Now one of the oldest makers of crunchy delights, was Smiths Crisps, established by Frank Smith and Jim Viney in a garage in Cricklewood not long after the First World War. Early on, Smith bought out Viney's shares in the business, and in the 1930s had even established itself in Australia too. Now their stock-in trade was crisps (that means chips to most of you outside the UK) and other crunchy snacks. Now for decades the crisp market was largely dominated by different companies jockeying for position by releasing, and indeed in some cases inflicting, allegedly exciting new flavours on an unsuspecting public. However despite short-lived flavours such as tomato ketchup, Bovril or even hedgehog (yes, that did happen) being unleashed you couldn't really beat the old favourites such as ready salted, salt and vinegar, and cheese and onion. But in the 1970s, crisp making technology entered an exciting new era when machines were devised that could mould pulped potato and maize into any shape you desired.
And hence we had a new wave of savoury snacks that made the traditional vaguely round and crinkled crisp look rather boring! There were now crisps in the shapes of hoops, squares, balls and tubes, all of which were happily scoffed by a greedy public. And more exotic shapes were to follow - crisps shaped like tanks, spaceships and even zodiac signs! Now to be honest, such high concept snacks only really looked like a child's crayon drawing of the object they were meant to resemble, but at the time we didn't really care. For the novelty of the very concept of munching on an edible tank, for a time at least, outgunned the deficiency of the often lumpy shapes formed by the moulding and frying process. And hence, once that novelty was exhausted, the brand often quietly disappeared...
However if you could match an appealing marketing angle to a decent snack shape, you could perhaps create a classic snack. Now Smiths had indeed messed about with a variety of novelty shaped snacks before they struck gold. Possibly noting the rip-roaring success of the Dracula themed lolly produced Lyons Maids, in 1975 they made a bid to bring edible horror to the crisp market. Now in the lesser hands, this concept of going monster could well have fizzled out like so many other novelty shaped snacks. However Smiths were thinking not only big but clever too. To begin with, they picked concepts that could be turned into shapes that would not end up an abstract blob after frying, and actually still look like what they were supposed too. Secondly they had the smart idea of not just doing one new brand but building an entire range. And indeed, that brand would would go on to be become a legend!
Launching in late 1974, Smiths unleashed Horror Bags upon the world. Featuring a comedy vampire as their mascot, Horror Bags came initially in two delightfully ghoulish flavours, and - now pay attention for this was the really clever bit - each flavour came in a different macabre shape! Firstly there were Fangs, which were as I'm sure you have all guessed, maize moulded into the shape of vampiric teeth and flavoured cheese and onion. And the real genius of this design was that you could pop these crisps into your gob just like the plastic fangs you got from joke shops - yes, a snack AND a vampire dress-up prop too! But if cheese and onion wasn't your thing, there were Bones! These snacks really did look like little bones in a bag and provided spooky salt and vinegar flavoured fun, although sadly you could not assemble your own snack-sized skeleton from them.
Horror bags were an instant success, and so Smiths expanded the range. Soon Fangs and Bones were joined by Ribs ("Vampire Vinegar Flavour") and Claws (bacon flavour). And in 1978 Bats flapped into the Horror Bags family, which were advertised as being "batburger" flavour which I recall tasted suspiciously beefy.
But not everyone was happy. In typically hysterical style, tabloid newspapers were soon trying to whip up a storm of controversy over these already much-loved crisps, claiming it was a disgrace that what they termed "X certificate" snacks were being sold to children. (The X certificate was the film classification for movies suitable only for 18 year olds and over, and hence the usual certificate horror movies got). In true gutter journalism fashion they even managed to find an expert to back up their manufactured outrage. They reported that a Dr James Willis, a psychiatric consultant at Guy's Hospital, had said that "using unpleasant stimuli as a selling line could disturb a child in the same way that a vulnerable youngster can be disturbed by early exposure to sexual things". Of course, whether the good Dr Willis had really taken a strong stand against Horror Bags or had been merely asked a vague but leading hypothetical question in order to produce a quote for a story in a newspaper with only the vaguest associations with actual news, or indeed the truth, I will leave for you to decide.
