When I was growing up, there was a convenience store just down the
street, and during the summer my brother and I used to walk down there a
lot to spend our spare change on candy. Among my most frequent
purchases were Bonkers and Zots, two types of candy that were one flavor
on the outside and another inside. Bonkers were like two-flavored
Starbursts, while Zots were hard candies with fizzy centers. It wasn’t
until years later that I found Fruit Gushers, but it seems I was being
primed to like them.
I’m not sure just when Gushers came
along; I think of them as a sort of little brother to the Fruit
Roll-Ups, also made by General Mills, that were so heavily advertised
during children’s programming hours when I was a kid. Those, of course,
were flat and usually came with punch-out shapes to increase the fun
factor. Gushers, meanwhile, are hexagonal blobs. They remind me of the
season two Star Trek episode By Any Other Name,
in which an alien race reduces most of the crew of the Enterprise to
small gray, many-sided blocks. Which, it occurs to me, is an unsettling,
Soylent Green sort of thought... But that’s not generally on my mind as I munch these, thankfully.
Fruit Gushers are low in fat but very sugary, so they’re not really the
healthiest snack around, but the pouches are pretty small, with maybe a
dozen pieces in each. They come in bright yellow packages made of thick
paper, and when you open them, it’s not unusual to find sticky residue
on the inside and several Gushers clinging together. They’re chewy and
come in a variety of flavors: strawberry, tropical, watermelon, kiwi,
triple berry, apple and others. My favorite is probably the blue
raspberry. I’ve always been partial to that flavor, whether it’s Jolly
Ranchers or Skittles, and it’s very tasty in Gusher form, especially the
juicy part in the center.
Gushers are so named because you
bite down on the chewy outside and find liquid in the middle. If you
don’t pop the whole thing in your mouth, you could end up accidentally
squirting somebody when you chomp down. I find it rather fun to nibble a
hole in the Gusher and then squeeze the liquid into my mouth by holding
it tightly between my fingers. It’s also fun to toss it in the air and
try to catch it.
This particular method helped inspire a
(very) short film my brother and his friend made when they were in high
school. His friend was such a fan of Gushers that we always kept a
supply in the house, since at the time he came over a couple of times a
week. In the video, he’s standing in the driveway eating Gushers, and he
drops one. A dramatic countdown begins, and shortly after ten seconds
is up, he nonchalantly picks up the Gusher and pops it in his mouth. And
keels over. The moral: “Obey the 10-second rule.”
Clearly
this snack has some morbid associations for me. Well, with a name like
Gushers, what do you expect? The blue raspberry is likely to turn your
teeth and tongue blue temporarily; spring for strawberry and you’d
better be extra-careful not to spill, lest it look like you’ve been
attacked. These are messy snacks, and after eating them, chances are
you’ll want to wash your hands, since some degree of stickiness is
almost inevitable. But I’ve been goony over Gushers since they started
spicing up my high school lunches, and something tells I’ll never quite
grow out of them.
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