Free Tootsie Roll Pops?

(From the Archives)

Years ago. That’s how long it had been since a child asked about redeeming a wrapper for a free Tootsie Roll Pop.

The town in Nebraska was divided. The east side knew about the Tootsie Roll Pop wrapper. The west side did not. Except for Dori Bart, scan coordinator at Pac’ N’ Save. “I heard of it,” Bart said, “but it has been years ago.”

Years ago. That’s how long it had been since a child asked about redeeming a wrapper for a free Tootsie Roll Pop. For not only had things changed in the college town of Wayne, Nebraska, but in the township of Wakefield and the hamlet of Hubbard, the last stop for students and commuters heading back to Sioux City, Iowa. It had become a fact: children were no longer asking about the free Tootsie Roll Pop.

At the Wakefield Korner Mart, it had been three or four years. Likewise, across the street at the Cenex “C” Store. “Not for a long time,” manager Julie Schultz said on a busy afternoon. We actually had them bring in wrappers.”

At the “C” Store, everyone had heard about it, including Carol Gustafson, who was making popcorn at the popcorn machine.

Did children get a prize or anything for the wrapper?

“I don’t think so,” Gustafson said. “I thought it was just a big story someone had made up.”

But it was not a big story someone had made up. It was something children had heard and believed, not only in Nebraska but all across the country.

Karen Kubby, a city council member in Iowa City, Iowa, knew about the wrapper as a child growing up in Virginia. Kubby learned something entirely different, though.

“I remember the Indian,” she said in an interview by phone. “I would immediately unwrap the Tootsie Roll Pop, pop the Pop in my mouth, and spread the wrapper out. If the Indian was on it, it was good luck.”

And with that, Schultz was off to the candy aisle. Sure enough, she found a wrapper with a little boy dressed as a warrior chief.

In Iowa, Nebraska, and California, many children believed that finding the wrapper meant they won a free prize. And although this varied from city to city and state to state, most children asked about the star and warrior chief. They wanted a free Tootsie Roll Pop for finding it or, at least, thought they might be able to cash it in for something.

 

At one store in Sioux City, customers watched as a group of boys milled about outside the store. Something was going on. Finally, one of the boys came inside to ask about a Tootsie Roll Pop wrapper he’d found. He wanted to know what he got for finding it.

The clerk looked at the wrapper, but there wasn’t anything about a contest or prize for finding it. “Nothing,” he said, and the boy, disappointed, went back outside to convey the news to his friends. They tossed the wrapper in the trash. 

For decades, children have asked about the wrapper. They believed it extraordinary because that is what they’d heard. They got something for finding it, too, usually a free Tootsie Roll Pop. 

“It’s a real heartbreak,” Bob Crandall said when asked about it. He worked at Dan’s Short Stop, a convenience store in Iowa City. When Crandell was little, he heard it took ten of the special wrappers to get a free Tootsie Roll Pop, but he believed the whole thing was a fabrication like Gustafson.

“When I was little,” he said, “I went into stores, too. We thought if you got ten wrappers, you’d get something for free, but you didn’t. It was just a myth.”

Just a myth. Try telling that to a disappointed child who said his parents told him all about it. It’s got to be true, right? How else would they know about the free Tootsie Roll Pop?

 

The belief children get a free Tootsie Roll Pop for finding the wrapper surfaced decades ago in the early 1950s. Once a child wrote the company to ask about the special wrapper, Tootsie Roll Industries sent out “The Legend of the Indian Wrapper,” but that was all a child got, a piece of paper that said: TOP SECRET.

 

According to at least one spokesperson for the company, who declined to give her name, they created the story because so many children asked about the wrapper. (And what a story it was.)

“Long, long ago, when all lollipops were made alike,” it begins, “a man one day decided to make a different kind of lollipop….”

Once sent to children everywhere, there was nothing about a free Tootsie Roll Pop or gifts of any kind in the story. The company considered the shooting star special because it signified the candy maker’s assurances that the lollipop (with its soft, chewy center, naturally) was of the highest quality, even magical. The real reason everyone was excited about it, according to the company.

