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Exploding cigar pellets advertisement from January 1917 edition of Popular Mechanics[1]

An exploding cigar is a variety of cigar that explodes shortly after being lit. Such cigars are normally packed with a minute chemical explosive charge near the lighting end or with a non-chemical device that ruptures the cigar when exposed to heat. Also known as "loaded cigars," the customary intended purpose of exploding cigars is as a practical joke, rather than to cause lasting physical harm to the smoker of the cigar. Nevertheless, the high risk of unintended injuries from their use caused a decline in their manufacture and sale.

Although far rarer than their prank cousins, the use of exploding cigars as a means to kill or attempt to kill targets in real life has been claimed, and is well represented as a fictional plot device. The most famous case concerning the intentionally deadly variety was an alleged plot by the CIA in the 1960s to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Notable real-life incidents involving the non-lethal variety include an exploding cigar purportedly given by Ulysses S. Grant to an acquaintance and a dust-up between Turkish military officers and Ernest Hemingway after he pranked one of them with an exploding cigar.

Manufacture and decline

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Exploding cigar comic from July 8, 1919 edition of the Oakland Tribune by Fontaine Fox.[2][footnote 1]

The largest manufacturer and purveyor of exploding cigars in the United States during the middle of the 20th century was the S. S. Adams Company, which, according to The Saturday Evening Post, made more exploding cigars and other gag novelty items as of 1946 than its next eleven competitors combined.[3]

The company was founded by Soren Sorensen Adams, dubbed the "king of the professional pranksters", who invented and patented many common gag novelties such as sneezing powder, itching powder, the dribble glass and the joy buzzer.[3][4] The largest New York–based manufacturer of exploding cigars was Richard Appel, a German refugee from Nuremberg, who in or about 1940 opened a gag novelty factory on Manhattan's Lower East Side.[5]

By the time exploding cigars were being turned out by manufacturers such as Adams and Appel, the chemical explosive variety had fallen out of favor.[3] According to Adams, the large-scale switch to a non-chemical device occurred in approximately 1915 in the aftermath of a death caused by a homemade exploding cigar rigged with dynamite.[3] Though exploding cigars were not normally rigged with dynamite but with explosive caps using a less powerful incendiary,[6] following the incident, a number of US states banned the product altogether.[3] The replacement for chemical explosives was a metal spring mechanism, bound with cord—as the victim puffed away, the cord burned through, causing the device to spring open, thus rupturing the cigar's end.[3][6]

However, the decline in the use and advertisement of the exploding cigar was neither complete, nor permanent, and they can be obtained worldwide. In the United States, makers include Don Osvaldo and Hawkins Joke Shop. However, their availability in the US is limited, as some states, such as Massachusetts, have banned their sale entirely.

Prank exploding cigars have caused many injuries over their history. For example, in 1902 one Edward Weinschreider sued a cigar shop for an exploding cigar that burned his hand so badly three of his fingers had to be amputated.[7] As has been observed by one legal scholar, "[t]he utility of the exploding cigar is so low and the risk of injury so high as to warrant a conclusion that the cigar is defective and should not have been marketed at all."[8] Laws have been enacted banning the sale of exploding cigars entirely, such as Chapter 178 of Massachusetts' Acts and Resolves, passed by its legislature in 1967.[9][10]

In fiction

[edit]

Both prank and intentionally deadly exploding cigars have been featured in numerous works of fiction, spanning many forms of media including literature, film, comics books, cartoons and others. A well-known use of the exploding cigar in literature, for example, appears in Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel, Gravity's Rainbow. In it, the character Etzel Ölsch symbolically betrays his death wish by eagerly smoking a cigar he knows to be of the prank explosive variety.[11][12] Other book examples include Robert Coover's 1977 novel, The Public Burning, where a fictionalized Richard Nixon hands an exploding cigar to Uncle Sam,[13] and Sherburne James' Death's Clenched Fist (1982), in which a Tammany Hall politico of the 1890s is murdered with an exploding cigar.[14]

