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The History of Soda Pop is So Weird, Part Two: Nostalgia is a Heck of a Drug · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: tuning in, Papa Top, grab a sip. Shout out to
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  Speaker 1: our super producer, Uh mister Max the surge, Williams.
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  Speaker 2: Indeed, Max, the way you do A good one later
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  Speaker 2: the now, I can't remember. Let's let it happen organically.
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  Speaker 2: It was so good you'd been I had a couple
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  Speaker 2: of good ones. Thanks man. Yeah, this is so Noel.
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  Speaker 1: This is part two of our exploration soda and I
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  Speaker 1: think we both knew going into it we'd have some nostalgia,
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  Speaker 1: But this is like, this is the fun part, right,
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  Speaker 1: or almost the fun part. Are we going to do
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  Speaker 1: health concerns?
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  Speaker 2: Do we have to? Who knows results? To be fair,
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  Speaker 2: it might have been on the tail end of the
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  Speaker 2: previous episode, but you'll definitely hear some callbacks to all
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  Speaker 2: of the things that we've talked about here. So let's
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  Speaker 2: jump right into part two of the Ridiculous History of
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  Speaker 2: Soda pop.
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  Speaker 1: As early as the nineteen forties, people were starting to
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  Speaker 1: get concerned. The AMA American Medical Association released a public
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  Speaker 1: statement in forty two, and they said look, guys, we
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  Speaker 1: get it. We're the cool doctors. We like soda too,
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  Speaker 1: But let's pump the brakes a little bit. You know,
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  Speaker 1: you've got to watch out for all the sugar getting
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  Speaker 1: added to various foods and beverages, and you gotta be
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  Speaker 1: careful of soft drinks because they're giving you more sugar
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  Speaker 1: than you might assume.
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  Speaker 2: Well, and much like you know, the cigarette industry, it
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  Speaker 2: takes a long time for these types of health concerns
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  Speaker 2: to really take hold, you know, bla blah uh, hey
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  Speaker 2: there you go. But like now, I think we are
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  Speaker 2: living in a you know, an age where seltzer and
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  Speaker 2: diet sodas are maybe more popular than full sugar soda.
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  Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean that the full sugar sodas are
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  Speaker 2: off the shelves. And I'm just conjecturing here. I haven't
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  Speaker 2: seen any numbers, but I would bet my bottom dollar
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  Speaker 2: that that fully sugared sodas are not selling quite as well.
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  Speaker 2: And that's just indicated by how much these soda companies
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  Speaker 2: have had to diversify, you know, and lean really heavily
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  Speaker 2: into Like for example, I think Coke bought Topuchico, which
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  Speaker 2: was a you know, a it's a wonderful highly carbonated
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  Speaker 2: mineral water, you know, out of out of Mexico. And
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  Speaker 2: they did it quietly without letting anybody know. And now
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  Speaker 2: you'll see Topuchico at your regular grocery store or convenience spot. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: You if you live in Atlanta, you might know the
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  Speaker 2: guy who.
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  Speaker 1: Distributes all of it. It's Luis, Yeah, with Louise.
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  Speaker 2: Well, they do such a I mean not not not
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  Speaker 2: to get off top of too much, but like brilliant
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  Speaker 2: marketing stuff that Topo Chico is doing. They have a
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  Speaker 2: lot of these like you know, you know, kind of
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  Speaker 2: art markets and thrift type places where Topo Chico has,
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  Speaker 2: free of charge installed a branded Topo Chico refrigerator in
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  Speaker 2: these places and just you can just take one for free. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: and it certainly makes you feel a sense of good
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  Speaker 2: will towards the brand, and you're much more likely to
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  Speaker 2: pay for one when you see them. And they are
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  Speaker 2: a little pricier, but there it's a great quality product,
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  Speaker 2: highly carbonated. I think it's the best mineral water out there.
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  Speaker 1: If you catch and if you catch our Pao Luise
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  Speaker 1: on a good day, he'll just give you some exactly.
