Yum Yum Pudding

Here are three charmingly illustrated boxes of Yum Yum Pudding, with an interesting connection to comic book history. Harry Chesler, whose name and copyright can be seen on each box, was considered an early founder of the Golden Age of Comics, which defined comic books as an artistic medium and gave rise to the modern superhero, beginning with the 1938 debut of Superman.

Harry "A" Chesler (the "A" was an affectation that stood for "anything"), footnote likely didn't illustrate these boxes himself. An entrepreneur from New Jersey, in 1935 a prescient Chesler opened up the first comic art studio in New York City footnote footnote—which by all accounts was less of a studio and more of a sweatshop, where artists feverishly churned out material for major comic publishers. Chesler hired everyone from twelve-year-olds eager to cut their teeth in the industry, to old newspaper comic strip men who couldn't find a job in a Depression-era America. Said one artist of Chesler: "Harry [was] the last dinosaur, a tough boss who generated respect. Yet, he was warm and kind, a man who would extend himself in every way if you were in trouble—and those were tough times." footnote

I hardly found any records relating to Yum Yum Pudding in my research, but Yum Yum Gelatine does make an appearance in a 1945 issue of Captain Marvel, Jr., which would have come from Chesler's studio. In the comic, the superhero dumps the product into an overflowing swamp, solidifying it into gelatin and consequently preventing a flood. So says the hero, as he pours a rainbow of gelatin powder into the rising waters: "This will be the first swamp in history with nine delicious flavors!" footnote