Film examples include Cecil B. DeMille's 1921 romance Fool's Paradise, wherein the main character is blinded by an exploding cigar;[15] Laurel and Hardy's Great Guns (1941), which features a gag in which tobacco is replaced by gunpowder;[16] in Road To Morocco (1942) with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope features the duo mixing gunpowder with tobacco in order to create chaos and escape a desert sheik with their girls; the Elke Sommer vehicle, Deadlier Than the Male (1967), where a murder by exploding cigar is a key plot element;[17] in The Beatles' 1968 animated feature film, Yellow Submarine, where an exploding cigar is used to rebuff a psychedelic boxing monster;[18] the 1984 comedy Top Secret!, in which Omar Sharif's British secret agent character is pranked with an exploding cigar by a blindman;[19] and in the 2005 film V for Vendetta, where the main antagonist's cigar is swapped with an exploding one during a comedy skit.

The appearance of exploding cigars in the Warner Bros. cartoon franchises, Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes was fairly common, often coupled with the explosion resulting in the pranked character appearing in blackface. Some examples include: Bacall to Arms (1942), wherein an animated Humphrey Bogart gets zapped by an exploding cigar leaving him in blackface,[20] 1949's Mississippi Hare, where the character Colonel Shuffle likewise ends up in blackface after the explosion,[21] 1952's Rabbit's Kin, in which Pete Puma offers Bugs Bunny an exploding cigar (true to form, Bugs Bunny turns the tables on the hapless feline, placing the cigar in Pete's mouth after he is dazed and lighting it with expected results),[22] and 1964's Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare, where the Tasmanian Devil successfully gets Bugs Bunny to smoke an exploding cigar.[23]

Other media examples include television appearances such as when Peter Falk's Columbo must solve an industrial magnate's death by exploding cigar in the episode "Short Fuse" (1972),[24] in a season four episode of the United States television, CBS crime drama, CSI: NY titled "Child's Play", wherein the forensic team investigate the death of a man killed by an exploding cigar,[25] and in a 1966 episode of The Avengers entitled "A Touch of Brimstone";[26] in video games such as Day of the Tentacle where Hoagie can offer George Washington an exploding cigar;[27] and as a stock device by the Joker in Batman comic books. For example, in Batman #251 (1973) entitled "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge", an exploding cigar containing nitroglycerin is used by the Joker to kill one of the members of his gang.[28] The Adventures of Tintin comics have occasionally utilized prank exploding cigars against Captain Haddock.

In reality

[edit]

Ulysses S. Grant's delayed gift

[edit]

According to a 1932 Associated Press story, U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant gave Horace Norton, the founder of a now defunct college in Chicago, an exploding cigar soon after being introduced to him, but the "joke" wasn't revealed until many years later.[29]

According to the story, unaware of the nature of the gift, Norton saved the cigar, keeping it on display in his college's museum. Years later, when the school was shutting its doors for good, the alumni thought it would be a fitting gesture to smoke the cigar at the college's annual reunion. The honor was given to Winstead Norton, Horace's grandson. During the sober speech he was presenting, Winstead lit the cigar, and after two puffs, it exploded.[29] A 1952 news report contradicts one detail, holding that the explosion ultimately occurred at a family reunion rather than the alumni affair noted.[30]

The tale of "Grant's cigar" has unquestionably been embellished over time.[31] The possibility exists that the tale is a hoax or urban legend or that the cigar was tampered with by someone after Grant's purported presentation.[31][footnote 3]

Ernest Hemingway

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Reportedly, Ernest Hemingway, urged on by a group of journalists with whom he was drinking at the Palace Hotel bar in Rapallo, Italy, presented an exploding cigar to one of four bodyguards of Turkish general İsmet İnönü. When the cigar "went off", all four guards drew their guns and aimed at Hemingway. He apparently escaped without any grievous bodily injury.[32]

