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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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I’m OK, you’re OK: The story of OK Soda

Posted in Coca Cola, nostalgia, OK Soda, pop culture, soda with tags Coca Cola, nostalgia, OK soda, pop culture, soda, sodapalooza on April 21, 2009 by Paxton

OK Soda logo I’ve been surprised at how popular my history of New Coke articles have been since I wrote them almost three years ago (Oct 2006). I constantly have people linking and reading the three part saga. It was fun to write and it was one of my favorite articles on this blog. So, I thought to myself, why not do a “sequel” to the New Coke articles? I mean, my energy drink reviews started off as a one-shot article and they became popular enough that I did four of them (and I’m considering doing another). I mean, soda has been one of the tenets this blog was built on. I talk about new soda flavors, graphics and packaging, as well as wax nostalgic on sodas that are no longer available. So what soda am I going to pull from the mists of the past? I’m going to mine the Coke back catalog one more time to discuss OK Soda.

In the early ’90s, Coke was still smarting from the marketing stink bomb that was New Coke. Coke regained its older demographic with the switch to Coca-Cola Classic, but the younger teen generation was still scoffing at the stodgy, elder soda company. Greatly needing to boost their share of the highly coveted Gen-X demographic, Coca-Cola decided to try something new.

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Pepsi modifies its Globe logo and soda packaging

Posted in advertising, Coca Cola, Pepsi, pop culture, soda with tags advertising, Mountain Dew, Pepsi, soda, sodapalooza on November 12, 2008 by Paxton

I was surfing around some of my favorite soda websites several months ago and I saw that Pepsi was planning a “change up” with its logo and labels. Soda companies usually do this every few years to “freshen up” their image. It’s fairly common and many times you hardly notice the change until years later when you compare the designs side-by-side. This obviously interested me so I waited for graphical proof that this was going to happen. The pictures finally showed up several weeks ago but I’ve been busy with AWESOME-tober-fest so now I can finally bring you the goods on Pepsi’s new image.

Now, the picture to the left of “The Hoff” dry humping the top of a Pepsi bottle is NOT a part of the new branding. Hasselhoff as the new face of Pepsi would be like the Fisher Space Pen, strawberry flavored Cheetos or Jessica Biel’s body; awesome beyond human comprehension. Words couldn’t begin to describe the jaw dropping bad ass that would be unleashed on the unsuspecting soda drinking public. However, it’s only happening in Europe because, for some reason, America doesn’t embrace Mr. Knight anymore like they do abroad. But I think he’s making a mini-comeback with America’s Got Talent and recent roles in movies like Click, Anaconda III and the new Knight Rider tv show.

But, enough about DH. I could ramble on about “His Hoffness” for four or five blog articles and not begin to scratch the surface of his gleaming kick-assitude (yes, I said kick-assitude. WHAT. UP.). Instead let’s get back to talking about Pepsi’s new logo design. The current logo is the red and blue globe seen below.