Freddo Frogs are a small cartoon-like chocolate frog that Australian children have grown up with since the 1930's. The bright blue wrapper and smiling green Frog with his golden jumper with FREDDO emblazoned across the front has been waved as a bribe, treat or prize to many over the years. Within this wrapper is a bas relief of a cartoon frog made of Cadbury chocolate.
The identity of the creator of Freddo Frog is unclear. It is not disputed that the inventor was an employee of MacRobertson's (bought out by Cadbury in the 1960's). Even Cadbury's have conflicting stories of the inventor. The thought by the Australian company was to introduce a penny chocolate mouse into their range at the time and asked on of the choclate makers to come up with a design.
It was either Lesley Atkinson, creator of Cherry Ripe or Harry Melbourne. The stories about both creators say that it was thought a mouse would scare women and children and therefore not sell. Since then the Freddo Frog
has become a mainstay in the children's chocolate market in Australia.
The most widely available size is 12 grams or two bites or one if you want to cram it in.
12 gram size comes in solid dairy milk and white chocolate. There are also the filled varieties which change with semi-regularity, Strawberry, Honey Crisp, Peppermint, Blueberry, Pine-Lime, Rainbow Chip and Lemonade. Most of the fillings
are sugary goop that can be extremely
sweet and do not really represent the flavours.
There is also the solid Giant Freddo weighing in at 40 grams.
Freddo was also the star of a cartoon series that ran as a five minute episodes
as part of the The Tarax Show.
There were over fifty episodes shown on this children's show it debuted in 1962 and ran for about a year. One interesting piece of trivia is that for the first four episodes Freddo had teeth until it was pointed out that frogs did not have them.
Freddos can be purchased all over Australia and New Zealand and in specialist shops in other parts of the world. I have found them in the UK but generally only the 12gr solid ones. They also can be found on the web in packs or singles.
http://www.theage.com.au/cgi-bin/common/printArticle.pl?path=/articles/2002/06/13/1023864315208.html
http://www.cadbury.com.au/products/index.php?product_id=4&pack_id=4
http://www.freddofrog.com/ | 
