Editing Pop Rocks (section)

==Urban legend==
Rumors persisted that eating Pop Rocks and drinking [[soft drink|soda]] would cause a person's stomach to boil and explode.<ref name="snopes">{{cite web |url=http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/poprocks.asp |first=Barbara |last=Mikkelson |author-link=Snopes |publisher=Snopes |title=Pop Rocks Death |date=January 20, 2007 |access-date=2007-08-19}}</ref> This was, in part, caused by the false assumption that Pop Rocks contain an acid/base mixture (such as [[baking soda]] and [[vinegar]]) which produces large volumes of gas when mixed through chewing and saliva.<ref name="dsc.discovery.com">{{Cite web|url=http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/episode/00to49/episode_11.html|title=Discovery Channel :: Mythbusters: Episode Guide}}</ref> One of these myths involved child actor [[Little Mikey|John Gilchrist]] (playing the character Little Mikey in 1970s [[Life (cereal)|Life cereal]] television commercials), who was falsely rumored to have died after consuming excess amounts of Pop Rocks and [[Coca-Cola]].<ref name="snopes" /> 

Though the confection had been extensively tested and found safe, the carbonated candy still alarmed residents in [[Seattle]]. The [[Food and Drug Administration]] set up a [[hotline]] there to assure anxious parents that the fizzing candy would not cause their children to choke.  General Foods was battling the "exploding kid" rumors as early as 1979. General Foods sent letters to school principals,<ref name="rudolph">{{cite book |last=Rudolph |first=Marvin J. |title=Pop Rocks: The Inside Story of America's Revolutionary Candy |date=September 2006 |publisher=Specialty Publishers LLC |isbn=978-0978631802 |location=[[Sharon, Massachusetts|Sharon, MA]] |chapter=Appendix 5}}</ref> created an [[open letter]] to parents,<ref name="rudolph2">{{cite book |last=Rudolph |first=Marvin J. |title=Pop Rocks: The Inside Story of America's Revolutionary Candy |date=September 2006 |publisher=Specialty Publishers LLC |isbn=978-0978631802 |location=[[Sharon, Massachusetts|Sharon, MA]] |chapter=Appendix 3}}</ref> took out advertisements in major publications and sent the confection's inventor on the road to explain that a Pop Rocks package contains less gas (namely, [[carbon dioxide]], the same gas used in all [[carbonated beverages]]) than half a can of soda.

The story has appeared in many other forms of media and fiction. On the [[List of MythBusters pilot episodes#Pop Rocks|very first episode of ''MythBusters'']], [[Adam Savage]] and [[Jamie Hyneman]] put the Mikey rumor to the test by mixing six packs of Pop Rocks and a six-pack of cola inside a pig's stomach, complete with enough [[hydrochloric acid]] to simulate the acid inside a human stomach. Despite the pig stomach growing to three times its initial size, it did not blow up even after time was allotted for digestion. In another stomach used as an experimental counterpart, only a large amount of sodium bicarbonate along with acid and soda (and without any Pop Rocks) was able to cause a gastric rupture.<ref name="dsc.discovery.com"/> The broadcast included interview clips with Pop Rocks Inc. vice president Fernando Arguis explaining the candy and the myth, and Savage later alluded to the myth at a presentation at [[Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute]] by showing that Pop Rocks and soda—albeit in a smaller amount—in his own stomach was not fatal.<ref>{{cite web |last=Parkinson |first=Victor |date=2004 |title=Mythbusters At RPI |url=http://poly.union.rpi.edu/article_view.php3?view=3544&part=1 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090109061240/http://poly.union.rpi.edu/article_view.php3?view=3544&part=1 |archive-date=2009-01-09 |access-date=2010-10-15 |website=Polytechnic Online}}</ref>