Bugles And Their Forgotten Friends
A regular reader (you know who you are) suggested recently that we have not taken a look back at snack foods in awhile. Well dear reader, when you’re right you’re right. I am not sure why I thought of them, but I did, so let us trumpet the virtues of the humble Bugle.
I remember as a kid when Bugles hit the market (or at least the television) in a 3-way new product promo along with Daisies and Whistles. This launch was General Mills’ (the cereal manufacturer) first jump into the snack food puddle, and had at least some level of success.
First, we ought to remember just what these products were. All three used corn as their basic ingredient – corn ground up and dried to powder, of course, then used as a building block of some first-rate food engineering. Bugles are still with us, and are a salty corn-flavored snack. I like to think of them as extra greasy, extra salty corn chips. Maybe it is being fried in coconut oil that gives them their unique flavor. Whistles were a cheese-flavored, tube-shaped snack – kind of like rigatoni pasta if it were made of fried corn flour and dusted with powdered cheese. Daisys may have been the oddest of the three. I have seen the flavor described as less salty, and tasting like a buttery popover.
The new products were introduced to a few test markets in late 1964 and went national in 1966. Just like any self-respecting 7-year-old of the time, I was up on all the latest important news, and new snack foods was probably second in importance to new candy bars or new breakfast cereals. I remember the television ads touting all three products – which seemed to me like something that you bought in a set. Although I don’t think too many people actually did.
I can’t say I really remember eating the Whistles or the Daisys, although I am quite sure I did. The Bugles were memorable because my little sister and I would put them on the ends of our fingers and brandish them like claws. Corn flavored, salty claws, which quickly turned us to cannibals as we ate our own fake fingers. I have not done this as an adult, of course. I like to think it is because I have outgrown such foolishness. Although having grown adult-sized fingers which don’t accommodate Bugle-claws certainly helps.
General Mills followed up the next year with two more: Buttons (round in shape and cheddar flavored) and Bows (popcorn-flavored and shaped like Orville Redenbacher’s bow tie). I wonder if that was where Orville got the bow tie idea he so successfully exploited in his ads from the early 1980s? And if that wasn’t enough variety, yet another burst onto the snack scene in 1968: Pizza Spins. For which no description of shape or flavor is necessary.
I had forgotten that Buttons or Bows ever even existed. Perhaps my mother had developed some immunity to her children clamoring for every food item being advertised on TV, or maybe we kids were, ourselves, getting worn out by the constant bombardment from advertisers. I do remember Pizza Spins – who wouldn’t love an opportunity to have the flavor of a pepperoni pizza available in a bag in the pantry? I recall, however, that they were kind of disappointing. Yes, they tasted vaguely like pizza, but what was the point of fake pizza flavor when real pizza flavor was becoming so readily available?
Alas, General Mills’ successful mixture of food and fad turned out to have a short shelf-life. Mostly. Daisys were discontinued in 1970 and Whistles in 1972. I am not sure that the Buttons or the Bows lasted even that long. Pizza Spins proved more durable, hanging in there until 1975. But Bugles are still being made and are available at your neighborhood store. Or should be if your neighborhood store has not been bribed by Frito-Lay for complete dominance of the snack aisle.
I will confess that Bugles is one of those snacks I can walk past in the store 900 times in a row. But when a bag is opened in front of me and I ingest a single one, I become a crazed addict for just one more Bugle-fix over and over again until the bag is nothing but Bugle crumbs. Self control, I tell myself during those episodes, is for sissies. Which, as I think about it, is a word that went out of common usage about the same time the other General Foods’ snack varieties left the shelves.
Perhaps the secret to a successful snack food is that it tastes like a normal snack food. Corn chips are corn chips, no matter what their shape or what kind of oil they are fried in. Trying to make a corn chip taste like a popover or a pizza or a hunk of cheddar is not a plan with a future. And, if you can shape your basic corn chip into a little cone that fits neatly on the fingers of imaginative children, all the better.
J. P.'s Blog 
Hmm, you stirred a memory there of kids with bugles on their fingers. That must have been the most compelling reason to buy them, because I don’t actually remember ever eating them.
I must not be the only Canadian who didn’t eat many bugles, as they were withdrawn from our shelves in 2022. Presumably to leave for room for Hawkins Cheezies and Miss Vickie’s Potato Chips??
