I will tap into a generational nerve (if you get no response, read someone else’s blog post) with a curiosity as to how, over time, the answer to that sacred answer was changed:
Yes, I never liked the Owl’s cheap answer, and always thought the number of licks to get to the center of a Tootsle Pop was a few orders of magnitude higher. Even the FAQ cops out (What kind of FAQ does not provide an A?):
How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?
It depends on a variety of factors such as the size of your mouth, the amount of saliva, etc. Basically, the world may never know.
If you go the wiki route, you get variable answers from 1 to 10,000.
So this answer is not really fixed, and it gets more complex given the trend of product downsizing, where companies maintain a trend of charging more for a product yet shrinking it’s size, weight, number, etc.
Today I got a shock. Being diabetic, I don’t eat candy much, but in times of low blood sugar, I reach for it. I had a Tootsie Pop I picked up from a hotel recently, and was dum founded when I saw how puny the ball of candy was!
I can swear it was twice as big as a kid, bigger than a nickel for sure.
At this rate, I bet that owl is right, as there is hardly any candy, and you may not even be able to identify the microscopic tootsie roll inside.
And for more signs of how pathetic advertising has become, how un-original, the updated version of the commercial does nothing but set the plot on cheesy 3D animation:
Downsizing to the left of me, lame commercials to the right, here I am….
I’m right there, my friend, stuck in the middle with you.
You’re right about the size, too. 🙂
Wow, how are you supposed to choke on a tootsie pop that small? Size was one of the things that set it apart from Dum Dums.
But Dog,
How many licks did it take you? Accounting, of course, for your canine tongue 🙂
@Jim: It was 2 licks and a crunch. I could not even tell there was anything in the middle
Tootsie makes two sizes of pops: those similar to the original, and those that are about the size of a Dum-Dum.
@TJ Ouch, well that blows the smoke off of my argument. Oh well, thanks for clearing it up, I stand corrected that Tootsie Pops have not shrunk and I was ignorant of the mini sizes.
It still leaves remaining, after all of these years, the answer to the question….