Nicola Mawson|Published
Long before Google could answer almost any question, South African children had another source of information: the inside of a Chappies wrapper.
Those little coloured squares, with their familiar red and blue stripes, offered more than a mouthful of bubblegum. Unfold the wrapper and there was a Did You Know? question waiting to be answered.
It might have been something about an animal, a distant country or the human body. The subject hardly mattered. The pleasure was in discovering something unexpected, then repeating it to anyone prepared to listen.
And there was another peculiarly South African role for Chappies.
At corner cafés, where families bought bread, milk and other everyday necessities, shopkeepers sometimes handed out a Chappie instead of small change. Bubblegum had become a form of currency.
Born in Joburg
The story began in Johannesburg’s Troyeville suburb in the late 1940s, when Arthur Ginsberg created what would become one of the country’s most recognisable brands.
In an interview with journalist Lucille Davie, originally published in 2003 and subsequently republished by The Heritage Portal, Ginsberg recalled noticing that rival Wicks bubblegum sold for a penny a piece.
He wondered whether he could produce something that sold two for the same price.
The result was Chappies, named after the Chapelat confectionery factory where he worked.
The original flavours included lemon, orange, strawberry, cherry and pineapple. But the cleverest ingredient was not in the gum at all. It was printed on the wrapper.
Did you know?
The Did You Know? questions became central to Chappies’ identity. According to Davie’s account, the first facts came from the Three Wise Men panel on Springbok Radio’s Test the Team.
Academics from the University of the Witwatersrand later supplied questions, helping build a collection Ginsberg estimated at between 5,000 and 6,000.
It was an ingenious way of giving a cheap sweet a second purpose. And Ginsberg did not stop at trivia.
Chappies advertised through weekly cartoons in the Sunday Times, illustrated by cartoonist Bob Connolly. One memorable scenario involved using the gum to plug a leak in a submarine.
Win a TV
The company also distributed promotional school supplies, including a million Staedtler pencils and rulers bearing the slogan “Make Chappies your rule”.
Then there were the wrapper-collection competitions.
For children, the discarded packaging could suddenly be worth keeping. Collect enough wrappers and there was the possibility of winning prizes, including televisions, radios and motorbikes.
By the late 1970s, Chappies reportedly commanded about 90% of South Africa’s bubblegum market, according to Ginsberg’s recollections recorded by Davie.
The brand’s chipmunk mascot helped distinguish the original product from imitators, while its name became so familiar that Chappies was sometimes used as another word for bubblegum itself.
Chappies forever
Cadbury acquired Chappies in the late 1970s, according to Davie’s historical account, but the trivia-filled wrappers remained central to the brand’s identity.
In 2012, Chappies invited South Africans to contribute their own Did You Know? facts.
More than 50,000 submissions were received, and 170 facts were selected for the wrappers and illustrated by South African artist Jaco Haasbroek.
It was a modern take on an idea that had helped sell bubblegum for more than six decades: give people something interesting to discover, and they might keep coming back for more.
Chappies celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2019, having survived changing tastes, changing ownership and generations of children who grew up with its wrappers.
Today, answers to obscure questions are only a few taps away. There is no need to buy bubblegum to discover an unusual fact, and no reason to carefully unfold a sticky wrapper to find one.
But there was something special about a sweet that could entertain, educate and occasionally stand in for a coin. For generations of South Africans, Chappies was a little piece of childhood that came with a question attached.
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