Tag: Kool-Aid

Hey, Kool-Aid!

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Two thirsty kids call for Kool-Aid, and suddenly a giant smiling pitcher comes charging through the park barrier to save the day. This mid-1970s commercial used the wonderfully ridiculous formula that made Kool-Aid Man one of advertising’s most unforgettable characters.

Kool-Aid’s story began in 1927 when Edwin Perkins turned his bottled drink concentrate, Fruit Smack, into an easier-to-ship powder called Kool-Ade. The spelling was later changed to Kool-Aid.

The smiling pitcher mascot was created in 1954 by advertising art director Marvin Potts, who was reportedly inspired by his son drawing faces on a frosted window. In 1974, Grey Advertising’s Alan Kupchick and Harold Karp gave the pitcher arms, legs and a larger-than-life personality, creating the Kool-Aid Man seen crashing through walls, fences and nearly anything else in his way. The exact person who first suggested the crash-through entrance is not firmly documented, but the famous campaign came from Grey Advertising.

The exact songwriter for this particular commercial is not clearly credited. However, commercial jingle writer and producer Richard Berg provided Kool-Aid Man’s original voice, including that unforgettable “Oh, yeah!”

Did you ever shout “Hey, Kool-Aid!” and secretly hope he would come crashing through your fence?

Fizzies-What Was Your Favorite Flavor?

Fizzies came in seven flavors- orange, cherry, grape, lemon-lime, strawberry, and root beer. Each package contained eight tablets for just eighteen cents. The tablets were made by the Emerson Drug Company, the same company that made Bromo-Seltzer in 1957. In 1962 Warner-Lambert bought the company and made Fizzies available internationally.

You simply dropped a tablet into water and watched the water come to life with bubbles as it turned the water to the color of the flavor. My memory was that it gave a diluted flavor to the water. Adding additional tablets did little more to add flavor. Was my memory the same as yours?

By 1968 Fizzies had double the sales of Kool-Aid. Fizzies were sweetened by either cyclamates or saccharin which were both banned by the Food and Drug Administration. They reissued the tablets with instructions to add sugar, but by then the attraction to Fizzies fizzled out.

Fizzies made a come back in the 1990’s sweetened with NutriSweet but it was short lived when the company went out of business. There was also another short-lived attempt to revive the product in the early 2000’s but only lasted until 2016. Probably the closest on the market today would be the orange flavored Airborne Immune Support Supplement.

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