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  Speaker 1: The guy rolls strapped with Topo Chico. It's amazing buttped
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  Speaker 1: and Topo Chico. By the way, carbonated water in general
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  Speaker 1: is going to tend to be healthier than SODA's. I
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  Speaker 1: would say also full sugar sodas probably experience a bit
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  Speaker 1: of a decline just because there's a feedback loop, right,
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  Speaker 1: they want to diversify. In Diversification means that they're now
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  Speaker 1: more alternative choices in the market. So you people are venturous, right,
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  Speaker 1: You like what you're familiar with, but you also want
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  Speaker 1: to try something new every so often. Well, we should
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  Speaker 1: say that the industry did respond to your point, Noel.
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  Speaker 1: Ten years after the AMA makes their statement, we see
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  Speaker 1: the rise of the first low calorie, no calorie beverage,
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  Speaker 1: a diet soft drink, a ginger ale called no col beverage.
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  Speaker 1: They put beverage in the name, which is a weird flex.
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  Speaker 2: It's sort of like an ATM machine there. It is
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  Speaker 2: yeah or ven number. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: It's maybe a company out of New York called KERSH.
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  Speaker 1: And they pave the way for all the diet sodas
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  Speaker 1: to come because the concerns are real. How many grams
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  Speaker 1: of soda or how many grams is sugar? Do we say,
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  Speaker 1: like forty grams, that's right.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.
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  Speaker 1: The recommended consumption of grams of added sugar is between
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  Speaker 1: twenty five and thirty eight grams per day, depending on
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  Speaker 1: your body. And of course, there are multiple studies that
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  Speaker 1: confirm different health risks that can be associated with overconsumption
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  Speaker 1: of soda, Type two diabetes, cardiovascular disease, These diet soft drinks,
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  Speaker 1: they're also not a panacea. They're not perfect. If you
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  Speaker 1: consume two or more diet soft drinks, according to experts,
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  Speaker 1: you can increase you can still increase your risk of
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  Speaker 1: heart disease and stroke. But let's go on to one
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  Speaker 1: other interesting thing here. This is the thing that maybe
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  Speaker 1: originally pitch this idea back when we're doing pitch Betts.
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  Speaker 1: Who is kersh What happened to that soda company? It
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  Speaker 1: turns out history is absolutely littered with discontinued soda brands
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  Speaker 1: and companies that either went bust or never reach the
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  Speaker 1: global dominance of pepsi and coke. There are seriously tons
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  Speaker 1: of these, so.
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  Speaker 2: Many, in fact, we decided to make this on a
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  Speaker 2: relatively preemptive two parttern.
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  Speaker 1: We'll give you the background before we get to our
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  Speaker 1: auditable mentions our Hall of Fame or hall of shame.
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  Speaker 1: We have to explain why the soda market came to
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  Speaker 1: be increasingly dominated by a small number of companies to Leviathans,
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  Speaker 1: in particular Pepsi and Coke. It's because of the nineteen sixties.
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  Speaker 1: The nineteen sixties were the halcyon glory days of the
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  Speaker 1: soda market. There were so many different choices, and Coke
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  Speaker 1: and Pepsi were a little different from other companies because
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  Speaker 1: they weren't just selling their regional soda or their invention.
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  Speaker 1: They were aggressively buying up other brands, a process that
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  Speaker 1: continues today. And they knew growth in television viewing was
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  Speaker 1: huge in the sixties, so they also threw a bunch
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  Speaker 1: of money into marketing campaign. Smaller companies tried to pull
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  Speaker 1: their own marketing stunts, but they just didn't have the
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  Speaker 1: cash to compete, and then another feedback loop gets created.
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  Speaker 1: That's why coc is so popular today.
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  Speaker 2: But Coke they literally invented Santa Claus for all intents
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  Speaker 2: and purposes, you know, I mean some of the marketing
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  Speaker 2: you know. Again, it's the same deal we talked about
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  Speaker 2: with kind of being first to market as an inventor
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  Speaker 2: of something and still you know, staying the test of time.
