A bag of
Frito-Lay's Cracker Jack, featuring Sailor Jack and his dog Bingo.
Cracker Jack is a U.S. brand of snack consisting of caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts. It is also well known for being packaged with a "Toy Surprise Inside" of nominal value. This attained pop-culture status with the term "came in a Cracker Jack box" referring to an object of limited value.
The product's name is often misstated in a plural form, as in "Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks..." from the song "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," even though it is in the singular in the proper version of the song.
History
1893: Frederick William Rueckheim (known to friends and family as "Fritz") and his brother Louis mass produce Cracker Jack and sell it at the first Chicago World's Fair in 1893. At the time, it was a mixture of popcorn, molasses, and peanuts and was called "Candied Popcorn and Peanuts".
1896: Rueckheim devises a way to keep the popcorn kernels separate. As each batch was mixed in a cement-mixer-like drum, a small quantity of oil was added -- a closely-guarded trade secret. Before this change, the mixture had been difficult to handle as it stuck together in chunks.
1912: Prizes included in Cracker Jack boxes for the first time. In recent years, the toy and trinket prizes have been replaced with paper prizes displaying riddles and jokes.
1918: Mascots Sailor Jack and his dog, Bingo, are introduced (though they were not registered as trademark logos until 1919 1.
1964: The Cracker Jack Company is purchased by Borden after a bidding war between Borden and Frito-Lay.
1997: Borden sells the brand to Frito-Lay2.
Popular culture
An old Cracker Jack box, also featuring Sailor Jack and Bingo
- The traditional sailor's uniform with the back flap and neckerchief is referred to as the "Cracker Jack" uniform by the United States Navy.
- Cracker Jack is a staple at baseball games, famously mentioned in the 1908 baseball song, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game": "Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack, I don't care if I never get back." In a report for the National Public Radio program, On the Media, correspondent Mike Pesca contends that this is an example of product placement equivalent to $25 million in advertising.3
- Mentioned in the 1977 song, "Two out of Three Ain't Bad", performed by rock singer Meat Loaf: "...but there ain't no Coupe de Ville hiding at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box..."
- In the 1987 movie Spaceballs the character Yogurt said that he found Lone Starr's Schwartz ring as a prize inside a Cracker Jack box.
- Mentioned in the 1997 song "Muhammed my Friend" by Tori Amos.
- Cracker Jack played an important role in the 1924 Harold Lloyd movie Girl Shy.
- In the 1934 film Bright Eyes, Shirley Temple sings "On the Good Ship Lollipop". She mentions "Cracker Jack bands" while holding a gigantic Cracker Jack box.
- In the novel The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, an argument between two children regarding their Cracker Jack develops into an important plot element.
- The snack, and a metal ring prize, is key to the plot of the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's. When Paul Varjak meets Holly Golightly's husband, Paul is given the ring from Mr. Golightly's box of Cracker Jacks. Later on, he and Holly go to Tiffany's to buy a gift, but because of a tight budget, they get the ring engraved. The salesman is pleased to learn that prizes are still included in the packaging, commenting that it "gives one a feeling of solidarity, almost of continuity with the past, that sort of thing."
- In the movie The Little Rascals, Alfalfa gives Darla a ring, saying "I had to eat six boxes of Cracker Jacks to find it!"
- In the TV-series The Pretender (1996-2000), Angelo is frequently seen eating Cracker Jack.
- During World War II the K-ration was produced by the Cracker Jack company with the waxed paper ration box about the same size as the Cracker Jack box.
- In the TV-series Seinfeld, in the 5th season episode "The Fire", Kramer puts Toby's toe in a Cracker Jack box filled with ice.
- In the TV-series Boy Meets World, in the 5th season episode "No Guts, No Cory", Cory shows Shawn the ring he intends to give Topanga when they come home from war. Shawn says "Wow that's some fancy ring. Where'd ya get it?" to which Cory replies "A Cracker Jack box".
- In the Song "All About the Pentiums" by "Weird Al" Yankovic, it's mentioned in the line "Where'd you get your CPU? In a box of Cracker Jacks?!" Yankovic also had a similar line in his earlier parody "She Drives Like Crazy", saying about a bad female driver, "Got your license from Cracker Jacks."
- In the TV-series NCIS, in Season 1, Episode 7: Sub Rosa, Cracker Jack is mentioned in reference to the unidentified sailor wearing a uniform. Gibbs: "Is he wearing Cracker Jacks?"
- "Crackajack", a variation on the word, and denoting something exceptionally good (as in the old saying, "Crackerjack baseball player") was used for a brand of comic books featuring characters such as Red Ryder.
- In the 1970 film The Out-of-Towners, Jack Lemmon chips his front tooth on Cracker Jack.
- A complete set of 176 Cracker Jack prize baseball cards was sold for $800,000.4
- July 5th is Cracker Jack Day.
- In 2004, the New York Yankees baseball team replaced Cracker Jack with the similar Crunch 'n Munch at home games. The club switched back to Cracker Jack after immediate public outcry.
- Pauline Kael, in her The New Yorker review of Star Wars in 1977, said "for children, it is a box of Cracker Jack that is all prizes."
- In the 1970 comedy album by the Firesign Theater, "How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All", the Nick Danger character says, "Why, that's just a two-bit ring from a Cracker Back Jox!"
- In the first series of One Tree Hill, when Hayle is tutoring Nathan in the early morning at the lake Nathan gives Hayle a bracelet from a box of Cracker Jack.
- In the movie 1941 (film) the character Hollis Wood (played by Slim Pickens) is captured by the crew of a Japanese submarine off the coast of California. The sub's compass is broken, leading the crew to interrogate Wood for directions. Wood refuses, but a crew member finds a box of "Popper Jack" (not "Cracker Jack"), opens it, and finds a toy compass. Wood grabs the compass, swallows it, and ultimately escapes.
- In the TV-series CSI: New York, a Cracker Jack spit in the hair of a victim is investigated.
See also
References
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