Wednesday, September 05, 2018

Is That A Fact? Cracker Jack?

This post has nothing to do with researching or quoting actual "facts" about the snack food Cracker Jack as the title might suggest. It is just a telling of a snack eating event and possibly the reasoning behind doing it in the first place.

Actual bag I got from snack machine.

On Wed 09 May I got a pack of Cracker Jack. I got the snack pack from a vending machine at work. [in recent months our company has been bought out and the vending machines will go away soon.] It had been a long time since I had any Cracker Jack - Candy coated popcorn, peanuts and a prize. To show you how long ago it was, or I think it was, the last time I had a "pack" of Cracker Jack it was actually a BOX of Cracker Jack.
This is close to how I remember the Cracker Jack Boxes

Back in the day Cracker Jack was sold in individual serving cardboard boxes in a couple of sizes and I think a huge family box. Not sure how many sizes they had but usually you would get a small box that was like 6"x 4"x 1" or close to that size. As a child in the 1970s the mix of popcorn to peanuts was usually in favor of the peanuts but close to being evenly distributed. This time it was a small foil package like a potato chips bag and the popcorn to peanuts was pretty much a minimum of 90% popcorn. I'm not complaining I wasn't in the mood for peanuts especially with the skin or seed coat still on, but I was Jonezin for The Jack. Taste wise it is about what I remember but like most other classic treats not as sugary as it was back then. It didn't stick between my teeth as much as popcorn or the old CJ used to. Now days popcorn usually sticks between my teeth more often as I get older because of the teeth not the snack. That is also why I rarely even eat popcorn products. I was never much of a nuts or peanuts guy but liked CJ for the caramel covered popcorn.

I knew years ago when they switched over from boxes to bags/packs. That was no surprise, the little Cracker Jack Sailor mascot image however has changed in recent years. That was a little surprising. I'm too lazy right now to research that change and quite frankly not that determined to figure it out. Branding on products change and that is NOT a "Mandela Effect" as some might want to claim.

This is the current Cracker Jack Sailor and his dog.

Oh yeah and the "Prize". It was a little CJ branded sticker that has some promo for what they call "Blipp a Surprise". It has something to do with some silly smart phone app you download and "scan" your sticker or whatever to find out what you have won if you win anything.

 Front of Prize.

Inside of Prize. The quality of the image on the sticker is pretty bad. This enlargement doesn't help, but didn't hurt much either.



1 comment:

RAZ said...

I like Crunch 'n Munch better than Cracker Jack. There's no prize, but I think it tastes better and there are more nuts than the current iteration of Cracker Jack. There are also no prizes in Crunch 'n Munch, but given the state of Cracker Jack prizes since I was a kid that isn't much loss.

My grandparents always brought Crunch 'n Munch on their road trips to visit us, so that may have something to do with my preference.

When I was a kid, we visited a museum in Columbus, Ohio that included a Cracker Jack exhibit with all the different prizes over the years. Here's a link to pictures of it: http://www.non-sport.com/crackerjack/