Baby Bear Bread – April 1936

Bakeries have shown up as a topic again and again on this blog. Lorain and the surrounding area had a lot of popular bakeries over the years: Central Bakery, Spang's, Hough Bakeries, DeLuca Bakery, Nickles Bakery, Bob's Donuts, Young's Bakery and Lakewood Bakery.

Then there were the various breads. Of course, we all fondly remember the great white bread from DeLuca Bakery. (It was so soft and fresh, and made great sandwiches). But there were also the breads that were sold regionally or nationally. Some of these were baked and/or distributed locally (like Hillbilly Bread). Others were just sold in the grocery store, like Hollywood Bread, Millbrook Bread and Golden Tiger Bread. 

Central Bakery baked at least two different brands of bread under some sort of exclusive license for our area. One of these was Home Leader (which was featured on this post). The other was Baby Bear Bread.

Baby Bear Bread benefitted from a teaser ad that ran in the April 23, 1936 edition of the Lorain Journal. There is it is, smack dab in the middle of the page, next to the ad for Kline's.

Here's a closer look.

The bears' names are revealed as Nip and Tuck. In those days, 'nip and tuck' didn't mean plastic surgery;  the expression was used more to describe a very close race. I guess that's why the cute bruins are running.

Then on April 27, 1936 – ninety years ago today – this ad appeared in the Lorain Journal.

There was a nice little marketing effort that went along with Baby Bear Bread. There was a Nip and Tuck Club for the kiddies, and a free weekly magazine with stories and puzzles was made available. At least one issue survived and is on eBay right now.

 

There are other Baby Bear Bread items on eBay that 'bearly' escaped the landfill.

What's odd is that even though the name of the product is Baby Bear Bread, there is no Baby Bear. Instead there's two adult bears that look more like husky dogs than bears. And speaking of dogs, isn't 'Tige' also the name of Buster Brown's dog?