CIA plot to assassinate Castro

[edit]
Cover of October 1963 issue (#82) of Mad Magazine. Written by Al Jaffee and painted by Norman Mingo[33]

In the late 1950s under Dwight D. Eisenhower's presidential administration and in the early 1960s under John F. Kennedy's, the CIA had been brainstorming and implementing plots to assassinate Fidel Castro, going as far as enlisting the help of American Mafia leaders such as Johnny Roselli and Santo Trafficante, Jr. to assist in carrying out their plans.[34][35] Many assassination ideas were floated by the CIA in the covert operation which was dubbed "Operation Mongoose."[36] The most infamous was the CIA's alleged plot to capitalize on Castro's well known love of cigars by slipping into his supply a very real and lethal "exploding cigar."[37] A November 4, 1967 Saturday Evening Post article reported that during Castro's visit to the United Nations in 1966 a CIA agent approached NYPD chief inspector Michael J. Murphy with a plan to get Castro to smoke an exploding cigar.[38]

While numerous sources state the exploding cigar plot as fact, at least one source asserts it to be simply a myth,[39] while another suggests it was merely supermarket tabloid fodder.[40] One source theorizes that the story does have its origins in the CIA, but that it was never seriously proposed by them; rather, the plot was made up by the CIA as an intentionally "silly" idea to feed to those questioning them about their plans for Castro, in order to deflect scrutiny from more serious areas of inquiry.[34][footnote 2]

Whether true or not, the CIA's exploding cigar assassination plot inspired the cover of the October 1963 issue (#82) of Mad Magazine. Conceived by Al Jaffee, the cover (pictured at right) bears the headline, "You'll Get a BANG out of this issue of Mad Magazine", and features a painting by Norman Mingo depicting Castro in the act of lighting a cigar wrapped with a cigar band on which is drawn Alfred E. Neuman with his fingers plugging his ears, awaiting the explosion.[33][41] An exploding cigar is also featured on the poster for the Channel 4 British Documentary, 638 Ways to Kill Castro, which shows Castro with a cigar in his mouth that has a fuse projecting from the end and a lit match approaching.[42] An exploding cigar was tested on a season 2 episode of Deadliest Warrior, KGB vs. CIA;[43] the cigar completely destroyed the upper and lower jaw of a gel head, but was determined to be very unreliable due to its timed fuse and small explosive payload.[43]

See also

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Footnotes

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References

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Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Exploding cigar

View on Grokipedia
from Grokipedia
An exploding cigar is a novelty consisting of a or insert containing a small charge that detonates with a loud , flash, and smoke when lit, intended to startle the smoker without causing injury. These devices, often in the form of insertable pellets, were widely marketed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries as gifts, appearing in advertisements such as one for "cigar loads" in the January 1917 issue of . Sales proliferated in novelty shops and catalogs until states began enacting restrictions in the , which curtailed their distribution due to the pyrotechnic components. Beyond pranks, the concept has been depicted in and , including mid-20th-century humor magazines, highlighting its role in American gag culture alongside items like joy buzzers and whoopee cushions.

Definition and Mechanics

Design and Functionality

Exploding cigars were designed as novelty pranks, featuring a cigar-like exterior of filler and wrapper concealing an internal mechanism intended to activate after brief normal burning. Early versions embedded a small charge wrapped in tissue, positioned about one inch from the lighting end and linked by a short fuse similar to a firecracker's "lady finger." Upon ignition on February 4, 1886, as described in period advertisements, the cigar burned steadily until the ember consumed the fuse on March 19, 1910, igniting the powder for a sudden bang. Incidents of burns and injuries from shrapnel prompted design shifts post-1886 to pyrotechnic "red fire" mixtures, which produced a three-foot stream without fragmentation upon reaching the charge. By the , manufacturer S.S. Adams introduced a safer mechanical alternative: a coiled metal spring bound by combustible integrated into the core. The burned through as the cigar progressed, releasing the spring to uncoil explosively, ripping the end with a mild pop but avoiding . Functionality hinged on tobacco's predictable —typically 1 inch per minute—to delay activation for 30-60 seconds, mimicking legitimate before startling the user with , flash, or disruption. These non-lethal mechanisms ensured the prank's surprise without intent for harm, though regulatory bans in the curtailed commercial production due to safety risks.

