Weekend Plans Post: The Tootsie Roll Pop Indian
I grew up being told that the Indian shooting a star on the Tootsie Pop wrapper could be exchanged for a free Tootsie Pop.
There were all kinds of caveats, mind. The wrapper couldn’t be torn. The WHOLE Indian and the WHOLE star had to appear on the wrapper. Woe betide the child whose Indian headdress had a flattop haircut! All you had to do was hand it over and ask for a free one.
None of us ever did that, mind. We just all told each other “the Indian can be traded for a free Tootsie Pop” and we listed off the rules and daydreamt about getting ourselves a second Tootsie Pop… and maybe, just maybe, that one would have an Indian on it too.
This rumor has been around forever… I mean, it was old when I was a kid. Apparently, it started spreading soon after the Tootsie Pop’s introduction in 1931. So it’s a rumor my parents told each other and, heck, maybe my grandparents told it too.
It’s a thorn in Tootsie Pop’s side, of course. They had a letter that they’d send to kids saying “Nice Try” when the kids asked for a free Tootsie Pop:
Even Mister Owl had to tell us the hard truth:
A popular urban legend claims that any wrapper for a Tootsie Roll Pop that has an image of an American Indian shooting a star with a bow and arrow can be redeemed for free candy. It is not true #DidYouKnow
— Mr. Owl 🎓 (@MrOwl) April 14, 2023
The candy jar at work gets populated with Tootsie Pops from time to time.
When I get an Indian, I keep the wrapper. I have three of the silly things on my desk.
I know I should throw them away but… I feel like I owe it to some 8-year-old out there. I should take these to the gas station or something. Or give them to a little kid and tell them that, seriously, if you get an Indian on a Tootsie Pop, you can trade it in for a free one… but the wrapper has to be in perfect condition and not torn. And the *WHOLE* Indian has to be on there.
Pleased to have a three-day weekend coming up. We’ve got a game night where we’re going to play Thunder Road: Vendetta and Sunday we’re going out to Fargo’s for the family birthday thingamabob for the salad bar, a pitcher of root beer, and some of that pizza where the pepperoni makes little grease cups. And Monday, sweet Monday, will be spent lounging.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is a crop of Chief Shooting Star. Photo taken by the author.)
oh yeah, some of y’all get Monday off, don’t you? I’ll have to put an alert in my phone that I have to put the trash out on Wednesday instead.
This weekend is Grading Hell (papers due) so I don’t know what else will happen. I’m also mildly injured, sustained an age-related muscle cramp (shoulder) washing my hair last night and all I really want to do is lie on a heating pad….I can’t, though, so I have drunk more water and thrown some magnesium at it and hope I can keep going without too much painReport
When I was working for the state legislature, Presidents Day was an official holiday. One session, on the Friday before, one of the committee members said to me on the way out of the building, “Anything special planned for the Monday off, Mike?” To which I replied, “Y’all didn’t cancel any of the committee meetings for Tuesday, so I’ll be here all day Monday getting everything ready for them. But since the office will be officially closed, I can wear jeans.”Report
It sucks getting old, doesn’t it? I was pumping up my bike tires a couple weeks ago and moved the wrong way which resulting in some pretty bad back pain for a few days. Hope yours passes soon!Report
When I was a kid, I always thought it odd that grownups would announce upcoming weather by appealing to a knee or an elbow or a shoulder.
Now? Yep. Gonna snow tomorrow.
I hope you can get some heating pad time in tonight and this weekend.Report
Funny thing? They should totally give away the free tootsie pop. Maybe alter the printing ‘algorithm’ so it’s as rare and special as it should be… then ride the legend to victory.
Nothing much going on here… not quite ready for outdoor projects and not quite motivated for indoor projects.
Lady Marchmaine and I negotiated a Valentines day truce early in our relationship — the full terms of which are lost: probably written on the back of a tootsie pop wrapper. Working in restaurants ruined Valentines for me…Report
Yeah, the current algorithm is something like 1 out of 8.
If they made it 1 out of 33, people who hadn’t bought one since the 80s would think about picking one up, you know, for the drive home. (Cheaper than a scratch ticket.)Report
and market research shows something like 1% redemption rates… so hard to go wrong. Plus, even if you give away tootsie pops, I have to believe the margin on tootsie pops is positively astounding… so hardly a COGS issue. The marketing win would likely dwarf any redemption costs.Report
I remember that urban legend. Hadn’t thought about it in a million years. It occurs to me that one of the kind of sad things about the internet is the loss of little myths like that. Some might celebrate that but I think it’s part of what makes us human.
Anyway as for us my wife and I had a little valentines date on the couch. We watched Babygirl which was another meh on a long string of movies from which I’d had higher expectations. Is it just me or have movies become too intentional in their ambiguity, especially in the endings? You get the sense that even the writers and directors don’t have their own theory of what happened, they just ran out of run time.
Today the older son has a basketball game then going to log some volunteer hours at the school. Tomorrow more children’s sports and a birthday party but they’re spending the night at my mother in law’s after and having their Monday off at her house. No holidays for me in techno-capitalist America but my wife has promised to make some old fashions while we get ANOTHER adult date night. I think we will probably get started on White Lotus season 3.Report
Until I researched it, I wondered if maybe that was just the legend in my little corner of Michigan. As it turns out, nope. People in Texas talked about it, people in California talked about it so…
Covid also ruined some small stuff. My friend’s oldest kiddo is 9 and I asked her if she knew a playground rhyme that began “Miss Suzie had a steamboat…” and she told me that she didn’t.
This was lore that was handed down from 3rd grader to 1st grader for decades… and two years of safer-at-home wrecked it.Report
Yea a buddy of mine was working for one of the public high schools and he mentioned to me at the end of the 2022-2023 school year that they were all nervous because no one but the about to graduate seniors had ever experienced a normal, in person exam week. Something about that specific example struck me as really eye opening. As grown ups it’s easy to forget just how short a time period these big milestone parts of childhood/growing up are.Report