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Archive for the soda Category

Cola Wars: Awesome Vintage Pepsi commercials

Posted in 80s, advertising, commercials, Michael Jackson, Pepsi, pop culture, soda, TV with tags advertising, commercials, Michael Jackson, nostalgia, Pepsi, pop culture, soda, sodapalooza, TV on February 25, 2010 by Paxton

Pepsi and The Hoff

Shawn Robare over at Branded in the ’80s is reviewing his trip to the World of Coke in Atlanta and it got me thinking about the Cola Wars of the ’80s. More specifically, soda commercials I loved during the Cola Wars.

I love the battle between Coke and Pepsi during the end of the last century. So much awesome merchandising and memorabilia come out of that time period it’s mind boggling. Both Coke and Pepsi unleashed on our consciousness oodles of celebrities, pop songs, commercials and advertising that sculpted our current pop culture consciousness and is still remembered today.

Let’s take a look back at some of Pepsi’s best soda commercials.

Just this past weekend I watched Michael Jackson’s This Is It on Blu-Ray and loved it. The man new how to perform and he had SO MANY good songs. In the ’80s Michael was a pretty big spokesman for Pepsi and made several commercials (one in which he famously caught on fire). For me, one of the best, if not THE best, Pepsi commercial ever made was Jackson Street (clip above), which premiered on the 1983 Motown 25 TV Special. I still get goosebumps when I watch it. This commercial featured an unbelievably catchy jingle-version of Billie Jean. It also starred a young Alfonso Ribeiro (Carlton on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). See another Pepsi commercial MJ made called The Chase.

Ray Charles’ “Uh-Huh” commercials were all over the place in the early ’90s. They had 6 or 7 versions of them including Ray in a courtroom and playing his twin brother, Irv. My favorite version came in 1993 which showed other celebrities (Charo, Tiny Tim, Bo Jackson, Jerry Lewis) auditioning for Ray’s singing part.

Around the time Michael Jackson was a Pepsi spokesman, another Michael (J. Fox) was also signed on. Fox starred in several commercials, mainly for Diet Pepsi, that are considered classics. The commercial above is one of his first featuring him in the library trying to be quiet while buying a Pepsi from a vending machine. See another Pepsi classic called My New Neighbor here in which Fox tries desperately to find his hot, new neighbor a Diet Pepsi.

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Mt Dew begins voting again for three new flavors

Posted in Mountain Dew, Pepsi, soda with tags Mountain Dew, Pepsi, soda, sodapalooza on February 8, 2010 by Paxton

Back in 2008, Mountain Dew held a promotion called Dewmocracy. People would visit the Dewmocracy website, play games, choose different flavors to be mixed into Mt Dew, and the hordes would then vote on the best sounding Mt Dew mix. After the top three flavor combinations were tallied, logo and packaging designs were developed. Then, all three sodas were revealed to the public in April 2008. People bought the three sodas, tasted them, then went back to the Dewmocracy website to vote on their favorite.

The three flavors everyone was voting on were Mt Dew Supernova (Strawberry-Melon), Mt Dew Revolution (Wild Berry) and Mt Dew Voltage (Raspberry-Citrus).

Then, the winner of the contest was revealed in August 2008 to be Mt Dew Voltage. Not my favorite of the three, but it wasn’t my least favorite.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2009: Supermarket Halloween Goodies from years ago

Posted in Halloween, holiday, Pepsi, retail, soda, Supermarket with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2009, Halloween, holiday, Pepsi, retail, soda, sodapalooza, Supermarket on October 2, 2009 by Paxton

**Start shameless self-promotion** Recently, a humor/nostalgia site called Monkey Goggles has asked me to write some articles for them. Unlike on Cracked.com, I got my first article posted on Thursday. It’s a repost of my Glorious Glass article about ’70s and ’80s collectors glasses. If you don’t mind, click on over to my article on Monkey Goggles and take a look if you haven’t already (or even if you have). Get some friends and family to click on over and check it out, too. Let’s let MG know they need to feature more Pax articles. **End shameless self-promotion**

Okay, back to business…

As you can tell, this week has been the “Supermarket Goodies” week of AWESOME-tober-fest. I’m continuing this theme today but I’m firing up the Flux Capacitor and taking us back in time. Let’s have a look at a few products from Halloweens past. It seemed like items back then were just more FUN. Starting with…

Ghoul-Aid — Kool-Aid’s entry into the Halloween product parade back in the late ’90s. There was also a Scary Black Cherry flavor, but this Scary Blackberry was a brand new flavor not seen before or since. It has reached almost mythical status amongst the Kool-Aid enthusiast crowd. How awesome is it that Kool-Aid man is dressed as a bat-winged “ghoul”. I would say he’s a vampire but I don’t see any fangs. Maybe he’s a Twilight “vampire” (notice the quotes, yes that was on purpose).