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  Speaker 2: Coke was so iconic and powerful that marketing things that
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  Speaker 2: they created to sell a bubbly sweet drink have become
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  Speaker 2: absolutely inseparable from just the idea of Americana, you know,
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  Speaker 2: and just the culture of the United States.
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  Speaker 1: They helped increase the population of polar bears, all due
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  Speaker 1: to those Christmas ads, Like people got involved in biodiversity
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  Speaker 1: and saving polar bears.
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  Speaker 2: So weird.
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  Speaker 1: It's also this is also kind of our whole of
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  Speaker 1: nostalgia part of the series. We've got to talk about
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  Speaker 1: the sodas of yesteryear. We were texting each other about
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  Speaker 1: this for a while now. One that I think all
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  Speaker 1: of us brought up at some point is Josta. Know
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  Speaker 1: how would you how would you depict a Josta Josta
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  Speaker 1: with Guarana?
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  Speaker 2: It literally was in the name. Yeah, this was one
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  Speaker 2: of the we were talking about Bernie Sanders whole perspective
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  Speaker 2: on like marketing this poison to kids. They literally did
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  Speaker 2: do that. You know. I distinctly remember we're about the
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  Speaker 2: same age, Ben, When all of a sudden there were
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  Speaker 2: the soda machines in my high school and they sold
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  Speaker 2: Josta was one of the popular ones, and also another
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  Speaker 2: one called Surge, which we're going to get to. But
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  Speaker 2: Josta had this kind of like South American vibe. There
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  Speaker 2: was like a panther I think, sort of like a
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  Speaker 2: stylized panther on the label, and I couldn't tell you
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  Speaker 2: what it tasted like, kind of Doctor Pepper adjacent. But
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  Speaker 2: this guarana was like ginsing or something. It was meant
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  Speaker 2: to be sort of a natural like booster, you know, yeah, stimulants. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: It was described as a high energy citrus soda. It's
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  Speaker 1: around from ninety five to ninety nine, so not that
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  Speaker 1: long in its first incarnation.
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  Speaker 2: Because it was controversial, especially because of what we're talking
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  Speaker 2: about with the marketing directly to the youth.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this uh Josta was to a lot of
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  Speaker 1: the soda pop heads kind of ahead of its time
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  Speaker 1: because add higher caffeine content, which will later see in
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  Speaker 1: things like Jolter Surge or East Tennessee's infamous Doctor Enough.
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  Speaker 2: But it also had really doctor enough.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, doctor Enough is asked our pal Dylan Fagan about.
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  Speaker 2: It, dude, But it's the East Tennessee thing. The warning
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  Speaker 2: is there in the name itself.
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  Speaker 1: You know it's it's also spelled in a hurry, it's
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  Speaker 1: spelled e n uf.
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  Speaker 2: But I never heard of this. I'm goant to look
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  Speaker 2: it up. That's it. It's weird.
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  Speaker 1: I think probably got some at my dad's house, so
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  Speaker 1: I'll bring some if I can find it. But the
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  Speaker 1: Josta has a higher octane in the gas caffeine wise,
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  Speaker 1: and it also was focused less on sweetness and more
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  Speaker 1: on just a strong fruit flavor. This was a product
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  Speaker 1: to Pepsi, and to this day people aren't exactly sure
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  Speaker 1: why they discontinued it. I imagine it just wasn't sewing
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  Speaker 1: that well, right.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and also again kind of I believe the controversy
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  Speaker 2: around marketing to kids probably left a bad taste in
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  Speaker 2: some people's mouths literally and figuratively because it wasn't very good.
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  Speaker 2: It had a bit of a bitter weirdness to it.
