“Mr. Owl, how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop?” Everyone remembers that commercial, right? (To relive it, click on the image above to watch it on YouTube.)

That question has played on the minds of thousands of Tootsie Pop fans for years, even driving engineering students to create licking machines and compare the results of their experiments with human volunteer results. Now, Tootsie Pops has given us three new reasons to the answer for ourselves.

The top-selling lollipop brand, consistently available in chocolate, cherry, orange, raspberry, and grape, is now adding one flavor each of strawberry, watermelon, and blue raspberry to Tootsie Pop bags.

If you want a more adventurous lollipop experience, Tootsie Pops Tropical Stormz are available in Berry Berry Punch, Orange/Pineapple, Lemon/Lime, Strawberry/Banana and Citrus Punch. The basic Tootsie Pop premise is the same as the original—a hard candy shell surrounds a Tootsie Roll—but the shell is a combination of two flavors swirled together.

If you’re a truly dedicated Tootsie Pop fanatic, the Online Tootsie Store has a lot of cool stuff to collect. My favorite is the Lick O Meter Keychain. It’s a plastic contraption that holds a Tootsie Pop and counts your licks on an LCD readout. It’s $5 and comes with batteries and a pop. I’d like to get one and compare its count to my own, although I bet I’d do what I always do with Tootsie Pops—lose my patience and ruin the experiment by taking a big bite before I’m halfway to the center.

• Tootsie Pops website
• Buy Tootsie Pops at Amazon.com
• Buy Tootsie Pops at Groovy Candies
• Tootsie Roll Frooties at Candy Addict

candy, sweets, lollipop, sucker, suckers, lollipops, tootsie, tootsie pop, tootsie pops, retro, commercial, commercials