Trapped in a Bubble Gum Factory

When I was a kid, I used to love Bazooka Joe gum, mainly for the comic strips within the wrappers of each piece. The bottom of the comic contained a one-line fortune for your day -- the sort you find inside a fortune cookie. Anyway, every once and awhile, I'd get a piece with a fortune that read: "Help! I'm trapped in a bubble gum factory!" The first time I saw this, around the tender age of 8 or 9, I thought it was actually a cry for help. I envisioned some poor factory worker being held against his will, forced to crank out print after print of Bazooka Joe comic strips. And this secret message he sent out, probably made on the rare opportunity when the boss wasn't looking, was his only chance for escape. It was a message in a bottle, an S.O.S. I showed it to my parents - they assured me it was probably just a joke. But I was always skeptical. I am to this day, especially now that I'm older, and therefore get the irony.