Everlasting Gobstopper

Everlasting Gobstoppers

The Everlasting Gobstopper is both a fictional brand of candy and an actual confection named after the fictional product.

According to Roald Dahl's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the fictional Everlasting Gobstopper is a sweet that not only changes colours and flavours, but can never be finished, and never even gets smaller. It is implied that they may also be indestructible. Factory owner Willy Wonka explained that they were "for children with very little pocket money". According to Slugworth in the 1971 film, the Everlasting Gobstopper would entirely ruin his business.

Nestlé Everlasting Gobstopper

A product called Everlasting Gobstopper was introduced in 1976 by the Chicago sweet company Breaker Confections, which had licensed the "Willy Wonka" name in 1971 so that it could be used as a merchandising tie-in for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.^[1] The Willy Wonka Candy Company brand is now owned by Nestlé, and made in Itasca, Illinois.^[1]

The jawbreaker is composed of several discrete layers to mirror the color-changing effect from the book. The standard type has a chalky centre similar to a SweeTart. A version with a chewy centre is also available.

They resemble the gobstopper from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and its 2005 film adaptation far more than the ones in the 1971 film, as the 1971 version is a multi-coloured, bumpy/spiky sweet, and the ones in the book and 2005 film are round, single-coloured spheres. Unlike the ones from the book and 2005, they are chewable once sucked long enough (Wonka says you would break your teeth if you tried to chew a gobstopper), and, unlike their fictional counterparts, they are not "everlasting".

Seasonal variants, such as "Gobstopper Snowballs" and "Gobstopper Heartbreakers" are available during specific holidays.

See also

• Wonka Bar

References