Thanks to a man named Walter Diemer, an accountant at a Philadelphia chewing gum company, we have bubble gum. Diemer liked to tinker with gum recipes in his spare time (which everyone has to admit is more fun than accounting), and he saw the possibility for bubbles in one fateful batch that turned out much stretchier than regular gum.

He took that first batch of bubble gum, in the form a five-pound blob, to a nearby grocery store and it all sold out by day’s end. The company Diemer worked for embraced his invention, dyed it pink because that was the only color they had on-hand, named it Dubble Bubble and the rest, as they say, is history.

We have more than a dozen Dubble Bubble bubble gum brands below, along with scores of other bubble gum favorites and novelties, such as Bubble Yum, Bubblicious in Cotton Candy, Blueberry and more, Bazooka Bubble Juice, Hubba Bubba, and on and on.

What does all of this mean for you? It means a bubble blowing contest. Diemer used to host bubble contests with neighborhood children, so you will be continuing a time-honored tradition, no matter how silly you look with gum on your nose.