Soda and Sparks - The Explosive History of Pop Rocks

Have you ever been told that mixing certain candies with soda could cause your stomach to explode? In this episode, we are diving deep into the fizzy, crackling history of Pop Rocks—the candy that defined a generation and sparked one of the greatest urban legends in pop culture history.

We begin our journey in 1956, when General Foods chemist William A. Mitchell was actually trying to invent an instant, self-carbonating soda tablet. Instead, a happy accident trapped carbon dioxide gas inside hard candy, creating a completely accidental revolution. But while the science was fascinating, the market wasn't quite ready. It took nearly two decades for Pop Rocks to finally hit shelves in 1975, instantly becoming a massive commercial sensation.

However, the candy’s explosive success quickly turned into a literal public relations nightmare.

The Myth, The Legend, The Panic

We break down the wildfire rumor that gripped schoolyards across America: the tragic (and entirely fabricated) death of John Gilchrist, better known as "Little Mikey" from the famous Life Cereal commercials. Rumor had it that Mikey ate six packets of Pop Rocks, chugged a six-pack of soda, and his stomach exploded.

The panic grew so severe that:

• General Foods had to establish an emergency phone hotline to reassure terrified parents.
• The company sent defensive letters to over 50,000 school principals nationwide.
• The FDA was forced to step in, ultimately declaring the candy completely safe.

Despite their efforts, the hysteria forced Pop Rocks off the shelves by the early 1980s, proving that a great myth can sometimes swallow reality whole.

What We Cover in This Episode:

• The Accidental Invention: How a failed kitchen experiment became a cultural phenomenon.
• The Anatomy of an Urban Legend: Why the "Mikey" myth spread like wildfire before the internet existed.
• The Corporate Fightback: How General Foods spent millions trying to save a exploding candy from exploding rumors.

Whether you grew up carefully pouring these crackling crystals onto your tongue or you're just a fan of bizarre corporate history, this episode is a nostalgic trip you won't want to miss.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hey Kelly. You want to do a dead end? Always with you? Always. I got a good one today. Um, I want to talk about something that in the 1970s. Oh. America. Well, I you know I love the 1970s. It's just my favorite decade. It's so it was so weird. And we kind of had a front row seat, but kind of we had a but we were kids. Child view. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, in the 1970s, America lost its mind when it became convinced that a breakfast cereal kid had exploded after eating candy. Remember this? Well, is this Pop Rocks?

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Pop Rocks.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

Is this like one of those urban legends?

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Yeah, yeah. You remember Pop Rocks?

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Yeah, of course. I I feel like I've had some in the last year or two.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Really?

unknown 1:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Well, it was invented by a food scientist named William Mitchell. And he was a pretty renowned, as far as food scientists go, I'd say this guy should be in the Hall of Fame. He invented Cool Whip.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Ah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Cool Whip's pretty awesome. It really is. He invented Tang. Less awesome, but still.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

But used used by astronauts. I wonder if they still take it on like the Artemis missions these days.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

And William Mitchell also invented jello.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

Wow. You talk about food hall of fame. This guy deserves to be in it.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

So he was trying to create an instant shelf-stable carbonated soda powder in the 1950s. Right? So the idea would be that you would just add this powder with water, and it would make fizzy soda, and you wouldn't have to use bottles or cans. It would just be a powder that you could use. Obviously, we have it's never happened, so obviously that's not possible, maybe. Um and that would have been a cool mission.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

There are machines now that you can make soda with at home, right? This would have been like a carbonate. This would have been a pouch though that you could just put it in with water and it would make like uh emergency or or those um, you know, those little energy packets that you zip open with that doesn't carbonate water though. Emergency doesn't carbonate, but it does actually fizz when you put it in.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Right, or Alka Seltzer, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the idea.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Yeah. So the idea is that he was trying to create a um soda powder that you could put that would be stable on the shelf. Well, the idea was that you would mix sugar syrup with the flavoring, the way you'd make this, and then you would expose it to carbon dioxide under very high pressure, and then you'd let it cool, and then the gas stayed trapped inside the powder. Well, it didn't work. It didn't work, and that would have been cool. Can imagine imagine how that would revolutionize the soda industry if soda just came from powder. Like the technology and cans and bottlings that we ended up having. So but he did realize that with this stuff, that when you did put it in your mouth, the chunks would crackle and release gas.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