Historical Context

Origins and Manufacture

The origins of the exploding cigar as a novelty prank item trace to the early 20th century, with the earliest documented commercial offering appearing in a January 1917 advertisement in magazine. This ad promoted "exploding cigar pellets," small devices containing a non-lethal pyrotechnic charge designed to be inserted into the end of a standard cigar, causing it to erupt with a loud bang and scatter of tobacco shortly after ignition. Intended solely for humorous effect, these pellets highlighted the device's purpose as a surprise gag, marketed as "perfectly harmless" despite the inherent risks of mishandling. Manufacture of exploding cigars typically involved embedding a minute disruptive element within the filler near the lighting end. Early chemical variants relied on a small quantity of black powder or similar low , ignited by the cigar's burning to produce a sharp report and fragmentation without lethal force. By the , concerns over accidental injuries from homemade chemical versions prompted a shift toward mechanical designs, particularly by prank novelty firms. One such mechanism, popularized in mass-produced models, featured a tightly coiled spring restrained by combustible ; as the twine burned, the spring expanded violently, rupturing the cigar wrapper and expelling shreds of . The S.S. Adams Company, established in 1906 by Danish immigrant Soren Sorensen Adams initially for sneeze-inducing powders, emerged as a leading U.S. producer of exploding cigars during the mid-20th century. Operating from facilities in , the company scaled production of these and other gags, incorporating the mechanical spring system to minimize hazards while maintaining the startling effect. Another notable manufacturer was , a German émigré who, around 1940, established a New York-based operation specializing in gag novelties, including exploding cigars tailored for the domestic market. These products were assembled using basic blending techniques augmented with the prank component, distributed through novelty shops and mail-order catalogs until regulatory scrutiny on fireworks-like items contributed to their decline.

Commercial Production and Decline

Exploding cigars emerged as commercially produced novelty pranks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, initially featuring small charges encased in with a short fuse placed near the end. These devices were widely available in American towns, marketed for their startling effect on unsuspecting smokers. By , advertisements promoted insertable exploding pellets for use in standard cigars, highlighting their role as gag items sold through catalogs and magazines. Severe injuries from early models, including blown-off fingers and at least one reported , spurred public outcry and legal restrictions, with several states enacting bans by the . Manufacturers responded by developing safer alternatives, such as cartridges using "red fire" chemicals for a non-explosive or coiled springs restrained by combustible that uncoiled with a mild pop upon burning. The S.S. Adams Company pioneered of these less hazardous versions, transitioning the market away from highly dangerous designs. Prominent producers included the S.S. Adams Company, which expanded its novelty line to include exploding cigars alongside items like joy buzzers and whoopee cushions, maintaining output into the late . In New York, Richard , a German immigrant, opened a dedicated gag factory around , manufacturing exploding cigars as part of a broader assortment of pranks. Persistent safety risks, even with refined mechanisms, led to a broader decline in commercial production and sales, as unintended injuries continued to deter widespread distribution and prompted further regulatory scrutiny. While not entirely eradicated, the market for exploding cigars diminished significantly after the mid-20th century, overshadowed by safer novelties and shifting consumer preferences away from pyrotechnic pranks.

