- From the moment the very first can was popped,
the fun has never stopped.
1939, the world is at war,
and in a devastating blow to snackers,
potato chips are deemed a non-essential food item.
Production grinds to a halt.
1945, the war is over.
We won!
In the late '40s and early '50s,
eating potato chips and making babies
is back in a big, big way.
Increases in supermarkets and mass production methods
lead the way for a potato chip boom
that had almost every food manufacturer
throwing their potato skins into the chip game.
But, with increased popularity came new scrutiny.
Consumers started calling out
some very debilitating problems
with the conventional construction
of the American potato chip.
Number one, they get all greasy.
Number two, they go stale way too quickly.
Number three, they break in the bag,
before you even eat them.
Surely, there must be some simple,
possibly cylindrical solution to this problem.
1956, Proctor and Gamble,
the world's largest producer of frying oils,
takes matters into their own hands
to create a potato chip
completely void of imperfections.
They enlist chemist Fredric J. Baur
who uses a geometric formula to construct
a saddle-shaped chip with a tubular, vacuum-sealed can.
Baur's flawless beauties are perfectly stackable,
safely encased in a cardboard sheath, and the unique
stacking device stops a majority of the grease spread.
But there's one big problem.
They kinda suck.
So, P&G temporarily ditches the chip idea.
By the mid-1960s, the Beatles were touring America,
most of our parents were experimenting with drugs,
and P&G was on the hunt for new products.
In classic corporate American fashion,
they simply dig up an old idea, and call it new.
Baur's Saddle Chips.
They develop a brand new, sounds bad but tastes awesome
recipe of dehydrated potatoes, rice, corn, and wheat paste,
complete with a dusting of savory flavor.
Using a cookie cutter-type device, each chip
is perfectly stamped out in the same size,
shape, and weight, then placed in a protective can,
that can even stand rolling around on the floor
of your mom's minivan.
They named this wonder food Pringles,
new fangled potato chips.
Quick tangent.
No one knows exactly where the name Pringles comes from.
One theory is that they're named after Mark Pringles,
whose work was cited by Proctor and Gamble in a patent.
Another theory credits two Proctor advertising employees
who lived on Pringle Drive in Finneytown, Ohio.
While some believe the name was just picked at random
from the Cincinnati phone book for its pleasing sound.
Anyway, back to the story.
1971, Pringles hit the shelves across the United States,
but they're not the smash hit P&G anticipated.
Soon, they try to appeal to the masses with new flavors
like barbecue, sour cream and onion, and cheddar cheese.
1975, other chip makers catch wind of Pringles and cry foul.
These are not chips, they claim, as they are technically
not made with purebred potatoes.
They FDA weighs in, says,
"Yeah, you guys actually have a point,"
and tells Pringles they need to lose the word "chip."
So, they rebrand as crisps, and lose the new fangled.
In the early 1980s, Pringles starts to take off.
No one knows precisely what causes the spur
in the spud product's popularity, but some attribute
to an advertising campaign called,
Fever for the Flavor of Pringles, others credit a
Brad Pitt commercial, I think the '70s tennis boom
conditioned consumers to subconsciously opt
for products in tall cylinders, but hey who knows.
1986.
The Pringles mascot, aka Julius Pringles,
undergoes the first of many, many, many makeovers.
As Pringles surge in the US, they shift their focus
to new international markets
in Europe, South America, and Asia.
The international expansion brings with it
interesting new flavors like prawn cocktail,
seaweed, serrano ham, roast chicken, and blueberry.
1996, Julius Pringle loses his rosy cheeks and mouth,
but his mustache keeps getting bigger and bigger,
which makes us wonder exactly what he's hiding under there.
1998.
I'm taught how to do the original version of the duck face,
which is when you put two opposite facing Pringles
in your mouth, and not this.
2008.
Pringles inventor Fredric J. Baur passes away.
His family honors his completely normal request
to bury his cremated remains in a Pringles can.
Yes, this is actually true, he's buried in a Pringles can.
2009, Julius Pringles is arrested for tax fraud.
No, we're just kidding, he's not a real person.
2013, the ultimate Pringles hack is revealed,
in which you slip a piece of paper into the can,
and slide out all the chips intact, it's a fool proof way
to avoid the dreaded Pringles claw,
the only down side to Pringles.
That same year, another Pringles trick makes the rounds
on the internet. The Pringles Ringle is a free standing
ring-shaped structure made entirely of Pringles.
No adhesives, just physics and potato crisps, baby.
2016, I head to the Pringles factory to create my own flavor
in their lab, and come up with Buffalo chicken pizza.
And if you want to see that flavor in stores,
please write Congress and cc Pringles.
Invented as a scientifically savvy alternative
to potato chips, now a billion dollar product
sold across the world in 30-plus flavors,
thank you Pringles for popping
and then just refusing to stop-ping.