According to the story, seeking to include the inventor of bubble gum in its line-up of guests; the writers for What's My Line? consulted with the Frank H. Fleer Company. In the 35 years that elapsed since the invention of Dubble Bubble, the true creator of the formula, Gilbert Mustin, Sr., had died. Realizing that the publicity opportunity was too valuable to decline, the Fleer Corp. decided to cast Walter Diemer (Gilbert Mustin's accountant, who knew nothing about chemistry at the time of bubble gum's invention) as the charmingly haphazard inventor of bubble gum. The July 1990 edition of Smithsonian magazine followed suit, publishing an article on the inventor of bubble gum, whom they claimed to be Walter Diemer. After interviewing the elderly Diemer, who at this point was consumed by senility, Smithsonian portrayed Walter Diemer as the undisputed hero of children across the world. To this day, Diemer is publicly acknowledged as the accountant who accidentally invented Dubble Bubble. So far, according to the story, no publication has acknowledged the fact that Gilbert Mustin's name lies on the original 1928 patent for bubble gum.
The credibility of this story depends upon a citation for the purported 1928 patent. Looking under the U.S. patent classification most frequently used for such gum inventions (namely 426/3, 426/4, 426/5, and 426/6) one will find that G.B. Mustin filed for three patents: one on 10 November 1926 and two on 10 September 1928, respectively under the titles of "Method of Making Chewing Gum Sandwiches" and "Chewing Gum and Method of Making the Same" all issued 29 July 1930 under patent numbers: 1,771,506; 1,771,981; and 1,771,982. The latter two inventions are chewing gum improvements that could possibly describe the bubble gum formula prior to it actually being called "bubble gum". Furthermore, the first patent found within the classification numbers provided above that referred to "bubble gum" was issued to Richard P. Dyckman in 1936 for "
Answered by Rex
at
3:24 PM on August 12, 2007