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  Speaker 2: And this is also right around the era of the
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  Speaker 2: era of fruitopia. Remember that. Oh yeah, it was like
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  Speaker 2: it was a soda, but it was it was It
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  Speaker 2: was not carbonated, but it just was like fake fruit
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  Speaker 2: juice that was just pure sugar. And that was another
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  Speaker 2: popular drink that they sold in schools.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a fruit toopia. And then I talked about this,
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  Speaker 1: I think pinged in one of our group chats. But
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  Speaker 1: with Serge, I had that same high school association or
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  Speaker 1: middle school like remember. But the thing that Surge did
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  Speaker 1: that was kind of sketchy was they sent everybody in
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  Speaker 1: our school like a gift pack from Surge. And it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't the soda, but it was like a T shirt
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  Speaker 1: and a mixtape CD of all these not quite a
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  Speaker 1: list bands of the nineties, and I thought it was
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  Speaker 1: really neat. I definitely bought Surge at school as a result,
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  Speaker 1: but with the benefit of retrospect, that seems kind of
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  Speaker 1: crooked because I was, like, everybody in our school, how
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  Speaker 1: did they get all those addresses? Who was working with whom?
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  Speaker 2: I honestly think it's a lot like pharmaceutical reps, you know, like, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: you had these soda reps that were coming to the
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  Speaker 2: school and making these deals. How else do you think
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  Speaker 2: the machines got? You know, it was a total deal.
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  Speaker 2: You know, obviously there was something in it for the schools.
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  Speaker 3: I mean to further on this point, and you know,
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  Speaker 3: a couple of years younger than y'all, that only got
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  Speaker 3: worse I remember my senior year of high school. I'm
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  Speaker 3: like looking at him, like, man, there's way more vending
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  Speaker 3: machines in this cafeteria than there were when I was
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  Speaker 3: a freshman. It's continued getting it's probably so much worse now.
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  Speaker 1: Well, there's social pressure to use the vending machines too,
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  Speaker 1: because it makes you cool. Right, It's like, I'm gonna
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  Speaker 1: have I'm gonna have a Pepsi.
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  Speaker 2: Crystal I'm kidding. I don't know if they ever sold
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  Speaker 2: that stuff, but that was, you know, I released. I
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  Speaker 2: guess it was Pepsi, Crystal Pepsi and clear coke, probably
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  Speaker 2: when I was in fifth grade, maybe even fourth grade.
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  Speaker 2: I do distinctly remember, though, because I think Crystal Pepsi
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  Speaker 2: had a commercial that used that song right now, Hey,
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  Speaker 2: no tomorrow, right now, come on, It's everything, And I
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  Speaker 2: think that was a thing. It was Van Halen. It
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  Speaker 2: was like Sammy Hagar Van Hagar Era, and that a
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: big promo. And of course both of those attempts, they
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  Speaker 2: didn't taste like coke, they didn't taste like sprite. They
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  Speaker 2: just tasted weird, and it was that sort of weird
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  Speaker 2: psychological sensation where you're drinking something that looks one way
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  Speaker 2: and then it tastes a different way. It was just
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  Speaker 2: wrong something about it, so it did not take off
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  Speaker 2: like they were hoping. It was also kind of a
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  Speaker 2: matter for the customer.
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  Speaker 1: You would have to ask yourself, why don't I just
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  Speaker 1: get like it answers. It solves a problem people didn't
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  Speaker 1: have because if they wanted pepsi, they would get a pepsi.
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  Speaker 1: If they wanted sparkling water, they would get sparkling water.
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  Speaker 1: So ending up with a not quite pepsi that is
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  Speaker 1: also not quite sparkling water. It's just a strange hybrid.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe people didn't want it. You guys heard about the
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  Speaker 1: New Coke conspiracy too, right, do you remember.
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  Speaker 2: A little bit? But I mean New Coke was just
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  Speaker 2: they were like, hey, we're gonna tweak our formula a
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  Speaker 2: little bit, you know, and it was just nobody liked it,
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  Speaker 2: I think. But what's the conspiracies that they were trying
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  Speaker 2: to do something underhandedly or what's that I do now?
