A look back at the awesome swag from the Kool-Aid Wacky Warehouse
Back in the ’80s and ’90s, mail away premiums were all the rage. Being a comic book reader, I saw ads for thousands of mail away products amid the pages of my favorite books like The Flash and X-Men. One of the more prominent mail away deals was for the Kool-Aid Wacky Warehouse. You would collect points off the labels of Kool-Aid packets and cans and submit them for free stuff (paying postage, of course). It’s much like the rewards programs for hotels and airlines today. The more you use or buy their services, the more points you get and the more stuff that translates into.
Seeing the ads in comic books, I was amazed at all the cool stuff. T-shirts, cassette players, hats, nerf basketball sets, etc. These awesome items were dancing across the page with giant words screaming FREE STUFF!!!! Here are two full page ads advertising the Wacky Warehouse (click images to make bigger).
The ad on the left is themed towards the Kool-Aid flavor, Sharkleberry Fin (Greatest. Kool-Aid. Name. EVER.). You can see the awesome shark mascot (with sunglasses!) for Sharkleberry Fin in the upper right. In the ad to the right, the items are themed more for the Purplesaurus Rex flavor. As you can see, there are tons of cool swag to be had just for drinking your favorite Kool-Aid flavors, clipping the points and sending them in with like 5 bucks in postage. Here’s the Wacky Warehouse order form that goes with the above ads.
Being a Kool-Aid enthusiast, I have come across a bunch of this swag so I thought it would be fun to take a look at some of this cool stuff the Wacky Warehouse was offering. Some of it is, in fact, cool. Some of it, not so much. Here are some of the fun items kids could send away for with Kool-Aid points.
Super Jump Rope – I’m not entirely sure what makes this jump rope so “super”. It actually looks like a pair of Kool-Aid themed nunchuks. The red handles would mask the blood stains of your Kool-Aid Death Match victims.
Wacky Kid’s Canteen – Very goofy looking canteen that kids could carry around with them on their “adventures”. I’m assuming “The Warehouse” wanted it to be filled with Kool-Aid. When did Kool-Aid Man start wearing glasses?
Pitcher and cup sets – Kool-Aid offered these items throughout the Wacky Warehouse promotion. Plastic cups and a pitcher with the Kool-Aid Man face on them. The set would be colored differently depending on what Kool-Aid flavor they would currently be promoting. This particular set is red for Rock-A-Dile Red. If you look in the Wacky Warehouse forms at the top of this article you can see pitcher and cup sets colored blue for Berry Blue and purple for Purplesaurus Rex.
Dancin’ Kool-Aid Man – Motorized, battery powered “dancing” Kool-Aid Man. Lots of fun at parties. Just flip his switch and he’ll “get his groove on” until the batteries wear down. It even played music. I believe you could also set it to “sound activated” so it danced to music you played. Pretty sophisticated piece of machinery. It probably cost 80 kagillion points, though.
Wacky Drink Packet Holder – A holder for your drink packets. Place 10 or 12 packets in here and sit them on your kitchen counter so they will always be handy because we all know it’s too much of a pain in the ass to OPEN THE PANTRY DOOR you lazy SOB.
Kool-Aid Kid dolls – At first, these look like Cabbage Patch Kids, which I guess they are a rip off of that idea, but the dolls themselves look more like the Campbell Kids dolls (ie, creepy as hell). I don’t believe these were exclusive to the Wacky Warehouse. I’m pretty sure you could also buy these in retail stores.
Wacky Warehouse Barbie – This little bit of corporate synergy happened for several years in the ’90s. Kool-Aid got Mattel to brand a limited edition Barbie with the Kool-Aid logo. Some of these were offered to Wacky Warehouse members, while an even smaller amount were offered at certain retail locations. Maybe even as a Mattel mail away.
Hot Wheels Wacky Warehouse Hiway Hauler – More corporate cross branding with Mattel. Hot Wheels offered several different types of vehicles with the Kool-Aid logo including Jeeps, Corvettes and race cars. The Hiway Hauler you see here was the one generally offered to the Wacky Warehouse public.
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Cavalcade of Awesome 
February 19, 2010 at 10:49 am
all of this stuff is awesome. I’m loving the dancing kool aid man thing.
October 17, 2012 at 11:26 pm
I stil have my dancing kool aid man….this one is missing the guitar, my still has his!
