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Cracker Jack is a brand of snack consisting of caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts.
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History
1893: Frederick William Rueckheim and his brother, Louis, mass produce Cracker Jack and sell them at the first Chicago World's Fair in 1893. At the time, it was a mixture of popcorn, molasses, and peanuts and was called "Candied Popcorn and Peanuts".
1896: Rueckheim devises a way to keep the popcorn kernels separate. Hitherto, the mixture was difficult to handle as stuck together in chunks.
1912: Prizes included in Cracker Jack boxes. In recent years, the toy and trinket prizes have been replaced with paper prizes displaying riddles and jokes.
1918: Mascots Sailor Jack and his dog, Bingo, are introduced though not registered as trademark logos until 1919.
1964: The Cracker Jack Company is purchased by Borden.
1997: Borden sells the brand to Frito-Lay.
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Popular culture
Cracker Jacks are a staple of baseball stadiums. Cracker Jacks are famously mentioned in the 1908 baseball song, Take Me Out to the Ball Game: "Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack, I don't care if I never get back."
Mentioned in the 1977 song, "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad," performed by rock singer Meat Loaf
In the 1987 movie Spaceballs the character Yogurt said that he found Lone Starr's Schwartz ring as a prize inside a Cracker Jacks box.
Mentioned in the 1997 song "Muhammed my Friend" by Tori Amos.
The snack, and a metal ring prize, is key to the plot of the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's. One character is pleased to learn that prizes are still included in the packaging, commenting that it "gives one a feeling of solidarity, almost of continuity with the past, that sort of thing."
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Trivia
A complete set of 176 prize baseball cards sold for $800,000.
July 5th is Cracker Jack Day.
In 2004, the New York Yankees baseball team replaced Cracker Jack with the similar Crunch n' Munch at home games. The club soon switched back to Cracker Jack after a public outcry that was swift, immediate and vehement.
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