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  Speaker 1: The pop culture conspiracy is that Coke knew they were
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: going to redo the flavor of original Coca Cola, so
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  Speaker 1: they said, we're not going to throw people in the
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  Speaker 1: deep water yet we're going to do a switch route.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to come out with new Coke, which was
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  Speaker 1: not popular by the way, didn't last long. And then
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  Speaker 1: as though we are responding to people's demand, we'll roll
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  Speaker 1: out Coca Cola Classic, which is different from the actual
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  Speaker 1: classic Coca Cola. We've just sort of switched things that
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  Speaker 1: the conspiracy would be. Whether this was on purpose or
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  Speaker 1: with motive, but still it's one of my favorite pop
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  Speaker 1: culture stories because I think as a kid, it was
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  Speaker 1: my first encounter with feeling like an old man or
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: a very conservative person because I tried new Coke, and
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: even at a very young age, I was like, this
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  Speaker 1: new stuff is garbage.
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  Speaker 2: You need to go back to the old ways for
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  Speaker 2: the Hills phase exactly, which brings us to another one
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: of the kind of Oh, by the way, I don't
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  Speaker 2: know if we mentioned that Josta did appear in Low
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  Speaker 2: Key Yeah as sort of, you know, a nostalgic throwback
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  Speaker 2: thing because it was of a very specific window of time,
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  Speaker 2: so it was a fun little, you know, callback to that.
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  Speaker 2: But really the sister drink to Jasta in many ways
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  Speaker 2: was Surge, which was this citrus kind of extreme like
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  Speaker 2: it looked like a Nickelodeon ad like, like the label
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: was very green and splatty kind of vibes. You know,
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  Speaker 2: Surge really does occupy this very rarefied air of discontinued
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  Speaker 2: sodas that some people really did dig. But there was
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  Speaker 2: some kind of weirdness behind the way it was marketed. Yeah. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: What they did is they figured out the demographic that
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: they wanted to be the Surge stands. They were like,
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  Speaker 1: this is gonna be soda for teenagers, for suburban teenagers,
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  Speaker 1: especially if they like skateboarding, right, And we're gonna go
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  Speaker 1: airwalks exactly, vans, We're gonna associate ourselves with different cultural
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  Speaker 1: things that we believe these children will be interested in.
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  Speaker 1: And and just like Josta, it's a it's a citrus
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  Speaker 1: based beverage. This is a Coca Cola product. Neon green
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  Speaker 1: coloring did not look like a natural thing. Yeah, it
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: did toole cleaner or something, you know. And Josta was
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: kind of purplish, but it was really more just black,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: like regular yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Just darker.
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  Speaker 1: And and Surge is interesting because it's the subject of
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  Speaker 1: a lot of different urban legends that were that were
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: coming out where that would either attempt to explain the
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: secret origin story of Surge, or there would be those
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: lurid campfire tales of people who drank Surge under the
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: wrong circumstances and something terrible happened, you know, like the
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: old idea of eating pop rocks and damaging your mouth
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: or something.
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  Speaker 2: You know, so it was holding off your stomach.
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  Speaker 3: I thought, yeah, yeah, there's a couple eating like coke
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: or something afterwards.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Like Coca mentos, etc. We see a delightful subgenre of
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: YouTube U TikTok videos for people are just like, you know,
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  Speaker 2: dropping ten mentos into a coke and then just shoving
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  Speaker 2: their whole mouth on it so it like shoots out
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  Speaker 2: of their eyeballs. You know, it's pretty wild. Ben. You
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  Speaker 2: found something though, like speaking of like marketing type stuff
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  Speaker 2: that I was not aware of from the Coca Cola company.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: H very odd label for this thing called Okay Soda
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: looks like a Daniel Clues cartoon. Yeah, Like it's very weird, moody,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: like some kind of alternative comic vibe. I do not
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  Speaker 2: remember this at all.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I missed this one too. This was actually
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  Speaker 1: new to me. Back in nineteen ninety three, Coca Cola
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  Speaker 1: did a similar thing that they had done was that
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  Speaker 1: they would do a surge.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: They said, all right, we're gonna find a demographic. We're
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  Speaker 1: gonna make a soda just for them. And they looked
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: around the c suite or the boardroom, and some guy said,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: has anybody heard about this grunge of music?