April 6, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Although my mom wouldn’t let me have Kool-Aid, I obsessively collected Kool-Aid points. I got them from school, the dumpster at my friends’ apartments, and, when I my patience got the best of me, I tore some from the paper label of a giant can at the store, which precipitated an early karmic lesson: though my first, ‘honest’ order (a Kool-Aid digital watch with digital arms and a digital Kool-Aid man) arrived in a reasonable time for an 80s premium send-away (24-36 weeks), the ‘big one’ never came. Somehow, I cannot remember what it was.
Nice site!
Neeul
June 8, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Pity they don’t do the Wacky Warehouse any more, especially with how much Kool-Aid I’m drinking lately (my wife prefers that to the amount of soda I’d tend to drink, but I’m doing it through those serving-size pouches). The Kool-Aid pitcher always seemed like a rather neat, iconic item to have.
November 27, 2011 at 5:53 pm
are you still interested in owning a Kool-Aid pitcher and cups set? if so, i have such a set in excellent condtion. i’d like to bless you with it! contact me at cacrc529@yahoo.com
June 24, 2010 at 5:55 pm
Dude, that was IT! I ordered the pitcher set. Really. I was 12 years old and I wanted a set of plastic cups with matching pitcher -I kid you not- for the kitch excellence. Never came. Sumner Redstone never sent me the orange Nickelodeon painter’s hat I wanted either. I forgot to forward that gripe via Tabatha Sornberger 9 years later when I took her to task at my school over that Soros-esque Murray Rothstein “rock the vote” scam.
June 25, 2010 at 12:26 am
“Rock the Vote” scam?
June 25, 2010 at 3:00 am
Yeah- a’la first we manipulate the kiddies through the glass toilet living-room view screen by disguising the tribal interests of the establishment’s high pharaohs (media barons) as ‘anti-establishment’ interests (clearly indicated as such on the same absurd ‘left-right’ one-dimensional meter they project) and then we send a bus around registering them to vote. Might as well hasten the decay process, you know what I mean? They can never have too many bases covered. And they couldn’t even send me the freaikin’ hat. Every time Nick would ‘take over (some kid’s) school’ they’d show a million brats wearing em. As if they couldn’t spare one extra!
June 25, 2010 at 8:20 am
Wait…what?
October 18, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Cool Site, I was looking, I actually have the Kool Aid Doll are any of these worth anything? I understand that they only made about 100 of each of these items. is that true?
thanks,
January 26, 2011 at 8:21 pm
i love the site and the memories. i do have a question for you if you have the info. do you know when they took the points off the kool-aid package? i just realized tonight for the first time they are gone. maybe i’ve been asleep for awhile or something, but i just dont remember when they did it.
June 5, 2011 at 8:01 pm
You have brought up a very great details , thanks for the post.
September 1, 2011 at 9:56 am
AHHH! Fond memories, My Mother just found my Kool-Aid Wacky Warehouse Membership card! It’s in Mint Condition! Can you beleive that?????? Oh for the Record I’ve been a member since 1988!!!! Suckers!!!
January 25, 2012 at 6:52 pm
i have a set of the kool-aid walkie talkies with the box and everything. funny part is the box has a different brand name on it. but picture shows the kool aid walkie talkies on it
March 26, 2012 at 2:15 pm
OMG I have a storage bag full of the points I was saving to buy things from the wacky ware house but now I have now idea what to do with them all
November 10, 2020 at 7:43 am
I have a jar full of kool-aid points I’ve beeñ saving for my grand-son since 1990.I don’t know what to do with them either
March 26, 2012 at 2:17 pm
yes I was a member in the 80’s as well. It was good time I guess. I had the wacky counting card to the pitcher. I had all that stuff
February 26, 2013 at 12:09 pm
Let’s bring back the Wacky Warehouse! Sign this petition:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/wackywackywarehouse/
October 4, 2013 at 8:21 pm
I have a kool aid super jump rope still in the package and also a deluxe collection, it includes a rler, mini crayons, markers, erasers and a mini note pad, anyone have an idea as to the worth of these
October 17, 2013 at 7:21 pm
とき冬の天候が到着すると、選択要件あります実現ファッション間と高級ですか？特ににかかって履物。1つの特定ステッチおよびアクセントを縫い合わせと長距離51/4インチのブートに運河。アグ クラシックミニ
October 1, 2014 at 9:41 am
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March 9, 2022 at 3:25 pm
I could swear that the neighbor kids helped us collect points and we got a cardboard ‘playhouse’ in the mail. I think it was about 3 or 4 feet tall once we put it together. Can anyone confirm this prize existed?
June 25, 2023 at 7:22 pm
I saved Kool aid points for years I had saved up 2, 000 points when I missed placed them I recently found them is there any chance of redeeming them