Kind of like I do.

unknown 3:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Well, he released this in 1975 as a candy called Pop Rocks. Well, it was pretty different for you know, when you think about candies that are out there, it was pretty out there. Um again, that was right in our wheelhouse. 1975, an exploding candy, and then of course the rumors came. The biggest rumor being that if you eat pop rocks and drink coke, your stomach will explode. Yeah. Now I was in 1975, I was in Michigan. You were in Missouri or Texas or up to Texas. Yeah, we both heard the same stories, probably that a kid had already died from it, and then that Mikey from the life serial commercial that he had died from it. He didn't he didn't. Let me put that to rest. He did not. His name, the actor's name was John Gilchrist, the kid that played Mikey. He was alive the whole time, and he didn't even know the rumor existed for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

And hold on, but before before you go further, everybody who hasn't seen it, there's a commercial with this kid, and he doesn't like anything, right? And then at the end of the commercial, he eats some life cereal, and they say, Hey Mikey, he likes it, or something like that, right? He likes it. Hey Mikey.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Well, he was a cute little kid. Um, and the rumor was that he died from eating Pop Rocks and Coke.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

What a tragedy.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

So his mom, he didn't know about these rumors, but his mom kept getting calls from strangers with sending their condolences. And she was like, I don't know what you're talking about. He's right, he's playing in the backyard. Well, General Foods um tried to get him to appear in a pop rocks commercial. Um, smart. That would have been great advertising, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like it.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Like, not only, yeah, like, don't worry, you can buy this, and here he is, Mikey, you know?

SPEAKER_02 5:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

But his parents declined. It just felt dangerous to eating this stuff. Like you might not have believed the rumors, but it didn't feel like it was something you should be doing. You put this, explain to the listeners the sensation of putting uh uh some pop rocks in your mouth.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

Well, well, let me let me just start by saying, first of all, eat it is one thing. What I would do with pop rocks is you'd put it on your tongue and you'd let all the popping happen. And it was it was pretty intense at first. If you poured a lot on your tongue, it was like the like like crackles. Yeah, it was like, and I I think certain isn't there a cereal that does that too? Snap, crackle, pop. Um uh what's the what's the cereal with snap crackle pop?

unknown 6:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Rice crispies. Rice crispies, not in your mouth, though. But if you put a raw rice crispy in your mouth, it does do that. The liquid, the liquid breaks the little membranes or something and causes them to pop. That was the whole thing with snap crackle pop. But these pop rocks are that's more of a passive thing where these little membranes are breaking and you're hearing that sound. The pop rocks are actually exploding, tiny explosions of what'd you say it was, um, carbon dioxide? Yeah that's that's trapped in this sugary coating. And it it is just enough when the liquid happens, it dissolves the sugar, the coating disappears, and that carbon dioxide escapes with a pop.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

And and you can m move your mouth in ways that would make that like yes sound real cavernous, real like I don't know if people around you can hear it, but it's it it it you can hear it in your mouth.

SPEAKER_02 7:30

I I I I remember putting my ear up to somebody else eating pop rocks and being able to hear, and then you could open your mouth and you kind of and you could make that, and the popping would kind of your mouth would become an amplifier or a echo chamber for the popping. But but back to your question about danger. Um, I feel like if you were to just swallow a bunch of them without letting them pop first, that could be kind of dangerous, or at least give you really bad bloating and gas. Right?

