of courageous blast of dynamite. That's courage. To create something out of nothing. Which is what we do every day in this business. And I fully credit Conrad with that. He was the one with the forethought to say, "Who cares if it's a chewing gum or a bubble gum?" You know. "We're not going to give people that crutch. Let them decide for themselves whether to chew it or blow it. Hell, maybe they can swallow it." Because before that, you know, no one was allowed to swallow gum. That's a discredited way of thinking now, and, yes, I suppose Conrad is principally responsible for that, for what I would call a sea change in the way Americans engage with gum as a recreational snack.
Stanley Bounce
GUM AFICIONADO
They test-marketed It Better Be Gum in Texarkana. After you spit it out, there was still, like, this greasy feeling and this weird bitter taste. And when I went number two it burned! But I didn't associate that with It Better Be Gum. I just thought there was something wrong with me. Then my friend Glen was in the bathroom for, like, forever, and I was like, "What's up?" And he was like, "Every time I chew this gum, I get, like, the runs." And I was like, "Cool."
Sara Spooner
THE "IT BETTER BE GUM" GIRL
The gorilla in the commercial was super sweet! He would sit in the corner and go "Uh, uh, uh!" I think he was trying to talk to me! That was super sweet. There wasn't a mouth on the mask where the gorilla could talk out of, so it just sounded like "Uh, uh, uh!" to me. But he acted super sweet. He waved to me and everything. Like, "How are you?" Or, "Good morning, Sara!" But he didn't use words to express it. Just "Uh, uh, uh!" It made me feel bright and cheerful. That was sad when he died.
Conrad Hatcher
PROJECT MANAGER
When the monkey man died I was like, "Whoa!" I was like, "Heavy, dude." I was like, "What the fuck?" I was like, "Who's going to be the monkey man now?"
Stanley Bounce
GUM AFICIONADO
I'll never forget the first It Better Be Gum commercial. I had all my homies with me, because, you know, this was a gum that only we knew about. So we just crouched around the television—there were about 15 of us—and my mom made fudge. It was kind of a bummer because everybody in the whole world was going to know about our secret thing. But when that monkey came out and started dancing his ass off, that was the funniest damn monkey I ever saw. He was going [demonstrates monkey movements]. It was like the monkey was saying, "Back off, parents! You can't understand this gum!" And the sexy girl was like, "That's right!" But they said it through their motions of dancing. Glen literally went in his pants he was laughing so hard. He couldn't get in the bathroom, either, because somebody else was in there with the runs. That was the greatest night of my life.
Conrad Hatcher
PROJECT MANAGER
They kept making me think there would be Choco-Grape It Better Be Gum with Super Flavor Bombs and everything, and I was, like, stoked. And then it would be like, "Sorry, dude, I changed my mind. The juice runoff from your gum totally eats people's stomach lining for some reason." At first I was all, "Whoa." Now I'm like, "Whatever." I guess America's not ready for something that eats their precious stomach lining.
Whatever. Anyway I got a lot of other stuff I'm doing right now. Like this gum called Project Blue. It's going to totally turn your mouth and teeth and everything blue and the stain won't ever come out. America is going to be like, "Dude!" And I'm going to be like, "Whatever, America."
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OTHER McSWEENEY'S FEATURES:
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Courageous Blast: The Legacy of America's Most Radical Gum By Jack Pendarvis
Thak, the Most Organized Member of the Party of Roughly 70 People Who Originally Settled North America By Richard D. Allen
Health Watch: Four Silent Killers By Justin Kahn
Honeybee Waggle Dance Reviews By Jim Stallard
Dear Miss Lonelyhearts By Wendy Molyneux
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