Every year on October 24, candy collectors, nostalgic sweet-tooths, and moviegoers across the United States observe National Good and Plenty Day. Celebrating over 130 years of confectionery history, this day honors the beloved capsule-shaped, hard-sugar-coated black licorice bites that have delighted four generations of cinema concession stands.
1893 Philadelphia Origins: America’s Oldest Branded Candy
Good & Plenty was created in 1893 by the Quaker City Chocolate & Confectionery Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Engineered as small, pill-shaped cylinders of chewy black licorice surrounded by a crisp, shiny candy shell dyed half pastel pink and half pure white, it predates Hershey's Kisses, Milky Way, and M&Ms, making it the oldest branded candy still produced in the United States today.
Choo-Choo Charlie and Vintage Pop-Culture Fame
In the 1950s, Good & Plenty cemented its legendary status through the catchy television advertising campaign featuring cartoon train engineer "Choo-Choo Charlie", who made his locomotive run not on coal, but by shaking a box of Good & Plenty candies like a rhythmic maraca to the tune: "Once upon a time there was an engineer, Choo-Choo Charlie was his name, we hear..." Today manufactured by Hershey, the candy remains a cherished retro treat that evokes vintage soda fountains and Saturday matinee movies.
