Yes, yes, ‘Vimto’ is an anagram of ‘vomit’. But ‘Vimto Lollies’ is an anagram of... er... ‘Moi loves Lilt.’ Vimto lollies circa 1977.
Yes, yes, ‘Vimto’ is an anagram of ‘vomit’. But ‘Vimto Lollies’ is an anagram of... er... ‘Moi loves Lilt.’ Vimto lollies circa 1977.
Who loves ya, baby? TV’s Lieutenant Kojak, that’s who – not the only famous lollipop licker of the 1970s, but probably the baldest. The show’s writers decided to give the hard-bitten New York detective his trademark Tootsie Pop in a move to appease the anti-smoking brigade. His favourite flavour? Low tar.
If the sweet makers had their way, though, every telly star from Weatherfield to Walmington-on-Sea would have had a lollipop stick protruding from between their lips. Or any other orifice, for that matter. Big-name backing was a good way to steal a march on the competition. Lollies had been commonplace since the eighteenth century – namechecked in works by Thackeray and Coleridge, no less – so what better way to differentiate than to slap on a celebrity seal of approval?
Liverpool-based Tavener and Rutledge landed a significant number of exclusive deals for the UK, bagging the big screen Batman and Bugsy Malone for a string of signature lollies, as well as Telly Savalas himself for the obligatory Kojak tie-in. Eric ’n’ Ernie brought strawberries and cream-shaped sunshine on a stick, while Laurel and Hardy, experiencing an inexplicable mid-1970s revival, also shared the same flavours for Ollie’s Lollies. Blue Bird plumped for another Saturday night light entertainment staple and launched the It’s A Knockout gobstopper lolly in 1979, though this was quickly eclipsed by 3p Buck Rogers pops – available in five flavours: cosmic traffic light, galactic lemon fizz, terrestrial treacle, draconian lime and meteorite melon.
However, for flavour, and sheer why-didn’t-I-think-of-that-first chutzpah, the Vimto lolly outshone them all. Patriotic in a red, white and blue livery, echoing the traditional striped awnings of Olde English market stalls, Vimto was the very model of balance between modernity and nostalgia. Run up on Swizzels Matlow’s state-of-the-art lolly-making machinery, yet with a taste reminiscent of Sunday evenings round at Grandma’s house, it was that Holy Grail of the confectionery crusades: an instant classic.
And it was almost immediately superseded. The days of one lolly, one flavour ended abruptly with the arrival of Chupa Chups. Literally translated as ‘sucky suck’, these whorish lollies burst into the UK market like refugees from a Catalonian hen night on the Costa Brava. Flaunting all kinds of exotic, foreign flavours, and a garish Salvador Dalí-designed logo, they spoke nothing of the past and looked set to trample all over the future.
Marketing is all. Those lollipop men would have more luck hooking up with today’s selection of big-headed, stick-thin-bodied celebrities for a bit of cross-promotional candy action. As for Chupa Chups’ recent ‘stop smoking, start sucking’ slogan? Well, at least Kojak would have approved.