Sunday, March 08, 2009

 

Repressed Memory: The Gummi Bears


I realize that it has been a while since I posted any repressed memories, which are promised in this blog's heading. Haiku, sure; rants, plenty; recipes, occasionally; but not many repressed memories. So, here we go...

The year is 1978. I am a freshman in high school. Inexplicably, our entire family watches two television shows regularly: "The Muppet Show," and "Dance Fever with Danny Terrio," which air one after the other on Friday evening. One night, during Dance Fever, my dad pulls out a special treasure from a new store he has found. This store, apparently, sells food and other provisions for fallout shelters, packaged in huge amounts for long storage. With great fanfare, he drags a 50-pound can of gummi bears into the den.

There were a few fascinating aspects to this. First, gummi bears seemed like an odd thing to stock in your fallout shelter. I suppose that their main ingredient (gumm?) must have had great staying power. Second, there was something hilarious about such a huge number of gummi bears jammed into an industrial-sized barrel.

At any rate, we gobbled them down. For whatever reason, they were delicious. We spent the next half-hour laughing and scarfing down gummi bears. Personally, I probably ate about two pounds.

It was at this point that my brother decided to check out the label on the huge silver can. The first thing he read was "WARNING: Gummi bears are a mild laxative."

That was one Friday night that no one went out.

Comments:
OK, so if this was a REPRESSED memory, what brought it back?

Or considering the last lines, do we really want to know?
 
I had a similar result with a gallon of apple juice on a high school field trip once. No one ever tells you these things up front.
 
We used to bite gummis in half and then stick them to the ceiling by throwing them.

Gummis sticking to ceilings doesn't seem plausible to me right now... but I vividly remember doing this in a movie theater.
 
I Love Gummi Bears. I had no idea about the Side Effects. This explains so much.

However what it does not explain is why the Oslers loved Dance Fever so much.
 
Ha ha! Great story.
 
ROTFLMAF.

I had no idea you guys had a TV!
 
This comment has been removed by the author.
 
Hey Tyd ~ Remember when they brought in dance instructors to teach us all how to disco during lunch hour at good ole GPN? Tony Lavasco was the best dancer in my class!
 
Christine:

I remember in gym class we had a DANCE unit. I remember Garrett Rice was in my class but did I dance with him?? Oh no. I had to Dance the Waltz box step and the hustle to hideous songs like Michael Jackson's "ROCK WITH YOU" with the debonair Robert Dilabio.

We were the perfect UberNerd Couple.

However Tony LoVasco He was actually in a lot of the plays if I remember it correctly and he was a great actor! I remember I really looked up to him, Rick Klein, and Liz Secor.

Sadly, I heard the Gael Barr died very recently. He was different to say the least, but he was a GREAT director and he always took chances on people who might not have even tried out for plays and I loved that about him. He was awesome. He never gave up on some people I mean people like say, Joe Serwach - not a NATURAL actor but Gael really believed in him and put him in a lot of parts. Gael was awesome that way.

I still have nightmares about waltzing to Michael Jackson with Robert DiLabio.


High School was, at times, so very very freakishly frightening. hahahahahah.
 
Also to continue the Gael Requiem for a moment: He also did plays that most high schools would not THINK of doing.. I mean "The Subject was Roses???" "MAME?" These were huge huge projects and he was unafraid and he believed his students could do ANYTHING. He was tireless and fearless and even though he did not always like me I loved his dedication.
 
Prof.:
1) Gumm (pronounced g-OO-m) is a petroleum based substance that is found naturally in Texas, usually sprouting from the ground in gushers. Since so little gumm is needed to produce a bag of gummi bears (only about 38% of a gummi bear is gumm) , it is extremely expensive, earning it the nickname "Multicolored gold".

2) The other 62% of gummi bears are:
30% gelatin compounds
18% Hi Fructose Corn Syrup
10% bear-shaping agents
3% laxatives
1% xenon tetraflouride
Trace amounts of:
monocerydes, soy lechitin (emulsifier), Children's Motrin (to ritard flavor)

3) How many bathrooms did your house have?
 
Micah - It probably didn['t have enough bathrooms.


Tyd:
I was friends with Robert's sister Lisa going all the way back to Elem. School at Monteith. Now I have to go pull out my old yearbook to refresh my failin memory. Poor Gael - I remember those Elton John glasses he wore.
 
yeah I think you SHOULD refresh your memory to see my Dancin' partner.

He was a SMOOVE DUDE. But then you know we were ALL total geeks and this class was taught by Miss Maige & either Tom Teetart or Dan Greisbaum maybe all three - Nuff Said.
 
Tdy--

Liz Secor was my date for some freshman dance. She was much better at dancing than I was...
 
Prof - you need to take lessons from your Roller Derby sister.
 
She was Awesome.. I was so in awe of her acting skills her mad skillz after I was in Taming of the Shrew with her. She was AWESOME.
 
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