Doll-A-Day 174: Charlie Chocks Doll

  A lot of you, especially the younger ones, will be saying about now, "Who the squat is Charlie Chocks?"

  I suppose it's been a while since Chocks vitamins were sold, so they're becoming forgotten. But when I was a kid, we took Chocks vitamins every day. (The 'chocks' of the name referring to, I suppose, how they were 'chock full' of vitamins.) My mom was very big on vitamins, and I was anemic too, so that didn't help. (It sounds really astounding when I tell my kids that when I went to the doctor they tested my blood thus: They would puncture my finger. Then the nurse would squeeze my finger to make it bleed, and take a little rubber hose and put one end to my bleeding puncture, and the other end IN HER MOUTH and suck! When the hose was full she would put a finger to each end and leave the room with her haul to test it. Can you imagine?! In her mouth! These days they put rubber gloves on to even touch you.)
   I was much more willing to eat the sweet,cherry flavoured Chocks chewables than the liquid iron supplement I had been forced to consume up to that point. That stuff was thick, and brownish green, and stinky, (Honestly, it smelled horrible.), and tasted about like it looked. Chocks were available as mixed fruit flavours, or cherry,(Those must have been the 'with iron' ones. We always got the cherry.) I used to eat them slowly by scraping them with my front teeth and letting it melt in my mouth.I don't remember Charlie Chocks very much, but I remember they had a character that was supposed to be a Chocks vitamin and he looked more like a pillow. We had loads of the empty bottles around and we used to keep stuff in them. I still have a couple. I have one of the lids that we managed to take the plastic off of, (that made it seal closed tightly), and we used to play with it as a doll sized I Dream of Jeannie bottle, because that's what it looked like.

Turn that lid up side down. It's Jeannie's bottle, I swear.

Once that plastic cover is removed from the glass lid, it narrows at the top, just like Jeannie's bottle. Plus you can then use the plastic thing as a doll bowl...or something.

Chocks were made by Miles Laboratories, who also made Alka Seltzer. Miles was later bought out by Bayer. Chocks kind of faded away after Miles began making Flintstones vitamins. They completely disappeared about the same time I was no longer anemic and too old for Chocks anyway.

Charlie Chocks was supposed to be something like a fighter pilot, except that he wore trapeze artist tights.

Whaaa??

 He appeared in marionette form in commercials that look very "Thunderbirds" inspired.

 (Ok, now you're asking what Thunderbirds was! Thunderbirds, Supercar, and Stingray, which my sister and I loved, were 1960's British made tv series' made by Gerry Anderson, using what he called 'Supermarionation', (very cool marionettes, and very realistic looking sets.)

Stingray. Looks like the guy on the right is sitting in a bumpercar.Uhh, but I'm sure it's really some high tech thingy...

 Some of the Chocks commercials can be seen on YouTube. Miles got a lot of criticism for heavily pushing Chocks in these commercials during Saturday morning cartoons. (Now do I have to explain 'Saturday Morning Cartoons'? See, back in the Stoneage, when I was a kid, cartoons were really only shown on Saturday mornings, and maybe a half hour during afternoon kid's shows. You couldn't find cartoons on at any time of the night or day like you can now. See, there were only three channels, and then they invented PBS--oh forget it...)

  The doll was sold  for $1.00, 'no purchase necessary', except, isn't the 'coupon' provided on the Chocks package?

21" tall and four colors. Ooh! This must be the older, pre-Jeannie bottle lid.

The guy carries Chocks on his belt like it's grenades or something. I guess, if you were unhealthy, he'd lob Chocks at you.

  A lot of last week's haul will end up going to help pay for a radiator repair, (We have a leak and can't keep coolant in it.), but this guy will probably stay, as part of Ken's advertising collection, and as part of my childhood memories. (He's not exactly worth a fortune anyway...)

  For the record, my kids never took vitamins, except for when I fell for that when Emma was tiny. I always felt that if they were fed healthy food they didn't need vitamins. I always fed them whole grain bread and lots of vegetables, as well as plenty of protein, and whole fruit juices. It worked, and none of them have ever been anemic, and they are hardly ever sick. These are kids who were also raised vegetarian and have never eaten meat in their lives. They were sick way less than the kids they went to school with. Other than their diet I always attribute some of their healthiness to the fact that they were all breast fed until they were about two years old, tapering off a little at a time until they eventually quit altogether.
  That's it for today's doll. Join me again tomorrow for more of the SA haul. (I'm a poet!)