Tobler Suchard

Yes indeedee.

It was even possible to eat your favourite characters,

in a rather sadistic act of fan worship.

Athough sinking your teeth into Bayleaf's longjohns was probably an acquired taste to be honest !

I'm still trying to piece together the whole story.

But here's what we know so far ....

Pic opposite

This appeared in the Christmas 1972 Tobler Meltis trade catalogue and was the first year of production.

Pic below

This appeared in the Autumn 1976 version,by which time the company had become Tobler Suchard Ltd.

And clearly a very incestuous industry.

Because there was a time when the likes of Cadbury Schweppes & Rowntree Mackintosh were actually 4 seperate companies.

The Herbs and The Adventures of Parsley

On this page ..... No Oompa-loompa's or golden tickets sadly,but some vintage Herbs choccie nonetheless

2 surprising things about this bit of edible Herbage are that :-

1. It's 1972 debut was over 2 years after the Adventures of Parsley was first shown. ie.pretty late in the day,even allowing for repeats.

and,

2. It proved so popular that it formed part of the Tobler Suchard range right upto and including their Autumn 1978 catalogue.

And that's a pretty darn impressive run for any licensed children's product.

Although I suppose if they tasted good and kids' liked the look of them then the actual link to the series could've been almost coincidental.

I mean,how many kids ate Kellogg's Frosties simply because they thought Tony the Tiger was Greeeeeat ?

And,judging by the 2 different examples pictured,I'd imagine that the product also remained basically the same apart from some packaging tweeks.But that's just a guess.

In fact I've yet to find any evidence of what the chocolate actually looked like.

And it would be interesting to see how Tobler tackled the issue of the different sizes and shapes of the characters.

Going from human size down to Dill and arranging them all into one uniform shape -on the presumption that it was one solid slab of chocolate rather than individually-wrapped figures.

Any survivors ?

Sadly the jury's still out on that one.

I've personally never seen any evidence whatsoever -outside of the catalogue pics .... and neither has Google.

And there aren't too many reasons to be optimistic when you consider that was it an edible product for young children.And it's over half a century after the event.

But chocolate bars from World War 1 are still in circulation and in remarkable condition.

So the hope of actually finding some intact examples isn't quite as ridiculous as it may seem.

And there's an even greater chance of at least finding some empty wrappers and boxes.

Because a surprising amount of 1970's confectionary packaging has found its way onto ebay in recent years.

So,that's a nice positive note on which to end.

And all we have to do now .... is wait !