Non-Lethal Real-World Uses

Ulysses S. Grant Anecdote

According to a 1932 Associated Press report, presented Horace Norton, founder of the now-defunct Norton College in , with an exploding cigar as a shortly after their introduction in the . Norton preserved the cigar without smoking it, passing it down through his family upon his death. On December 20, 1932, during a speech at a Norton College alumni reunion in marking the institution's 70th anniversary, Norton's grandson, Winstead Norton, ceremoniously lit the decades-old cigar. After two puffs, it exploded in his mouth, startling attendees but causing no serious injury. The incident was publicized in contemporary newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times headline "Gen. Grant's Gift Cigar Retains Wartime Power." The anecdote's details have been retold in works such as H. Allen Smith's 1953 book The Compleat Practical Joker, which claimed a 75-year delay dating to —contradicting Grant's relative obscurity at that time prior to his Civil War prominence. Fact-checking analyses highlight inconsistencies, including the improbability of the cigar's explosive mechanism surviving intact for over 70 years without degradation, and the absence of independent corroboration beyond the initial press accounts, suggesting it may have been exaggerated, staged for publicity, or apocryphal. No primary documents from Grant's era verify the gift's origin.

Ernest Hemingway Incident

Reportedly during the early 1920s amid European diplomatic gatherings, participated in a prank involving an exploding cigar while drinking with fellow journalists at the bar of the Palace Hotel in , . Encouraged by the group, Hemingway presented the novelty device to one of four bodyguards accompanying Turkish general İsmet İnönü, a key figure in post-World War I negotiations. Upon lighting, the cigar detonated with a loud bang and flash, causing the bodyguards to immediately draw their pistols and train them on Hemingway. The author escaped the confrontation without sustaining significant injury, highlighting the prank's potential for unintended escalation despite its non-lethal design intended for surprise and amusement rather than harm. This incident underscores early 20th-century uses of exploding cigars as jests among expatriate journalists and travelers, though accounts vary in detail and lack primary documentation from Hemingway's own writings or contemporaries.

Lethal Applications and Attempts

CIA Plot Against Fidel Castro

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) developed an exploding cigar prototype as one of several unconventional assassination devices targeted at Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who was known for smoking up to ten cigars daily. The device, engineered by the CIA's Technical Services Division in 1963, incorporated a small plastic explosive hidden within the tobacco that was intended to detonate upon being lit or inhaled, causing severe facial injury or death. This plot emerged amid heightened U.S. efforts to eliminate Castro following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, as part of —a covert campaign authorized by President John F. Kennedy and overseen by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to destabilize and overthrow the Castro regime. Implementation proved unfeasible due to technical challenges, including inconsistent detonation timing and difficulties in replicating the exact dimensions and appearance of Castro's preferred Cuban cigars for undetected delivery. No operational attempt was made, similar to other Mongoose-era schemes like poisoned wetsuits or botulinum-laced cigars, which also advanced to prototyping but similarly stalled. The exploding cigar concept reflected the CIA's reliance on gadgetry inspired by underworld contacts and internal innovation, though declassified records indicate limited Mafia involvement in this specific device compared to earlier poisoning plots. Public disclosure occurred during the 1975 U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (), which documented at least eight CIA-orchestrated assassination plots against Castro from 1960 to 1965, emphasizing the agency's overreach and ethical lapses without authorizing executive action for such operations. Subsequent declassifications, including the CIA's 2007 Family Jewels release, corroborated the gadget's development but highlighted its abandonment, underscoring the inefficacy of these exotic methods amid Castro's survival of an estimated 634 attempts claimed by Cuban intelligence—though U.S. probes verified far fewer as actively pursued. The plot's failure exemplified broader operational shortcomings, including poor tradecraft and intelligence gaps, rather than any protective countermeasures by Castro's security apparatus.

