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Junior Mints are a candy brand consisting of small rounds of mint filling (with a dimple on one side) inside a dark chocolate coating. The product is currently produced by Tootsie Roll Industries, and is packaged in varying amounts from the fun-size box to the much larger 12.0 oz. box. Junior Mints were introduced in 1949 by the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based James O. Welch Company. The company also manufactured candies and candy bars such as Sugar Babies, Welch's Fudge, and Pom Poms. Welch was born in Hertford, North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina, and then founded his Cambridge candy company in 1927. His partner in the company was his brother, Robert W. Welch, Jr., who retired from the confectionery business in 1956 and two years later founded the John Birch Society.〔("James O. Welch Dies at 79; Founder of Candy Company", ''The New York Times'', February 1, 1985. )〕 ==Origin of product name== The name of the product is a pun on Sally Benson's ''Junior Miss'', a collection of her stories from ''The New Yorker'', which were adapted by Jerome Chodorov and Joseph Fields into a successful play. The play was directed by Moss Hart and ran on Broadway from 1941 to 1943. According to one past official company history, when James Welch developed and launched the product in 1949, he named the candy after his favorite Broadway show. Yet the candy came six years after the play had closed on Broadway. Current copy on the Junior Mints box incorrectly gives the date of the Broadway play as 1949. Some may argue that this is comparable to the "potato potato" scenario, as depending on how you read "named after a top Broadway play in 1949: "Junior Miss"", it may be interpreted that it is simply referring to the candy being named in 1949.〔(Smith, Andrew F. ''Encyclopedia of Junk Food and Fast Food''. Greenwood Publishing, 2006. )〕〔Junior Mints box copy〕 In 1945, the play was adapted to film, with George Seaton directing Peggy Ann Garner in the lead role. The ''Junior Miss'' radio series, starring Barbara Whiting, was being broadcast weekly on CBS at the time Junior Mints were first marketed in 1949. Thus, Welch had cleverly created a product sold at movie theater concession stands and identified with a specific movie and radio series and displaying a name that sounded almost exactly like that property–yet different enough that it avoided any fees for licensing and merchandising. Junior Mints quickly became a popular candy at movie concession stands, and one product in the line is the three oz. box marketed as the "Theater Size Junior Mints Concession Candy". In 1963, the brand was acquired by Nabisco, who sold the brand to Warner-Lambert Company (now part of Pfizer) in 1988, who in turn sold the brand to Tootsie Roll in 1993. Today, Junior Mints are still manufactured in Cambridge at Tootsie Roll Industries. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Junior Mints」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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