Zillion Bubbles (Wham-o)

By themselves, the words ‘bubble blower’ didn’t inspire much awe. Ten-cent sets of rings and bubble fluid could blow bubbles. Heck, even dish soap could blow bubbles. Big deal . . . But add the word “Zillion” and suddenly it was a whole new bubblegame. Who knew exactly how many a zillion was? – but it sounded really, really big.

Why, with this blower, I could be the ruler of all bubbledom! Kneel before me, blowers of bubble dozens – your pitiful bubble spheres can’t compete with this!

Do you know how many this is? Zillions! Zillions, I tell you!

Yet another feather in the Wham-O cap, the Zillion Bubbles blower took the ancient idea of bubble blowing and multiplied it by, well, a zillion.

Instead of a bubble wand dipped into a container of solution, the Zillion Bubbles blower had a full-blown bubble paddle, which looked something like a large waffle iron.

Lay that hole-filled waffler down in its tray of solution, and you held the potential for the promised zillions of bubbles.

With a wave of the solution-covered Zillion Bubbles blower through the air, a cornucopia of bubbles followed in its wake. The effect was dazzling to many a young eye, a veritable shower of bubbles to be run through, popped, or caught on your tongue. Mmmmm. Bubbles.

In the years before (and since) Wham-O’s multi-bubble creation, dozens of manufacturers have produced bubble-making contraptions of all types.

Wham-O itself made a few variations, from Monster Bubbles to the Bubble Thing, but even with all the blowers on the market, many bubble fans hold a soft spot in their hearts for the paddle that defined bubble gluttony and taught a generation of kids the power of the word “zillion”.