A Brief History of Chocolate. Steve Berry

Happy Days is unknown, but their Fonz Rock Bar was a masterclass in endorsement-free cashing in, with its ‘50s jukebox stylings and cunning lack of any identifiable Henry Winkler presence on the wrapper at all. If you wanted official endorsement, perhaps it was best to aim low, as Austro-Welsh confectioners Caxton’s did in 1972 when they rolled out their Doris Archer Fudge, with full consent from the fictional Radio 4 soap matriarch.

      Feeding time at the zoo, with Nestle’s milk chocolate menagerie, Animal Bar (1963), and Fry’s Super Mousse (1970).

      If all else failed, you could make up your own characters from scratch. The uber-cute critters that simpered from Nestlé’s mighty, ever-expanding zoological Animal Bar range were a palpable hit with no telly counterpart needed, and their white chocolate Polar Joe bear bar didn’t do too badly either. The same couldn’t perhaps be said quite so emphatically of Fry’s Super Mousse, where the marketing department took one look at the mousse-filled chocolate slab in their charge and thought, ‘Mousse? Moose!’ So was born the Bullwinkle-esque superhero star of the wrappers, hailed by Fry’s as a ‘mythological personality’ who was sure to capture the hearts and minds of the nation’s children overnight. He didn’t. Neither did the cartoon band on the wrappers of Needler’s Pop Chocs range: Slicer Orange, Miss Krispie and Big Drummer Cocoa bore no resemblance to any genuine band, even in 1974, and their pop chocs remained unpicked. And who can forget Trebor’s Konks and Robbers, a Keystone Kops-oriented attempt to flog orange chocolate with the likes of Inspector Clueless, Konstable Klod and Ratnose Fink? A great many people, clearly.

      Film fare. More cartoonish cash-ins from Galaxy and the adventures of Noddy (1970), Nestle’s Larry the Lamb (1970), Cadbury’s Soccerbar (1973), Monster Bar (1973) and Roobarb (1974).

      As a last resort, you could brighten up a young child’s day with some entertaining spiel on the back of the wrapper. Okay, ‘entertaining’ often meant a rather dreary retelling of a TV episode, as with Nestlé’s Larry the Lamb bars (‘Part 3: Larry is fishing when he sees the Mayor approaching on a small raft’). Cadbury’s Soccerbars featured tips on how to improve match fitness. ‘Stop eating this chocolate’ might have been a good one, but the writers gamely tried to link sportsmanship with Bournville brands (‘Did you know that star footballers play leapfrog, Freddo’s favourite sport?’). They really let their hair down for the descriptions of assorted unlikely critters on Monster Bars. (‘The Murky Murgswump is a nasty monster that lurks about in murky swamps. The damp gives him nasty pains so that when he bends down he goes “OOH-AAH-OUCH!”’) Perhaps The Wombles bar gambit was best: a short description of how the MacWomble can crush nuts with his bare paws, and a cheery exhortation to Keep Britain Tidy by chucking the wrapper in the nearest bin. Wait a minute, though: weren’t you supposed to be collecting them? Once again, Tobermory hadn’t quite thought it through.

      35% cocoa solids, 65% Beatrix Potter. Cadbury’s Furry Friends promise further animal adventures, circa 1974.

BEHIND BARS

      Jargon alert! Ask any chocolatier or confectionery insider (and who doesn’t know at least three?) and they will tell you: a substantial majority of their industry profits is generated by what are known as ‘countlines’, those smooth choc-covered treats, filled with nougat, caramel, ill-fated factory-floor rats and so on, designed to be eaten on the move.

      The cash cow of Slough: Mars (1932)

      This particular form of one-handed pleasure isn’t easy to sell. Before the days of commercial television, kids were too busy up chimneys and picking pockets to buy their own sweets. The advent of advertising allowed brand leaders and their highly paid agencies to come up with increasingly ingenious campaigns to remind us that countlines were reliable, dependable and enjoyable (as opposed to the commonplace, lacklustre and dreary reality).

      So, when Mars brought their popular candy bar over from the US to London in 1932, deliberately changing the recipe to suit European tastes (more sugar, less malt, sweeter caramel and, at first – unbelievably – Cadbury’s chocolate), they were unwittingly helping a future slogan-writer (not Murray Walker, despite what you might read elsewhere) come over all expert practitioner: ‘A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play.’ While the tagline riffed nattily on the old apple/doctor-repellent adage (ousting the previous Bob Monkhouse-fronted ‘Stars love Mars’ campaign in 1959), TV screens could be filled with sumptuous close-ups of sugar, caramel and thick, thick chocolate slathering over a nougat slab, yet still reinforce the impression that the Mars bar was not only nutritious, but practically vital. Of course, any claims were medically difficult to prove. (The reasoning went: milk ‘to nourish you, while you relax’; sugar ‘to give you the energy to work’; and chocolate, more exuberantly, ‘to play’. Oh, and glucose – just sugar again, wearing a pharmacist’s lab coat – which could do the work of the other three standing on its head.)