Thankfully however this hate campaign against Horror Bags didn't really gain much traction. Most parents thought that the idea that crisps, even spooky shaped ones, could be harmful was frankly a load of old bollocks. Smiths themselves were a tad more diplomatic, issuing a statement that basically stated the real truth, which was "it's good for children to be on fun terms with things that frighten them". The tabloids dropped the matter swiftly and Horror Bags made a turnover of £4 million quid that year. thanks for the free advertising suckers!
Andspeaking of advertising, here's the TV ad announcing a new abominable addition to the line!
The Horror Bags Vampire - who was actually meant to be Dracula himself - was played there by Frank Thornton, better known as Captain Peacock in long running BBC sitcom Are You Being Served. Now there were a whole series TV ads for Horror Bags, and many more running in the pages of UK comics. And one of the things that make Horror Bags so fondly remembered was the long line of mail order give-aways and offers Smiths produced to help promote the brand. And next time we will be taking a look at some of these gleefully ghoulish giveaways and learning how Horror Bags gained a stable mate who would provide to be their nemesis!
And hence we had a new wave of savoury snacks that made the traditional vaguely round and crinkled crisp look rather boring! There were now crisps in the shapes of hoops, squares, balls and tubes, all of which were happily scoffed by a greedy public. And more exotic shapes were to follow - crisps shaped like tanks, spaceships and even zodiac signs! Now to be honest, such high concept snacks only really looked like a child's crayon drawing of the object they were meant to resemble, but at the time we didn't really care. For the novelty of the very concept of munching on an edible tank, for a time at least, outgunned the deficiency of the often lumpy shapes formed by the moulding and frying process. And hence, once that novelty was exhausted, the brand often quietly disappeared...
Launching in late 1974, Smiths unleashed Horror Bags upon the world. Featuring a comedy vampire as their mascot, Horror Bags came initially in two delightfully ghoulish flavours, and - now pay attention for this was the really clever bit - each flavour came in a different macabre shape! Firstly there were Fangs, which were as I'm sure you have all guessed, maize moulded into the shape of vampiric teeth and flavoured cheese and onion. And the real genius of this design was that you could pop these crisps into your gob just like the plastic fangs you got from joke shops - yes, a snack AND a vampire dress-up prop too! But if cheese and onion wasn't your thing, there were Bones! These snacks really did look like little bones in a bag and provided spooky salt and vinegar flavoured fun, although sadly you could not assemble your own snack-sized skeleton from them.
But not everyone was happy. In typically hysterical style, tabloid newspapers were soon trying to whip up a storm of controversy over these already much-loved crisps, claiming it was a disgrace that what they termed "X certificate" snacks were being sold to children. (The X certificate was the film classification for movies suitable only for 18 year olds and over, and hence the usual certificate horror movies got). In true gutter journalism fashion they even managed to find an expert to back up their manufactured outrage. They reported that a Dr James Willis, a psychiatric consultant at Guy's Hospital, had said that "using unpleasant stimuli as a selling line could disturb a child in the same way that a vulnerable youngster can be disturbed by early exposure to sexual things". Of course, whether the good Dr Willis had really taken a strong stand against Horror Bags or had been merely asked a vague but leading hypothetical question in order to produce a quote for a story in a newspaper with only the vaguest associations with actual news, or indeed the truth, I will leave for you to decide.
Thankfully however this hate campaign against Horror Bags didn't really gain much traction. Most parents thought that the idea that crisps, even spooky shaped ones, could be harmful was frankly a load of old bollocks. Smiths themselves were a tad more diplomatic, issuing a statement that basically stated the real truth, which was "it's good for children to be on fun terms with things that frighten them". The tabloids dropped the matter swiftly and Horror Bags made a turnover of £4 million quid that year. thanks for the free advertising suckers!
Andspeaking of advertising, here's the TV ad announcing a new abominable addition to the line!
The Horror Bags Vampire - who was actually meant to be Dracula himself - was played there by Frank Thornton, better known as Captain Peacock in long running BBC sitcom Are You Being Served. Now there were a whole series TV ads for Horror Bags, and many more running in the pages of UK comics. And one of the things that make Horror Bags so fondly remembered was the long line of mail order give-aways and offers Smiths produced to help promote the brand. And next time we will be taking a look at some of these gleefully ghoulish giveaways and learning how Horror Bags gained a stable mate who would provide to be their nemesis!
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