Celebrated annually on October 24, National Good and Plenty Day honors America’s oldest branded confectionery treat. First produced in 1893 by the Quaker City Confectionery Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Good & Plenty has delighted candy lovers for over thirteen decades with its signature pastel pink and white candy-coated capsules filled with chewy black anise-flavored licorice.
The Legend of Choo-Choo Charlie
In 1950, advertising agency pioneers created Choo-Choo Charlie, an animated boy train engineer wearing an engineer's striped cap and scarf. Charlie shook his purple cardboard box of Good & Plenty candy back and forth, producing the rhythmic chug-a-chug sound of steam train pistons while singing the iconic television commercial jingle: "Once upon a time there was an engineer, Choo-Choo Charlie was his name we hear!"
The Enduring Charm of Vintage Cinema Concessions
Good & Plenty’s hard candy shell protects the aromatic licorice from melting, making it the perfect movie theater snack in the era before air-conditioned cinemas. Today, as one of Hershey’s beloved heritage brands, October 24 offers a sweet excuse to shake a retro purple box and enjoy the satisfying crunch of 130-year-old candy history.
