A Smorgasbord! 1992-93 Clark Mario Bun

From the 1970s through the 1990s, it seemed like you could find your favorite baseball stars on food product packaging everywhere you looked: supermarkets, corner stores, restaurants, and beyond. This past year, in an effort to capture a little more nostalgia, I set a goal to expand my own collection of these "food-issue" cards. In this series I'll show the specific examples I've acquired, and share a little bit of history about the food or beverage sponsor as well. 

Previous entries can be found here.

it's January, 1993. Hockey season is in full swing. You're in 9th grade now, and much of your life revolves around the sport. You watch highlights on ESPN every morning before school. You play on the local ice hockey team. And on the walk home from school during the week, you talk hockey with a couple of your classmates.

 

Oftentimes on those walks, you stop by the local stationery store. One friend always puts a couple of quarters into the Street Fighter II arcade cabinet positioned over by the magazines for sale. You watch for a while, because he's pretty good. But eventually you make your way over to the candy racks. And that's when you spot a new item. 

 

 

 

 

Mario Lemieux has a chocolate bar?!

Apparently, he does. You pick one up and take a closer look at the small line of white text toward the bottom of the wrapper.

 

1 OF 3 LEMIEUX CARDS INSIDE

 

Oh, yes. Right then and there, you know what you're buying.

 

Hockey cards are still exciting. Quite a few brands are now adding special "insert" cards to their packs, and it's kept you guys into the hobby. In fact, once a month you all meet at the local card show and scope out what's new.  

 

So a special 3-card set featuring Mario Lemieux? With a chocolate bonus? You point it out to your friends, and it's not long before they each grab one. Bill, the stationery guy,  watches from behind the register. You've just given him all the feedback he needs to add another box of Mario Buns to his next candy order.

 

Your Street Fighter buddy has finished kicking butt for now, and the bunch of you leave the store, continue the walk home, and open up your chocolate wrappers to check out the cards inside. Here's yours:

 

 

 

 

 

For a chocolate bar card, the design isn't too bad!  

 

As for your friends, here's what they received:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Between the three of you, that's already a complete set! You joke about how these Mario Bun cards are doing much better with collation than some actual hockey card brands out there. Then before you go your separate ways, you get down to business. 

 

All three of you want the complete set, so you make a verbal agreement to buy more Mario Buns over the next few weeks and make the trades necessary to achieve the goal.

 

It might not be the healthiest of plans, but if the collation is pretty good, you figure you shouldn't have to eat too many of them. Besides, you're all young, and you all play roller hockey at the local park pretty much every day after school, even on these cold winter days. You'll burn off that chocolate and caramel easily.

 

 

As for the Mario Bun, it was produced and sold in 1993 by the D.L. Clark company.

 

 

 

Yep, that's the same brand known for the Clark Bar and Zagnut Bar. (And you know what? They also made the Reggie! Bar in the late-70s.)

 

The company was founded in Pittsburgh, way back in 1886. In 1999 they were purchased by the Necco Company. Then, when Necco went bankrupt in 2018, the Clark brand was acquired by the Boyer Candy Company, who seem to enjoy producing Clark Bars and a few other vintage treats.

How about you readers? 

 

Do you remember the Mario Bun or any other Clark products? 

 

Did you have a local stationery store or drug store that boasted racks and racks of candy when you were a kid?

 

Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading!