Come on, sing it with me now:
I love Bosco
It’s rich and chocolaty
Chocolate flavored Bosco
Is mighty good for me
Mama puts it in my milk
For extra energy
Bosco gives me iron
And sunshine Vitamin D
Oh, I love Bosco
That’s the drink for me!
Of course I also loved the subversive version...
Of course I also loved the subversive version:
I hate Bosco
Bosco’s bad for me
Mommy puts it in my milk
To try and poison me
I fooled mommy
I put it in her tea
Now I have no mommy
To try and poison me
With its cute (?) little plu
sh mascot, Bosco Bear, the commercials were a staple of Saturday morning cartoons so that we’d beg our parents to buy it. They even called it a “milk amplifier” and fortified it with vitamins to imply that it was actually good for us!
I loved Bosco. When I grew up, I even named my dog Bosco.
And now for some trivia:
Due to its consistency, Bosco was substituted for blood in several black-and-white movies including Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.
In the TV series Seinfeld, Bosco was George Costanza’s password for his ATM card, and it was Mrs. Peterman’s dying word.
A lifetime chocoholic, I blame it on Bosco. And I still drink chocolate milk…though now I add Hershey’s syrup. Up until 1979, it came in a chocolate-colored can you’d pierce with a “church key”…I can still hear the subtle pop, then another pop to help with the flow, two little triangular holes. Now it comes in an ugly plastic squeeze bottle.
I know it’s good for me…because it makes me feel good.
Barbara BucklesArtist, writer, storyteller, spy. Okay, not a spy…I was just going for the rhythm.
I call myself “an inveterate dabbler.” (And my husband calls me “an invertebrate babbler.”) I just love to create one way or another. My latest passion is telling true stories live, on stage. Because it scares the hell out of me.
As a memoirist, I focus on the undercurrents. Drawing from memory, diaries, notes, letters and photographs, I never ever lie, but I do claim creative license when fleshing out actual events in order to enhance the literary quality, i.e., what I might have been wearing, what might have been on the table, what season it might have been. By virtue of its genre, memoir also adds a patina of introspection and insight that most probably did not exist in real time.
Barb, as soon as I saw the name of your story, the only words that came to mind were the “subversive” ones…about poisoning Mother! I don’t remember the real commercial at all! Isn’t it funny how the other one just became implanted in my brain? I never actually drank Bosco, or any form of chocolate milk. I don’t think my mother approved, but I became a chocaholic anyway. LOVE any form or variety of the substance, but gave up milk a long time ago, while still in high school, as it didn’t seem to go well with spaghetti, which was on the menu at least once a week. But fudge cake with skim milk was my favorite lunch during my college years. Go figure.
Thank you for all the interesting Bosco-related facts on other uses in films, etc. And yes, Hershey’s chocolate syrup (now in a squeeze bottle) is in my home too. My husband pours it on his ice cream at night. Put I love your sense-memory of using the church key to open it, hearing the pressure-sealed can pop open. Great details, Barb.
This made me smile. I admit I only remember the subversive version! Great trivia, and dog picture too. This retrospect is turning out to be so educational.
Barb, I remember both versions of your jingle. My brothers and I used to sing the subversive one all of the time. Despite our pleas, my mother never bought it, but she did allow Hershey syrup. Love your trivia and Bosco the dog is adorable.
As soon as I saw your title, the tune started running through my head, and I did sing along with the audio clip. I also remember the subversive version. I wonder how it made its way all over the country, to kids in LA and Detroit and New Jersey. I never drank Bosco, we made our chocolate milk with Nestle’s Quik – in fact, I didn’t realize that Bosco was chocolate flavored. Seems like the “mommy” would have noticed it in her tea!
We’re allowed to add Hershey’s chocolate syrup to chocolate milk? I wish I had known that a long time ago! And I’m glad someone else uses the term “churchkey.” I’ll be watching for that Bosco-blood if I ever dare watch Psychol again. Thanks for all this information.
I also love Bosco, Barb, and the song was a scream! I’d forgotten about the milk amplifier claim and how ridiculous it was. When I was very small, Bosco was a rare treat, but when my little brother came along, he was a very picky eater and drinker, and we then had Bosco around to make him drink milk. For whatever reason (good taste?) I strongly preferred Bosco over a competitor called CocoMarsh, which had a lion as a mascot. I’d refuse to have it and lobby for Bosco! Thanks for the smiles.
Fun read Bebe!
Years ago touring Universal Studios at Epcot we learned about the chocolate syrup cum blood in the Psycho shower scene.
(Now since I’m writing this at midnight EST, I’ll probably have Psycho nightmares!)
Great story, Barb. I, too, remember the Bosco song, both the real and subversive versions. And I also now remember — thanks to you — its use for blood in B & W movies.
But we (my brother and I) were strictly a Nestle’s chocolate family. It was less of a mess and, in our view, tasted better, or at least mixed more easily with milk. And, speaking of Nestle’s, I am now reminded of its catchy jingle spelling out its name — “N-E-S-T-L-E-S, Nestle’s makes the very best. Choc-late.” It was usually “sung” by ventroloquist Jimmy Nelson’s dog Farfel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farfel_the_Dog Remember?
Yes, which became Nestle’s Quik…and we switched to it at some point. Easier to mix because it was a powder, and less messy being most important with five kids in our family. I do remember the ad and have a feeling I might have an ear worm of that drawn-out “chhhoc-late” now. We also tried Ovaltine for a while, I liked it but my brothers didn’t. Tried it years later and, meh.