“My mom has heard about it,” a little girl added as she and her brother lingered in the candy aisle.

In more recent years, the company has been less inclined to send the story out. A self-addressed, stamped envelope brought nothing in the mail more recently. Whereas once, without fail, a letter came with the children’s story included. But times have changed, especially given the increased awareness of Native American rights. It is not surprising that the symbol has lost some of its luster, although the change has happened gradually.

Erik Diessner, a clerk at the Westland Korner Mart in Wakefield, Nebraska, wasn’t sure why children had stopped coming in to ask. “I don’t know if it is because we don’t sell that kind anymore,” he said, “or kids just forgot about it.”

Indeed, at some stores, you can’t even find the old Tootsie Roll Pops. Tootsie Roll Industries sells new flavors now; Tropical Stormz, for example. The wrapper on this new lollipop is bright green, and there are no children depicted playing on the wrapper at all. Still, the old Tootsie Roll Pops are out there and easy to find.

In his “Encyclopedia of Urban Legends,” Jan Brunvand explained that companies and corporations were frequent targets of “urban legends,” often negative. Bubble Yum, for example, supposedly contained spider eggs. Such claims have circulated about lollipops and baby pictures, among others, Brunvand said, because it is shared person to person.

“It is like a rumor,” he said in a phone interview. “If you locate the wrapper with the Indian on it, you turn it in. Of course, a lot of this circulates on the Internet now, but generally speaking, it is done person to person.”

And it was true. Across the street at the C Store, a short walk back after a phone call, everyone was still talking about the wrapper.

“We were just thinking about it,” Schultz said. “And we think it was a cowboy on the wrapper.”

“No, it was an Indian and a star,” a clerk at the front counter shouted.

 

A spokesperson for the company insisted they had never had a promotion.

And with that, Schultz was off to the candy aisle. Sure enough, she found a wrapper with a little boy dressed as a warrior chief. He held a bow and was shooting a star.

A spokesperson for the company insisted they had never had a promotion. Like others contacted at Tootsie Roll Industries, the rumor had been around for decades, but no one knew its source. The wrapper was a wrapper, that was all. 

There were many different designs, according to the spokeswoman. For example, there was a child on a skateboard, a tricycle waiting for someone to play with it, and other iconic images. The company cut the wrapper from a massive roll during the production process, and wherever the cut fell, it fell. One in four wrappers will have the little boy on it, sometimes with the star, sometimes without.

 

And the belief in a free prize?

“People always remember things,” she said, “but nobody remembers where or how. Small businesses have had promotions, perhaps, but the company has never had one.”

 

As times change, so does the rumor. A clerk in her mid-twenties at a store in Carroll, Iowa, had an update when asked in 2010. She knew all about the special wrapper but said it took three to get a free Tootsie Roll Pop. “But, she cautioned, “you can’t do it anymore.”

A call to Iowa City revealed that children there, too, were no longer coming into the store like they used to. Dan Glasgow, Dan’s Short Stop owner, said he used to have children ask regularly. “When I first opened,” he said, “kids came in all the time asking about it. I might have given them something, but after a while, I had to stop.”

Others have confirmed this, including Jeanie Vincent, a 7-Eleven manager in Chico, California. She, too, had to stop giving kids free stuff, although she said the requests had stopped long before they had in Iowa. Like Glasgow, she’d exchanged the star and Indian wrapper for a free Tootsie Roll Pop until she had to stop. She ran into the same problem Glasgow had run into: kids kept asking and asking and asking.

These days, owners, clerks, managers, and others will hear less and less about the wrapper, and soon the legend will disappear (if such a thing is possible). But even if gone forever, there will always be a myth, rumor, or mystery to turn a dull day into an adventure. And chances are, should you ever ask, someone somewhere will have heard about the Tootsie Roll Pop wrapper.

I heard about it,” a clerk said at the Hubbard Mini Mart in Hubbard, Nebraska.

“My mom has heard about it,” a little girl added as she and her brother lingered in the candy aisle. And somehow, you knew it was true—or would be as soon as the children returned home.