The world of snack foods and their marketing is rather mysterious.
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How some snack foods cross borders while others do not is indeed mysterious. If Bugles had depended on me to keep them on shelves, they would be gone in the US too. Fortunately, others do the dirty day-to-day work while I get to step in only rarely.
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Plus one on Bugles, but never heard of the others, and certainly never seen them in a can?
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I have never seen the cans either. And it is amazing how little shelf space a smaller player can get in stores.
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I didn’t know Bugles had been discontinued in Canada. Apparently Skippy peanut butter, Ragu pasta sauce and Grape-nuts cereal have disappeared too. Transportation costs and English/French packaging costs are why manufacturers withdraw from, or never enter, Canadian markets.
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I wonder how much money could be made by bringing bootleg American food products into Canada – probably not very much.
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Having worked for an advertising department in a large regional food retailer, as well as large regional department stores, I can tell you I’m always mystified by the stocking philosophies. Modern computer inventory programs can give retailers up to date info in seconds, and with the value of shelf space, woe to the products that don’t sell! Years ago, we jokingly started saying: “…you’re held captive by the morons you live with…”, but unfortunately, it’s sort of true… I just recently had a great, internationally known red vermouth disappear from a large national retailer near me, not because it wasn’t excellent, or decently priced, but it wasn’t cheap enough for the people in my neighborhood, so it didn’t move. The shelve space was replaced by cheap junk. There’s always high end retailers, that may carry it, but at a non-competitive price. I’m not a big fan of Kroger, who seems to be taking over everything, but recently was told they were not stocking grapefruit juice at my local store because they don’t sell enough of it! Can you imagine? I have to drive out of my neighborhood to buy grapefruit juice?
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I guess I get why a retailer wouldn’t want to stock something that doesn’t sell, but I also hate to live in a world where the only things offered are what everyone else likes.
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Whenever I like something, it gets discontinued. Margy’s comment above scares me because I still eat Grape-nuts every morning.
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My theory is that Grape Nuts are actually a by-product from the manufacture of all the other good tasting cereals, so you should be OK.
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…or possibly, like the house brand Raisin Bran style cereal I buy, a by-product of the actual cardboard packaging process….
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😎Which is funny because I mix it with other cereals.
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Somehow I have a solid recollection of Bugles as a kid, even though my mother avoided the snack/chip aisle like the plague. My dad insisted on Wheat Thins, Triscuit, and Nabisco’s “Saltines”, so those three were regulars in our pantry. I must’ve had a Bugle or two at friends’ houses though, because I not only remember the unique taste but also the feel of the ridged surface when you ate one. As for crackers trying to be something other than crackers, I nominate Cheez-Its as the rare exception. Like an open bag of Bugles, they are utterly irresistible.
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My mother was a big fan of Cheez-Its, and there was often a box of them where snacks were kept. In my adulthood, I think Pepperidge Farm Goldfish have overtaken Cheez-Its as the cheese (flavored) cracker of choice in our house.
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Cheese-It’s are the most premium of all my snacking, only superseded by Cheese-It’s Toasty! For years, we would revel in getting a package of them that were just a little too baked, until the company finally saw the light and decided to make them that way! I especially like eating them while wearing my Cheese-It socks (Google it).
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What a great choice of a snack to review. I LOVE Bugles! You can get them at the Dollar Store for a dollar and a quarter. Not a large bag but a satisfying one. The claws are what made them survive over any other snack. I remember the Buttons and Bows commercial because it had the jingle from the song by the same name.
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As a matter of fact, last evening I was at a dollar store and bought one of those $1.25 bags. How could I not?
They were as good as I remember.
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Well I feel somewhat done out having never had all these salty treats JP. I like the idea of you and your sister creating salty claws, then chewing them off. I do remember seeing Bugles and Pizza Spins in the grocery aisles. We always had puffed cheese balls as salty snacks or pretzels and for Christmas my mom made “Nuts and Bolts” which is the equivalent of Chex Mix you have at the holidays. I cannot have a box of white Cheez-Its in the house or I will demolish them, so I buy Pepperidge Farm Whole Grain Goldfish instead. They are my go-to snack.
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