SPEAKER_00 7:58

I don't think it's dangerous at all, but you know, in the 1970s when this stuff was coming out, there was a lot of consumer anxiety because uh a lot of information had just been, I think a lot of studies had just been done on chemicals in food and artificial ingredients. Yeah, silent spraying. Yeah, prior to the 1970s, I think people mostly were eating food that was mostly, you know, wholesome and and farm fresh, and you know, uh, you know, the advent of uh you know preservatives and microwave dinners and all this stuff was creating a lot of anxiety and concern. Microwave ovens had just come out, and and just coming off of not to make it too big, but just coming off of Watergate. I think there was just less trust in what the government was doing and how how much they were actually protecting us, and there was a lot of just distrust and anxiety and everything. Well, General Foods um who made this stuff um had to go in full crisis management mode. They took out ads um about hey, this stuff isn't dangerous, you know. But I think the most uh effective thing that they did was they sent letters to schools. They sent letters to principals, they used scientists, they offered their own scientists to come and give speeches to schools. They created a hotline in case anybody ever did, you know, have a problem just to for people to feel like they had a voice. They would I think they had on the back of the now you could say this might have perpetuated the rumors because they had a hotline to call if there was any problems, and of course there wouldn't be any problems. I could see that going two ways, right? I could feel have people feel like, or at least I have a voice here, but wait, if this candy needs a hotline, maybe I shouldn't be buying it for my kids. Uh well, these rumors just wouldn't die down, and um, they were off the shelves from 1980 to 1986 because of the rumors. Just people weren't buying them because they were like, you know what? I'm not I'm not trying to die from eating candy. Uh it's now owned by a company called Zeta Especial. I think it's a Mexican company. Um, so they still exist, but you know, not at all at the level or as popular as general when General Foods owned it. I think they're more of a novelty candy now that you can buy in maybe a specialty candy store, but you're probably not even gonna see them in the grocery stores under their current current name.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

So more carbon dioxide in the soda than in pop rocks. But is that combination? Is that a deadly thing? Did the mythbusters ever debunk that myth?

SPEAKER_00 10:56

I think they did. I don't think there's anything remotely dangerous about eating pop rocks.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

So, so even in large quantities, you could you could go.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Well, this sounds like a Mr. Beast episode, if I ever heard one. We can how many pop rocks do you think would be dangerous?

SPEAKER_02 11:19

I would think once you surpass ten packs. They were they were in little like one. Yeah, yeah. If you if you had if you had your mouth like stuffed with pop rocks, and then you shall and then chugged a two-liter of coke. Yeah, yeah. I think that would cause some problems.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

It probably wouldn't kill you, but it'd probably ruin your day.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

And there's so many things like that in the world.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Well, it's like the mentos, you know, um tree.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Mentos and coke. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

I think you're picturing that happening in your stomach, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:58

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

You know, in my family, um, when we talked about dares, when we would talk about like putting 10 packs of pop rocks in your mouth, we would ask rhetorically if you would do it for a lottery ticket. And that's in honor of Kelly. That when we were in college, Kelly would do lots of dares for a lottery ticket, which I think is the proper currency for a dare. Because it may be something, it's probably nothing. But that's better than giving somebody 20 bucks because you might be giving them 20,000 bucks. Most likely you're giving them nothing. Piece of paper. Um, the first time I ever saw Kelly do that, I gave him a lottery ticket, and in return, he let a dog uh drink milk out of his mouth.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

Why do we bring that up? Um, you know, back to pop rocks. I should I should have let the dog. I I wonder what would happen if you gave a dog pop rocks.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Oh, I wouldn't, we don't recommend this, by the way. No, no, no. Probably allowed. We don't want this to happen. But if nothing happened, like if it was safe, the dog would still probably freak out over what was happening in his mouth, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:15

Yeah, I think so. I think so.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

And how would you get it in his mouth?

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Well, you'd put it in your mouth from a dog.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

You'd put it in your mouth and fill it with milk.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

Oh, thanks.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Depends on the dog.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

Depends on the dog. How well do I know this dog? How intimate am I with this dog?

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Well, that was Pop Rocks, everybody. Happy dead end.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

You pour them in my palm. Red blue little stones. I took the bag and grin like I found gold at the store. One on the tongue. Then I hold there. Yeah, I say go slow, mine say I don't care. They crack like tiny spots and every bite, sweet first and bite, and rush and fight. Catch too many little And your stomach explodes. Down to one And your stomach goes. I need to go. You have to step away. My cow let me snap it through. Then it's gonna roll my own mouth turns into fire show. If I go with a finger, it comes up rough. I got too many ones. And your stomach exposed. Down too much, and one hard way fast. Don't taste them with the stats. That little happy black can turn into a tree. So let's get out of the handful of me. Some candy looks on this crap, screen. Then you can get it to stop rocks. Let them go.