For generations of American kids, the best part of a box of Cracker Jack wasn't the caramel corn. It was the hunt. You'd dig past the sticky popcorn and peanuts, fingers searching for that little paper packet holding a toy surprise. Where did that idea come from?
Here's the answer. Cracker Jack began including a prize in every box in 1912. Early surprises included rings, little figurines, booklets, stickers, temporary tattoos, and decoder rings, and in 1914 the company even put baseball cards in the boxes. The tradition lasted for more than a century, until Frito-Lay announced in 2016 that it was replacing the toy with a code for a digital game.
A Snack Born at a World's Fair
Candy-coated popcorn wasn't new. Newspapers were advertising sugar-coated popcorn as early as 1857. But in Chicago, a German immigrant named Frederick William Rueckheim, known as Fritz, started selling popcorn in 1871. He and his brother Louis came up with a new recipe of popcorn, peanuts, and molasses, and introduced it at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
There was one sticky problem. The molasses made the mixture clump together into hard chunks. In 1896, Louis found a fix: adding a small amount of oil as each batch tumbled in a drum, a closely guarded trade secret. That year, the first lot of Cracker Jack was produced, along with the slogan 'The More You Eat, the More You Want.'
The name supposedly came from someone tasting it and saying, 'That's a crackerjack,' an old expression meaning excellent. Food historian Andrew F. Smith has even called Cracker Jack the first junk food.
A Free Plug From a Famous Song
In 1908, the song 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game' gave the snack a priceless bit of free advertising with its line, 'Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack.' Funny enough, neither of the song's writers had attended a baseball game before writing it. Ever since, the treat has been tied to baseball.
That made the 1914 baseball card prizes a natural fit. They featured players from both major leagues, along with players from the short-lived Federal League.
Prizes Through the Decades
The prizes changed with the times. Until 1937, Cracker Jack toys were made in Japan. Starting in 1938, they were designed by an artist named Carey Cloud. Many metal toys were made by TootsieToy, the same company that made Monopoly game pieces. During World War II, when materials were scarce, the prizes were made of paper.
Collectors still treasure them today. Whole books catalog the prizes, and there's a lively market for vintage ones.
Sailor Jack and His Dog
The box itself became iconic thanks to Sailor Jack and his dog, Bingo, who appeared around 1916. Sailor Jack was modeled after Robert Rueckheim, the founder's grandson. Sadly, Robert died of pneumonia at age 7, shortly after his image first appeared.
Frito-Lay has owned Cracker Jack since 1997. In 2016, it announced that the toy surprise would be replaced by a code that could be scanned to download a baseball-themed game. For many longtime fans, it was the end of an era.
Still, if you ever find an old Cracker Jack ring or whistle tucked in a drawer, hang on to it. It's a tiny piece of American snack history, from a time when every box held a little bit of mystery.
