I love Bosco…
When I was a kid growing up in America, like most kids, I drank a lot of chocolate milk. It came in expensive cartons from the supermarket, but was cheaper to make at home. You could use chocolate syrup made by companies like Hershey’s or Bosco, or you could make it from chocolate powder made by Nestle (called ‘Quik’ – before it became ‘Nesquik’).
Our preferred method was the syrup method, despite Nestle’s attempts to persuade us that Quik makes ‘no syrupy mess’ (see photo above). Syrups had the advantage of being miraculously multi-purpose – a chocolate-flavoured sauce that could not only be used in chocolate milk, but also milkshakes, over ice cream or amalgamated into any other chocolate dessert you might think of…
Our syrup brand of choice was Bosco. No doubt we were swayed by the pseudo-beneficial qualities espoused in Bosco’s advertisements at the time. The tune and basic lyrics of the jingle were impossible to forget:
‘I love Bosco – Bosco’s good for me. Mommy puts it in my milk for extra energy, Bosco gives me iron and sunshine vitamin D. Oh, I love Bosco that’s the drink for me!’
I’m a Chiquita banana…
As the Bosco jingle demonstrates, children’s’ advertising jingles can be very persuasive. They penetrate and infiltrate our rationale psyche and subconscious mind. Even as adults, enlightened by age and wisdom we are just as likely to be revisited by these nostalgic ditties. I’m sure even the President of the United States in an address to the nation might occasionally pause for an unwelcome but indestructible refrain to pass through his thoughts: ‘My fellow Americans… “I’m a Chiquita banana and I’ve come to say, bananas have to ripen in a certain way…” ahem, I stand before you today to speak on a very important matter… “N. E. S. T. L. E. S. Nestle makes the very best – choooccolate”…‘
I hate Bosco…
Perhaps in a futile attempt to fight back against the jingle-meisters – we would often corrupt the tunes to suit our own childish and mischievous ends. While trying to remember the Bosco lyrics – I was helped by the even more memorable anti-Bosco jingle:
I hate Bosco, Bosco’s bad for me. Mommy put it in my milk and tried to poison me…
But I fooled mommy, I put it in her tea – and now there is no mommy to try and poison me!
Here’s another provided by a family member whose developed mind has been similarly tainted:
I’m a Chiquito banana and I’m here to say, you wanna kill your mama here’s and easy way, just peel a banana and put it on the floor and watch your mama go sliding out the door…
It might seem that we confused our disdain for the power of commerce by implicating our beloved authority figures – but the adapted jingles could be used to mock anything we didn’t like.
It’s surprising how something as innocent as chocolate milk can evoke so many memories. I’m not sure Bosco was as good for me as the advertisers said. But I did love it!
NB: Those Americans of a certain age will no doubt remember the jingles mentioned above. If you need a little help remembering or never saw the commercials here are some links:
I love Bosco
Chiquita banana commercial
Nestle