Halloween Rice Krispies — Snap, Crackle and Pop dress it up for All Hallow’s Eve (click the image to make it BIGGER). Love the graphics on this box. The three elves flying in on a witch’s broom. So cool. It’s funny, this is a box of the cereal, yet they are showing pictures of the Rice Krispies bars all over the front and back. Hope you weren’t expecting that you were buying the bars instead of the cereal.

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Pepsi Patio: The little known origin of Diet Pepsi

Posted in Mountain Dew, Pepsi, pop culture, soda, TV shows with tags Mountain Dew, Pepsi, pop culture, soda, sodapalooza on September 1, 2009 by Paxton

I was watching the season 3 premier of Mad Men a few weeks ago and one of Sterling-Cooper’s big new clients is Pepsi Cola and a “new” soft drink called Patio (I put new in quotes because the show takes place in 1962-1963). I thought the Mad Men writers were making this soda up because I’d never heard of it before. Naturally, being the soda enthusiast (ie, “dork”) that I am, I had to look it up. Lo and behold, Patio actually existed and was, in fact, released by Pepsi Cola as their first diet soda offering.

(via USASoda.com)

Pepsi released Patio in 1963 as a response to Diet Rite cola, which was the very first “diet cola” on the market. In the ’60s, housewives were becoming more and more health and diet conscious so these diet sodas were becoming more and more popular. Patio was Pepsi’s entry into this growth market.

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The new Coke Freestyle soda fountain + other bad ass Coke machines

Posted in Coca Cola, hackers, internet, soda, technology with tags Coca Cola, hackers, internet, soda, sodapalooza, technology, vending machines on July 23, 2009 by Paxton

Coca-Cola has started test marketing a new soda fountain called the Coca-Cola Freestyle.

It is run by computer and controlled through an LCD touchscreen. The soda dispenser has the ability to mix up over 100 different types of sodas, waters, teas and energy drinks. The menu even includes items not currently sold in the US like Grape Vault (yes, please!) and Raspberry Coke. As of right now the Freestyle is only being test marketed in Atlanta and Southern California (list of locations here) but further test markets will be opened up in the Spring of 2010. Don’t worry, that sound you hear behind you is a chorus of angels in the background singing “Ha-lle-lu-yah!” Now, whenever I approach the soda fountain at Subway, I’ll immediately have brain shutdown due to the ridiculous amount of soda choices at my finger tips.

There have been rumors about this very thing for years. Coke and Pepsi have so many flavor variations around the world and the US really only sees a SMALL portion. Grape Vault? Are you kidding me? I really want to try that. I’ve heard of Raspberry Coke in New Zealand, but it doesn’t sound THAT appetizing. How about the discontinued Coke with Lemon? It’s all up for grabs with this new machine. However, don’t expect things like New Coke and Surge to be available, because this isn’t a time machine, it’s a soda machine.

Check out a video demonstration of this glorious machine here.

Now that the technology is here to let the dispensing machines do all the work for us, how long is it before we get into a SkyNet situation? I mean, are we just a lightning strike away from one of these machines going Johnny Number 5 on us? Will this be fun Johnny Number 5, or laser weapon fry your ass like a Roman Candle Number 5? How long before we see this:

Run tiny, Japanese children!! Run like the wind from the giant Coke branded inhuman monstrosity!!!! Save yourself!!! It feeds on CHILDREN!!! CHILDREN!!!!

Speaking of bad ass Coke dispensing Terminator machines, people have been hacking vending machines for years to make them better. One of the more popular things to do to a Coke machine is to connect it to the internet. Connecting your Coke machine to the internet allows you to check inventory levels and dispense sodas remotely from your computer. While this is quite awesome, it also calls onto the carpet not only your laziness, but the fact that you can’t even wait 30 seconds to put money in the machine and make a soda selection. No surprisingly, this trend was started by Computer Science students.

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