Bazooka Joe

He is one of the more recognizable American advertising characters of the 20th century, due to worldwide distribution, and one of the few associated with a candy.

Sometime between 1952 and 1954, Woody Gelman and Ben Solomon, heads of Product Development at Topps,[2] approached cartoonist Wesley Morse to create Bazooka Joe and his Gang.

[3] In Heroes of the Comics: Portraits of the Pioneering Legends of Comic Books, Drew Friedman wrote: "Gelman, along with his friend and former co-animator Ben Solomon, created Popsicle Pete, who appeared in ads and packages for Popsicle ice pops for decades.

Popsicle Pete caught the eye of president of the Topps Company, Arthur Shorin, who hired Gelman and Solomon to work for him full time in Brooklyn.

For example, the Canadian version featured bilingual (simultaneous English and French) text balloons.