Probably everyone on the planet has eaten a gummy bear or a gummy worm at one point or another, but if you’ve ever seen episodes of the sci-fi adventure drama Doctor Who from 1974 to 1981, you’ve most likely seen the Fourth Doctor offering up another jelly-based candy of a different shape, Jelly Babies. That’s right, these are gummy candies that are shaped like human infants.
If you find it strange or slightly cannibalistic that people are consuming baby-shaped candies, consider that people remorselessly devour entire bags of animal crackers everyday, or that the Christmas season is marked by people gobbling up entire trays of gingerbread men. So, is eating Jelly Babies really that different? Well, I must admit, there is something uniquely taboo about eating candies in the shape of newborn babies.
While people certainly enjoy Jelly Babies for their sugary taste and chewy texture, part of the allure of this candy definitely has to do with the fact that you can choose whether to bite off the head, arms, or legs first. Yes, that sounds sick and twisted. No, it hasn’t stopped several different companies from producing Jelly Babies since the 19th century.
Let’s take a look at where this strange candy came from, and how it’s evolved over its lifetime.
The History of Jelly Babies
The first Jelly Babies are thought to have been produced in 1885 by Riches Confectionery Company on 22 Duke Street, London Bridge. The Austrian confectioner produced other baby-themed treats, including Tiny Totties and Sloper’s Babies. Apparently, they were asked in 1864 to make jelly candies in the shape of bears; however, when the mold was finished, they were shaped more like newborn infants than bears. Thus, they named the candies Unclaimed Babies.
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As horrific as the name Unclaimed Babies is, especially for a product that was meant to be ingested, it was apparently very relevant to England in the Victorian era. Babies were commonly abandoned during that time period and left on the front steps of churches or government buildings. So, people living in England at that time were probably pretty jaded to the name Unclaimed Babies and may have even found it comical.
Unclaimed Babies were probably much bigger than modern Jelly Babies, and they were kept in large jars and sold for one farthing apiece. A farthing was a British coin used during the reign of eleven monarchs in England, and would have been worth one quarter of a penny. Unclaimed Babies quickly rose in popularity throughout England and soon became one of the most sought after sweet treats in the country.
However, around 1918, Bassett’s of Sheffield started producing their own version of the oddly shaped candies, called Peace Babies to mark the end of World War I, which soon overshadowed Unclaimed Babies in the domestic market.
The onset of World War II, however, caused a shortage of materials throughout England that forced Bassett’s to stop manufacturing Peace Babies altogether. With the world consumed by violence and war, Peace Babies went completely out of existence.
Once the war had ended, though, Bassett’s decided to bring back the candies under the name Jelly Babies. The rebranded gummies surpassed their predecessors, Peace Babies, in popularity and soon became a household name all throughout England.
From then on, Jelly Babies remained pretty much exactly the same up until 1989, when Bassett’s was bought by Cadbury-Schweppes. After that, the packaging for Jelly Babies was completely reinvented, and each of the different-colored Jelly Babies was given a name and a persona.
The different babies included Brilliant (red), Bubbles (yellow), Baby Bonny (pink), Boofuls (green), Bigheart (purple), and Bumper (orange). They were featured in a series of animated television commercials that displayed their unique personalities and allowed the general public to learn a little more about the babies they were consuming.
Since then, Jelly Babies and their marketing strategy have remained pretty much the same. Today, Jelly Babies are still sold all over the United Kingdom as well as the United States and Australia, among other countries. While Jelly Babies may not be as dominant as they once were in the gummy candy market, now facing tough competition from candies like Haribo Goldbears and Trolli Sour Brite Crawlers, they’re still adored by candy-lovers worldwide and seem like they’ll have a spot in supermarket aisles for many years to come.
Screaming Jelly Babies
If it wasn’t grotesque enough for people to eat candies shaped like babies, a couple of clever chemists found a way to actually make jelly babies explode and scream. The experiment, known as “Screaming Jelly Babies” in the United Kingdom or “Growling Gummy Bears” in the United States and Canada, is meant to show off just how much energy is contained in one piece of the confectionery.
The experiment involves pouring potassium chlorate, a strong oxidizing agent, over a piece of the gummy candy. The sugar within the candy is quickly oxidized, causing it to burst into flames and produce a whining sound that is often compared to a scream. So, if simply biting the head off a baby-shaped candy isn’t dark enough for you, feel free to light your Jelly Babies on fire and listen to them scream with this fun, kid-friendly experiment.
No, the “Screaming Jelly Babies” phenomenon did not end there, unfortunately. In 2011, developers in Japan created a headset that uses sensory technology to project bone-chilling sounds of babies screaming into your ears as you bite down on Jelly Babies. Why dedicate scientific research to healthcare or the climate crisis when you can make candy scream with terror? Unsurprisingly, Bassett’s did not pour any money into the further development or distribution of these headsets. I think it’s safe to say that that technology has no place in this world.
Why Do People Love Jelly Babies?
Apart from the obvious fact that Jelly Babies taste good, why do people get so much enjoyment out of eating bags of these baby-shaped candies? What is the psychology behind a smiling adult eating a sweet treat shaped like an infant? Well, I can’t say for sure, and I don’t expect there to be any psychological studies done on Jelly Babies in the near future. However, the allure of Jelly Babies might have some root in the very reason why they’re so strange and unsettling.
People seem to enjoy the rush of simulating things that they can’t actually do in real life. Now, I’m not implying that anyone who eats Jelly Babies has a desire to eat real babies, just like I wouldn’t imply that someone who kills people in Grand Theft Auto V has legitimate homicidal wishes. But, the very fact that biting the head off a baby-shaped candy feels weird and kind of messed up might have a lot to do with why people like them.
Perhaps, also, eating Jelly Babies makes people feel powerful, like some sort of evil storybook giant or like the Titan Cronus in the myth where he devours five of his children. It’s definitely strange, but with so much negativity in the world and a million reasons to be pessimistic, if eating baby-shaped candy gives people a feeling of momentary happiness, then I’d say it’s a good thing. Might it speak to some savage and terrifying primal instinct lurking deep in the human psyche? I’d say it’s better not to think about it too much.
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