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New Coke turns 25 years old this month

Posted in 80s, Coca Cola, New Coke, pop culture, soda with tags Coca Cola, New Coke, pop culture, soda, sodapalooza on April 28, 2010 by Paxton

Coca-Cola officially released New Coke on April 23, 1985. Which makes it 25 years old this month. Hard to believe that whole reformulating Coke debacle was over two decades ago. I was eleven years old.

Go back and read about the history of that troubled beverage in my 3 part retrospective on New Coke called Misunderstood.

Let’s take a look at some “New Coke” commercials.

This commercial was originally for regular Coke, but was changed after the release of New Coke. It features the slogan Coke Is It! I’ve always liked that jingle.

Bill Cosby was one of the big celebrities who helped launch New Coke. Here he is introducing the reformulated Coke in 1985.

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Reviews of 5 brand new sodas in stores now

Posted in Mountain Dew, Pepsi, reviews, soda with tags Mountain Dew, Pepsi, reviews, soda, sodapalooza on April 27, 2010 by Paxton

There have been some new soda flavor releases recently. I’ve picked up a bunch of them and I’m going to review them for you right now.

Mt Dew is back doing the whole Dewmocracy voting thing. If you remember, back in 2008 Mountain Dew released three test market flavors nationwide (SuperNova, Voltage and Revolution) and had people vote on which one became the new permanent Mt Dew flavor. This resulted in Mt Dew Voltage winning a permanent spot on the nation’s shelves. Well, Mt Dew is doing this whole thing again with three new flavors for us to try and vote on. They were released to stores this April and they are Mt Dew Distortion, Mt Dew White Out and Mt Dew Typhoon. Let’s see if they are any good.

Mt Dew Distortion – This flavor is a lime-blasted Mt Dew. The taste is very similar to the Taco Bell exclusive Mt Dew Baja Blast. This Dew is a little bit more bitter on the aftertaste than Baja Blast, mainly because Baja Blast has pineapple in its flavor to tone that down. I like lime, I like Mt Dew, so I like this flavor. However, the coloring and label are too similar to the original Dew and it doesn’t stand out enough for me. A good flavor that may get lost in the shuffle.

Mt Dew White Out – Unlike Distortion, this flavor does stand out. The bright white and blue packaging and disconcertingly white liquid color make this stand out from the drink cooler in every way. How is the taste? Well, it’s labeled as a “smooth citrus” Dew and it doesn’t lie, it is definitely smooth tasting. A light, sweet Dew with very little aftertaste. I’m just wondering how this smooth citrus is different than the regular Dew citrus? Once again, confusion with the existing brand. I can see this getting votes on it’s mild taste and eye-catching design.

Mt Dew Typhoon – This is a tropical Punch infused Mountain Dew. I love the blue/red color combination and the bright red liquid color (but, that too is very similar to Mt Dew Code Red). The taste is very good. It has a nice fruit punch flavor that works well with the normal Mt Dew citrus. The taste actually reminds me of the limited edition Halo 3 Mt Dew Game Fuel from 2008. I would say that this is my favorite flavor so far, with White Out second and Distortion a close third. However, unless they make these in diet, I really won’t be drinking them. Which is a shame, because I like all three of these flavors. I actually think all of these flavors are much better than the Diet Mt Dew UltraViolet they released last fall. If they made any of these in diet I would regularly drink it.

So, how’s the voting going? If you go to Dewmocracy.com, you can see an up to date map by state of the results.
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Cola Wars: Awesome Vintage Coke commercials

Posted in 80s, Coca Cola, New Coke, pop culture, soda with tags Coca Cola, commercials, nostalgia, pop culture, soda, sodapalooza, TV on February 26, 2010 by Paxton

Yesterday I was reminiscing about the Coke/Pepsi “Cola Wars” back in the ’80s and ’90s. I took a look back at a bunch of Pepsi’s most famous commercials from that era. If you missed it, I urge you to check it out.

Now, let’s take a look at the other side of the coin, Coca-Cola. They have come up with some pretty famous commercials of their own. Let’s take a look back in time at some of Coke’s most famous TV ads.

Coke’s 1971 Teach the World to Sing commercial (video above) is undoubtedly their most famous advertisement. It is so famous that it received two official sequels. First, during the 1971 holiday season, Coke released a Christmas version of the commercial that ended in darkness with all the candles the people were holding in the shape of a Christmas tree. Then, in 2005, Coke inexplicably allowed singer/songwriter G Love to create a horrible douchebag hipster alternative rock version called Teach the World to Chill. Might have been a worse idea than New Coke.

If the “hilltop” commercial above isn’t Coke’s most famous, then this 1979 Mean Joe Greene commercial is. It’s still today a fantastic commercial. Of course, in 2009, Coke filmed a sequel to the Mean Joe Greene commercial with Troy Polamalu.

The 11:30 Diet Coke break from 1996 is another popular Coke commercial. I remember it airing what felt like every 5 minutes. And, wait, I’m shocked to say this, but, in 2007 Coke filmed a sequel to the 11:30 commercial. Talk about milking a concept dry. I wonder if any of Coke’s commercials haven’t had a sequel.

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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).