Cultural and Fictional Depictions

In Literature

In Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novella "Instead of Evidence," first published in The American Magazine in December 1947 and later collected in Trouble in Triplicate (1949), novelty manufacturer Eugene R. Poor is murdered by an exploding cigar produced by his own company, which specializes in prank devices such as these non-lethal items modified for lethal effect. The incident draws detective into the case amid wartime rationing constraints, highlighting the device's transition from commercial gag to instrument of homicide in a whodunit plot. Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow (1973) features an exploding cigar in a surreal sequence where it is placed in a humidor as a "revolutionary gesture," leading to a frantic warning—"Wait, Master, don't light it—it's an exploding cigar!"—before detonation, underscoring themes of paranoia, sabotage, and absurd violence in the novel's World War II backdrop. This depiction employs the device metaphorically and literally, aligning with Pynchon's postmodern style of blending historical espionage motifs with chaotic entropy. Metaphorical references to exploding cigars appear sporadically in literary prose, such as Lynda Barry's characterization of love as "an exploding cigar we willingly smoke" in her autobiographical works, evoking voluntary risk without literal deployment of the prank. These instances reflect the device's cultural permeation as a symbol of betrayal or folly, though direct plot integrations remain rare outside genre fiction.

In Film, Television, and Comics

In animated shorts, exploding cigars frequently serve as a slapstick gag, particularly in Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series from the mid-20th century. These depictions typically involve a character lighting what appears to be an ordinary cigar, only for it to detonate in a burst of smoke and fire, often blackening the victim's face in exaggerated cartoon fashion. A notable example occurs in the 1951 short Ballot Box Bunny, where Bugs Bunny distributes exploding cigars to sabotage Yosemite Sam's mayoral campaign, leading to Sam's explosive misfortune upon ignition. In comics, the device appears both as parody and villainous tool. The October 1963 issue (#82) of MAD Magazine featured a cover illustrated by Norman Mingo, showing Cuban leader Fidel Castro lighting an exploding cigar as a satirical nod to contemporaneous CIA assassination schemes, with the explosion timed to mimic his bearded profile. DC Comics' Batman franchise portrays exploding cigars as recurring gadgets wielded by the Joker, functioning as non-lethal pranks that produce comedic blasts or, in some instances, larger destructive effects to terrorize victims. Live-action film and television depictions are rarer, with the trope largely confined to animation and print media for its visual absurdity, though it influenced broader spy gadget humor in Cold War-era media without direct cinematic adaptations of lethal variants.

References

  1. http://santarosahistory.com/wordpress/2011/04/nothing-like-a-good-exploding-cigar/
  2. https://picryl.com/media/exploding-cigar-advert-popular-mechanics-1917-b0cd13
  3. https://oshawamuseum.wordpress.com/2013/08/02/from-exploding-cigars-to-whoopie-cushions-novelty-items/
  4. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn99021999/1886-02-04/ed-1/seq-6/
  5. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85066387/1910-09-19/ed-1/seq-12/
  6. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/20/nyregion/in-business-for-the-fun-of-it.html
  7. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1940/03/30/gagman
  8. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/delayed-grantification/
  9. https://www.browardpalmbeach.com/arts-culture/suck-on-that-cigar-6343623/
  10. http://forum.sealionpress.co.uk/index.php?threads/stupid-deaths-that-never-happened.3692/
  11. https://www.havanahouse.co.uk/cia-attempted-assassinate-fidel-castro-exploding-cigar-blog/
  12. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/26/fidel-castro-cia-cigar-assasination-attempts
  13. https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/fidel-castros-death/fidel-castro-cia-s-7-most-bizarre-assassination-attempts-n688951
  14. https://www.npr.org/2021/05/04/992951030/in-the-cias-1st-plot-against-the-castros-fidel-wasnt-the-target
  15. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-38121583
  16. https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/ir/pdf/ChurchIR_3B_Cuba.pdf
  17. https://www.amazon.com/Trouble-Triplicate-Nero-Wolfe-Stout/dp/B002GW29Q8
  18. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TroubleInTriplicate
  19. https://www.nerowolfedatabase.com/Stories/Details?id=65
  20. https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/43265907/thomas-pynchon-gravitys-rainbow
  21. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/47277-love-is-an-exploding-cigar-we-willingly-smoke
  22. https://tropedia.fandom.com/wiki/Explosive_Cigar
  23. https://www.jfk.org/collections-archive/mad-magazine-october-1963/
  24. https://batman.fandom.com/wiki/Exploding_cigar
  25. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExplosiveCigar
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