Bubblicious
The soft square chunk of bubble gum in the loud neon wrapper — huge flavor for about ten glorious minutes, then you reached for another piece. Launched in 1977 as American Chicle's answer to Bubble Yum, it spent the 90s as corner-store royalty with a flavor list that read like a slushie machine.
American Chicle, a division of Warner-Lambert, launched Bubblicious in 1977 specifically to compete with Bubble Yum's soft-gum breakthrough. Early sales were sluggish until the 1978 "Ultimate Bubble" ad campaign took off, turning the oversized square chunks into a playground essential — the gum you crammed in whole (or doubled up) for maximum bubble.
The flavor roster ballooned to 28 over the brand's life, from classics like Watermelon to the wacky end of the shelf: Cotton Candy, Paradise Punch, Sour Cherry, Lightning Lemonade. Lightning Lemonade was discontinued in 2000, then revived in 2005 as "LeBron's Lightning Lemonade" in a LeBron James collaboration — a surprising second act for a discontinued gum. Later extensions included Bubblicious Bursts with liquid centers. Today the brand belongs to Perfetti Van Melle, and most of that historic lineup is gone — after years of Watermelon carrying the torch alone, a late-2025 relaunch brought the neon wrappers back to shelves with just two flavors: Original and Watermelon.
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