Mr. Jelly Belly looking for sweet comeback

COVINA, Calif. -- He's the Willie Wonka of this small suburban town east of Los Angeles, the rotund man in T-shirt and shorts who joyfully takes just about anybody who walks through the door on a tour of his tiny candy factory.

But David Klein was once much more.

Klein, who these days makes a comfortable living selling various chewy, crunchy concoctions with funny names like Candy Barf and Zombie Heart (the latter squirts strawberry-flavored "blood" when you bite into it), was once at the center of a sweet-tooth revolution.

He was Mr. Jelly Belly.

In 1976 Klein launched the gourmet jelly bean craze when he improbably envisioned that people would be willing to pay 10 or 20 times more for jelly beans if they simply tasted better, came in scores of natural flavors and had a clever name.

With only $800 in hand, he somehow talked a family-run candy company in the San Francisco Bay area into going into business with him. The result was the Jelly Belly, a flavorful little gob of sugar, syrup and cornstarch that quickly became the favored treat of millions, including President Ronald Reagan.

And Klein, a one-time nut distributor who had begun selling his creation in just one store, was the gourmet bean's mascot. Decked out in a Jelly Belly-bejeweled top hat and a matching white cowboy suit, he was everywhere in the late 1970s.

Then, for reasons Klein still has trouble coming to terms with, he and his partner sold their interest in the Jelly Belly name in 1980 for $4.8 million.

He collected his half of the money in monthly installments over 20 years, and he faded into obscurity.

cabinet meetings and carried into space by astronauts in the 1980s, Klein was trying in vain to come up with another big thing.

Now, with another holiday candy season upon us, Klein is back and hoping, at age 65, to regain the mojo that once made him the talk of the candy world.

His company is working to develop a new treat called Farts. (You read that right.) They are expected in stores by Christmas. -- AP