Hydrox takes a backseat to Oreo

ASK MR. KNOW-IT-ALL

By Gary Clothier

Q: Can you tell me when and why Hydrox cook­ies became Oreos? — M.D., Naples, Fla.

A: Let me start off with a ques­tion: Do you know which cookie holds the title of being “America’s first creme-filled choco­late cookie”? If you said Hydrox, you are right. Hydrox was intro­duced by Sun­shine in 1908; Oreo was intro­duced by Nabisco in 1912.

Over the years, Hydrox was sold to var­i­ous com­pa­nies. In 1999, Kee­bler replaced Hydrox with a sim­i­lar cookie, Drox­ies. Drox­ies were dropped in 2003 after Kellogg’s took over. There was no merger of cook­ies; Hydrox was elim­i­nated and Oreo became the undis­puted king of creme-filled choco­late cookies.

Accord­ing to cookie afi­ciona­dos, Hydrox had a “tangy, less-sweet fill­ing” and a crunchier cookie that stood up bet­ter in milk.

DID YOU KNOW? Mar­lon Brando and his actress sis­ter Joce­lyn Brando appeared together in two films: “The Ugly Amer­i­can” (1963) and “The Chase” (1966).

Q: Years ago, I remem­ber Chuck Con­nors — of “The Rifle­man” fame — played base­ball for the Chicago Cubs. Could you please give some infor­ma­tion about him from when he played the sport? I remem­ber see­ing him on a Cubs base­ball card. — L.V.G., Henry, Ill.

A: Kevin Joseph “Chuck” Con­nors was signed by the Brook­lyn Dodgers in 1940 as an ama­teur free agent. He did not make his major league debut until May 1949. He had only one at bat that sea­son. In 1951, Con­nors played first base for one sea­son with the Chicago Cubs. His bat­ting aver­age was .239. For super trivia junkies, he wore num­ber 36 with the Dodgers and 40 with the Cubs.

From 1946 to 1949, Con­nors played two sea­sons with the bas­ket­ball team the Boston Celtics. He was not very pro­duc­tive, which is why he tried base­ball. He was also drafted by the NFL’s Chicago Bears.

He was born in April 1921 in Brook­lyn, N.Y., and he died Nov. 10, 1992, in Los Ange­les at age 71.

Q: At the start of the old TV West­ern “The Rifle­man,” what kind of rifle is he using? — W.H., Terre Haute, Ind.

A: Chuck Con­nors is using a mod­i­fied 1892 Win­ches­ter SRC .44-.40 cal­iber car­bine with a stan­dard 20-inch bar­rel. The sig­na­ture rapid-fire mech­a­nism was designed orig­i­nally to keep Con­nors’ fin­ger from get­ting punc­tured by the trig­ger as he rapidly fired the gun. The series ran from Sep­tem­ber 1958 until July 1963.

Q: What is the sig­nif­i­cance of the let­ters MHK on the uni­forms of the New Eng­land Patri­ots? — H.G., Tor­rance, Calif.

A: The ini­tials stand for Myra Hiatt Kraft (1942–2011). She was the wife of New Eng­land Patri­ots owner Robert Kraft. She died of can­cer at age 68. In her mem­ory, all Patri­ots play­ers wore a patch on their uni­forms bear­ing Kraft’s ini­tials (MHK) through­out the 2011-12 season.

Q: I used to read a trivia col­umn by L.M. Boyd. What­ever hap­pened to him? — Y.S.

A: I also read his col­umn; he was one of the best. Louis Mal­colm Boyd spent his entire career in the news­pa­per indus­try. He began writ­ing a trivia col­umn in 1963. Even­tu­ally his col­umn appeared in nearly 400 news­pa­pers. Boyd announced his retire­ment at the end of 2000, but because of pop­u­lar demand, he brought the col­umn back for a few more years. The final col­umn ran on Aug. 7, 2004, when Boyd was 77. He died in Jan­u­ary 2007. He and his wife, Patri­cia, were mar­ried 45 years and had six children.

(Send your ques­tions to Mr. Know-It-All at AskMrKIA@gmail.com or c/o Uni­ver­sal Uclick, 1130 Wal­nut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

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