tobler-oh-yeah!

Swayed by the pressure of advertising i bought a fruit and nut toblerone today, and it has a chance that it'll become my 'high street' chocolate of choice. Try one, they're really nice.

On that note, i decided to dig into toblerone a little more. The name comes from a portmanteau of the inventor's name (Theodore Tobler) and the Italian word for nougat (torrone). Each chunk of toblerone is supposed to be called an ALP (as it represents the matterhorn in shape). Toblerone was patented in 1909 in the Federal Institute for Intellectual Property in Bern, where Albert Einstein worked at the time. Most exciting of all, there is a hidden bear in the Toblerone Matterhorn logo, representing the home town of Bern. ACE.

I still can't find an explaination why they are mainly found in Duty Free shops though...

Comments

[Charlie Gower]

I see the bear. I see the bear! Wow. New knowledge. Great. Feed me more!

[Drew McManus]

GREAT! Reminds me of the arrow in the FedEx logo. Invisible until it is pointed out to you, and then it is all you ever see.

[Peter Warne]

What arrow in the FedEx logo? I've been staring at it for 10 minutes and ... nothing.

[Peter Warne]

What arrow in the FedEx logo? I've been staring at it for 10 minutes and ... nothing.

[A. Nonymous]

The whitespace between the 'E' and 'x'

[Dead Hippo]

I have lived in Switzerland for quite a while and must have eaten my way through a veritable mountain range of Toblerone by now. The bear has completely eluded me so far. Well spotted!

The Toblerone website has this to say about the origins of the design:

"Version Two:
On the many business trips which led Theodor Tobler to Paris, he often visited the show at the Folies Bergères.The dancers on stage at the famous cabaret provided Tobler with a vision in his search to surpass the conventional bar shape for chocolate. As the red-and-beige clad dance troupe formed a human pyramid at the close of their number, his mind's eye suddenly glimpsed a triangular chocolate shape."

http://www.toblerone.com/our_secret/shape-en.html

Yeah right... the version I heard was his actual eye had glimpsed a dark triangular shape of a different kind. This was the Folies-Bergères after all... so it stands to reason that he glimpsed a slice of what Alan Sillitoe in one of his stories called "hearthrug pie".

Anyway. Excellent post.

[Kate]

In Australia, you can get them everywhere - grocery stores, service (gas) stations, even 2 mini ones come together in a packet in vending machines.

[gplatypus]

This is one of my favorite brands of chocolate and I've never seen the bear before! I'm definitely pleasantly surprised.

[jodie]

it looks more like a pony-bear to me.

[Mr. Tangent]

Look closer... the poor bear's on fire!!! He's running for his life and the fire is leaping off his back. Poor bear!

[Mr. Tangent]

@gplatypus: "pony-bear" hahahaha. LOL!

[boo]

i second dead hippo, in australia they are everywhere, given and eaten at all occassions, and come in every size from the teeny-tiny to the metre-long version.

yum.

[juie]

wow, there is a bear, there! Cool!

The day after Milton Hershey's birthday, the 13th, this was posted. Toberlone is clearly superior, but the coincidence is kind of fun!

[juie]

wow, there is a bear, there! Cool!

The day after Milton Hershey's birthday, the 13th, this was posted. Toberlone is clearly superior, but the coincidence is kind of fun!

[Kyle]

Stephen Colbert is going to FREAK OUT.

[Hugh]

Heh, Stephen Colbert. The bear is cool... although it took me a little while to find it. There's more about the FedEx logo here: http://www.articlesandtexticles.co.uk/2006/09/02/the-fedex-logo-and-its-designer/

[randomelginguy]

Anybody notice the fish below the bear :P?

[Al]

Wow, well spotted!

My guess would be the bear is a reference to the beautiful city of Bern (where the toblerone was created). The bear is the emblem of Bern.

There's plenty more on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bern

:)

[Oliver]

What bear? There is -- with some stretch of the imagination -- some kind of effeminate pig thing dancing there ...but there ain't no bear.

[Usman]

Great find, I've never seen it before. Americans can find Toblerone in just about any Trader Joe's, a nationwide chain of grocery stores.

[Sir]

Canadians can find Toblerone in the same places Aussies do...and in sizes from teeny weeny to a metre long. The metre one is great for the Christmas stocking.
Thanks for the find!

[JackFrost]

There's a KKK man in the Marlboro Logo

Check the white space between the left horses legs.

[Bill]

There's no bear, it is clearly the face of a woman with her mouth wide open and tongue sticking out...she's stretching to get to the chocolate.

[Bryan]

I remember seeing that Bear when I went to College of Wooster in Ohio, back in the 70's. I think it was noticed after a group of us at the snack bar had just read the Subliminal Advertising Book, you know when the camel cigarettes were shown to have all those things in the camel (the lion, blah blah)
Hee Hee that is fun stuff...

[Rocket Scientist]

sweet pickup

btw - no kkk in the marlboro logo though apparently if you turn the packet on its side the triangular motif represents the K of the kkk.....