Baby Ruth
Baby Ruth is a candy bar that is made of chocolate-covered peanuts and nougat, though the nougat found in it is more like fudge than is found in many other American candy bars.
Although the name of the candy bar sounds nearly identical to the name of the famous baseball player, Babe Ruth, the Curtiss Candy Company has traditionally claimed that it was named after President Grover Cleveland's daughter, Ruth Cleveland. Nonetheless, the bar first appeared in 1920, as Babe Ruth's fame was on the rise and long after Cleveland had left the White House and 16 years after his daughter had died. Moreover, the company had failed to negotiate an endorsement deal with Ruth, and many saw the naming of the bar as a way to avoid having to pay the baseball player any royalties. Ironically, Curtiss successfully shut down a rival bar that was approved by, and named for, Ruth, on the grounds that the names were too similar.
As if to tweak their own official denial of the name's origin, after Babe Ruth's Called Shot at Wrigley Field in the 1932 World Series, the Chicago-based Curtiss company installed an illuminated advertising sign for Baby Ruth on the roof of one of the flats across Sheffield Avenue, near where Ruth's home run ball had landed in center field. The sign stood for some four decades before finally being removed.
After a series of mergers and acquisitions, the candy bar is now produced by Nestlé.
Additional products
Nestlé also produces a Baby Ruth ice cream bar with a milk chocolate coating, chocolate-covered peanuts, and a vanilla-and-nougat flavored ice cream center.
Pop Culture
- In Goonies, Sloth was the #1 fan of "Baby Ruth," as evidenced by the fact that he ripped through approximately seven inches of chain and knocked a young child off his chair, just to grab a Baby Ruth.
- In the 1980 comedy Caddyshack, somebody accidentally drops a Baby Ruth candy bar in a public swimming pool, causing swimmers to evade it in panic thinking it was a fragment of feces. The theme music from the film Jaws plays in the background, heightening the "terror".
- In one of his old routines, Bill Cosby recalled his kindergarten teacher announcing that it was "time for a snack". The kids began yelling, "I want a Hershey bar!" and "I want a Baby Ruth!" What they got, much to their disappointment, was a graham cracker.
See also
External links
- Baby Ruth website
- Snopes.com article about the Baby Ruth naming controversy
Further reading
- Sweets by Tim Richardson. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (2003). (ISBN 1582343071).