Tongue Splashers
Bubble gum whose entire point was dyeing your tongue neon — you chewed, you stuck your tongue out at your friends, that was the product. It came loose as gumballs and, most memorably, in a miniature paint can promising to paint your mouth "with a splash of color."
Tongue Splashers were the tongue-painting gum of the 90s corner store, made by Canadian gum company Concord Confections. The gimmick needed no instructions: chew a gumball, stick out your now-violently-colored tongue, compare with your friends. The branding leaned all the way in — drippy paint and big lips on the label, a paint-can container, and color names like Bleeding Red, Color Me Blue, Orange Crunch, Slime Green and Slurpin' Purple printed on the packaging, which promised the gum "Paints Your Mouth With A Splash of Color!"
Their run through the 1990s ended without fanfare, and the little paint cans became the collectible: emptied of gum, they now circulate among nostalgia collectors as one of the decade's most distinctive pieces of candy packaging.
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