Learn French with Bazooka Joe

If you're disappointed by the diamond-hard gumlike substance in the colorful wrapper, you can at least improve your language skills. Apparently Bazooka Joe has taken it upon himself to become the Berlitz of the drippy-nose set. If any child can learn a single word of French with these wrappers, I'll doff my cap to the tyke. If any child enjoys the gum, I'll doff my entire head.

BJ: Mortimer, why are you sewing those labels marked "cotton" on your woolen clothes? (Mortimer, pour-quoi couds-tu ces etiquettes marquees 'coton' sur tes vetements en laine?)

Mortimer: I want to fool the moths! (Je veux duper les mites!)

Last panel: BJ emits beads of sweat and raises his eyebrows in delighted surprise. Applause, high-fives, beef jerky, garlands. Ticker-tape parade down Wall Street. Twenty-one gun salute. Celebratory H-bomb explosions on remote atolls. Ecstatic, frenzied Dionysian mobs overturn motor vehicles in a riotous orgy. Cities burn in an apocalypse of hilarity.