November 11th, 2017

Timeline – 1970 Part 2

by Brian Walker, Greg Walker and Chance Browne

Hi and Lois Sunday page color proof, March 15, 1970.

In this Sunday page Hi is reminiscing about the penny candies of his youth. My father, who was born in 1923, was probably looking back to his days growing up in Kansas City during the 1920s and 1930s when he wrote this gag. Hi is in his late thirties, so at this time we can assume that his birth date was about a decade after my father and these memories are believable.

Hi and Lois has been running for 63 years now and Hi is still the same age, which means he would have been born around 1980. For the most part, we try to avoid any specific chronology in the lives of our characters, but cultural references are inevitable.

I did a little searching around online and found a site, oldtimecandy.com that lists popular candies by decade. Here are some treats that Hi might have eaten, if he had grown up in the 1980s instead of the 1930s.

Airheads, Atomic Fire Balls, Bit-O-Honey, Blow Pops, Boston Baked Beans, Butterscotch Disks, Candy Cigarettes, Candy Necklace, Caramello, Cow Tales, Cry Baby Extra Sour Bubble Gum, Gobstoppers, Gummi Hot Dog, Hershey Special Dark Bar, Jawbreakers, Laffy Taffy, Lemonheads, Lik-M-Aid Fun Dip, Nerds, Peanut Butter Bars, Pop Rocks, Push Pops, Razzles, Ring Pops, Skor, Smarties, Sour Patch Kids, Spree, Peppermint Stick, Sugar Daddy, Swedish Fish, Sweetarts – Giant Chewy, Tootsie Pops, Tootsie Roll Midgees, Warheads, Wax Lips and Zotz Sours.

In the 1980s, a typical candy bar sold for 25 to 50 cents. They are now over a dollar, depending on the brand and size. We’ve come a long way from penny candies.

Stay tooned as our Timeline series continues into the 1970s.

– Brian Walker