FOR Samuel Sorenson Adams, the road to success began with a sneeze. His fateful moment, in 1906, led to the creation of the S. S. Adams Company, which bills itself as the "world's largest manfacturer of practical jokes and magic tricks."

Today, under the leadership of the late Mr. Adams's son, Joseph (Bud) Adams, president, and grandsons Joe and Chris Adams, the company is an enterprise that last year posted sales of about $2 million.

"My father was a trap shooter, card player and salesman for a coal tar company," said Bud Adams, whose dry delivery belies the slapstick nature of his businesss. "By accident, in 1906, he discovered that a byproduct of the manufacturing process was a powder that made people sneeze. The powder was so powerful that you could fill a room with sneezing people by blowing it through a keyhole or a crack in a door. Being an opportunist, he put the powder in packages and sold it to friends for 10 cents. He named the product Cachoo.

"It sold by the thousands. His first factory was a card table and two chairs in his bedroom in Plainfield. As sales took off, he expanded to two card tables and four chairs."

Today, anyone who has been the victim of garlic-flavored gum or a squirting flower has probably been had by the legacy of Samuel Sorenson Adams. For most of this century his products, sold in novelty and candy stores and through mail-order catalogues, have found their way into the hands of pranksters, conventiongoers and amateur magicians everywhere.

That first sniffle of success might have made a less enterprising person content to rest on his laurels. But not Samuel Sorenson Adams. He pushed on and expanded his product line of pranks. Itching powder was next.

"Itching powder was derived from a weed grown in India, where it was found to drive horses and cows crazy," Bud Adams said.

Now there was no stopping his father's juggernaut of jokes. Eventually, even two card tables weren't enough, and in the early 1920's the business moved from Plainfield to larger quarters in Asbury Park. There, stink bombs were added to the growing stable of silliness.

"One stink bomb could empty a theater in a few minutes," Bud Adams said. "Of course none of these products can be sold today. The ingredient in sneezing powder now comes under F.D.A. regulations. Sometimes using too much itching powder would put people in the hospital."

In the late 1920's, Samuel Sorenson Adams brought a device to the mirth market that would forever alter the course of practical joking.

"My father had perfected the basic design of the joy buzzer," Bud Adams said, "but at one inch by four inches, it was too large to be concealed easily in the hand. In 1928 he traveled to Europe in an effort to find a way to make it smaller. He met a diemaker in Germany who was able to reduce the mechanism to just one-quarter of an inch thick."

At last, the world had a device small enough for a jokester to hide in his palm, enabling him to startle friends with a handshake that buzzed like a queen bee.

A few years later, Bud Adams joined his father's business. At about the same time, the company moved to its present location, a turn-of-the-century brick building in Neptune. "We survived the Depression because people wanted something inexpensive that would help them forget their troubles," Mr. Adams said.

The same need to forget one's troubles seems to hold true today. With prices of the most popular items ranging from 89 cents for a two-headed nickel to $3.98 joy buzzer, the company is

expecting 1991 to be a record year. Its products are marketed throughout the world.
 

Despite the countless gags that were added to the catalogue over the years, Bud Adams kept returning his attention to the joy buzzer. By his own admission, his life (or a good part of it, anyway) has been dedicated to the pursuit of perfecting the spring-wound device. Five years ago, nearly 60 years after his father traveled halfway around the world to commission that miniature prototype, he introduced his own crowning achievement: the Super Buzzer. A sturdy creation of cast zinc, it is designed to withstand years of jocularity.

The fact that each Super Buzzer, like many other Adams products, is stamped "Made in the United States, Neptune, N.J." is no small source of pride for Mr. Adams. Competing buzzers, usually imported from Taiwan or Japan, cost less than a Super Buzzer. What is the difference?

"Ours is the best," Mr. Adams said. "It works."

The buzzer-buying public seems to agree. Sales of the Super Buzzer topped 100,000 units last year.

"And every buzzer is laugh tested before it leaves the factory," said Mr. Adams's son Chris, vice president of sales and marketing. "Spell that l-a-f-f."

Vying with the Super Buzzer in popularity is Mystic Smoke, an invisible goo that, when applied to one's fingertips, allows puff after puff of smoke to be produced at will.

"I've seen people use it in a restaurant," Bud Adams said. "They reach in their wallet as if they were about to pay the check, and produce a puff of smoke instead. It's a riot."

> Not far behind in sales is the Bar Bug Ice Cube, a realistic-looking bug embedded in clear plastic. Another favorite is Snapping Gum. The description in the wholesale catalogue says that "a hidden spring will give a victim the sharp rap when he takes an innocent-appearing stick of gum." (The product snaps the victim's fingers, not his lips.)
 

In all, the company offers about 200 items. A look at the product line reveals that many a new item is simply a twist on an old favorite. For example, the current catalogue is full of things that squirt: cigars, cameras, cigarettes, cigarette lighters, gum, nickels, pens, rings and flowers. There's even a calculator that "delivers a jet of water in your face every time you press a key."

Recently, Chris Adams made the rounds of the factory, which looks as if it has not changed much since his grandfather's company moved in some 60 years ago. Black enameled cast-iron lathes, presses and other machines for manufacturing joy buzzers, double-headed nickels and other products are interspersed with shelving containing cartons with labels like Squirt Ring, Snake Nut Can and Hot Pepper Chewing Gum.

His first stop was a long wooden bench, where one of the 60 or so employees performs final assembly of two-headed nickels, a process requiring a surprising amount of precision machine work. "One good thing about this item," he said, "is since two actual nickels are used, our cost of materials will always be 10 cents." On to the 'Snake Room'

He decided to bypass a room he called "the smelly area," where Mystic Smoke is made ("the stuff in there smells awful"), and proceeded to the "snake room." Here, workers packed two four-foot snakes made of cloth-covered springs into cardboard cans that look to the casual observer (or potential victim) like a popular brand of potato chips.

Is there a disadvantage to being in this business? "Everyone thinks that I spend all day playing practical jokes," Chris Adams said. "I can't do anything without people becoming suspicious." Then, with the most innocent of looks, he proferred a can.

"Would you care for a potato chip?"