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  Speaker 2: And they went, grimy youths in their flannels and their
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  Speaker 2: torn up jeans, and so they made this.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: They made like this soda that was just a pretty
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: much a regular soda, nothing to brag about. It's like
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: the Honda Civic of soda. I guess it gets the
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: job done. But their focus in this one was marketing, branding,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: an image. So we've got here a we've got here
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: an image of the label that would wrap around a
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: can of Okay soda and it says stuff like it's
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: got the Daniel Lose kind of cartoons, and then at
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: the top it says Okay Soda says, don't be fooled
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: into thinking there has to be a reason for.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Everything, Okay Corporation exactly. Yeah, don't conform. Drink Okay Soda exactly.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: It reminds me a lot, though, like there are you know,
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: or there I think in the nineties as well, probably
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: sort of a craft soda kind of boom. You guys
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: might know. Jon's Soda is a popular one. They make
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: all kinds of weird one off flavors, like seasonally, like
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: there's one out right now it's like chocolate orange. And
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: they even had like Thanksgiving gravy flavored soda bacon really
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: really sugary. They were very popular when I lived in Birmingham,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: and I'd never really heard of them, but that's often
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: the case with some of these things, like Jolt Cola
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: was regional or like Fago was regional and then it
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: kind of got more national. But yeah, Jon's Soda, it
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: almost feels like that's what they're attempting to do here,
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: is like it's sort of like the craft beer label
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: that is a secretly owned by bush Mills, but it's
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: like trying to trick you into thinking, no, no, no,
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: this is just for you. This is small batch craft stuff.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: You know, it's so weird.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Like okay, just one example, like an example, they would
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: put these little bits of flash fiction.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: On Okay soda. I appreciate it. I probably would have
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: bought one. Kind of cool looking, I mean, frankly, the
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: design is good. I don't know if I would drink it.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: I might just keep it and be like, look upon
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: my refrigerator works.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: He mighty and despair. I wonder if some of these
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: are collectible now if oh yeah, continue them? So, yeah,
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: yeah they are.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: And so just for an example of this, this label
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: that we're pulling has the following written on it. Coincidence fourteen.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: The night he first tried Okay soda, Rick B. Of Aurora,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Colorado put a full cad under his pillow and went
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: to sleep. He dreamed he was crawling through an endless
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: gravel pit, parched with thirst. When he awoke his thirst,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: it disappeared, and his hang on him turned. I had
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: to read this, and he felt strangely satisfied. Note the
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: cat of ok soda, still unopened, was empty.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: This is only a coincidence. See you mentioned earlier. It is,
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: but you mentioned earlier, Ben, The idea was actually very
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: top of the of the first episode. Uh, your vampire
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: dream doesn't just have the language of like an implanted
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: advertising advertisement masquerading as a dream inception. Yes, dude, it
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: really does, And I kid you not. We talked about
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: it on stuff that I want you to know. A lot.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: I believe there was a beer company that did experiment
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: with some just as like an ad campaign. Goof experimented
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: with implanting ads into people's dreams. But it was like,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: you know, by volunteer and it was literally the thing
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: itself was the ad. They're not truly talking about doing this,
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: you know, to the general public, but we're not that
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: far off, man, from this kind of stuff happened.
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a reason we do stuff that I want
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: you to know as well as this show. Look, o
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: K soda was just okay. It was out for two
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: years ninety three to ninety five, and then Coca Cola
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: pulled it from its shells, which made it, to your point,
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: a collector's item. And there are so many other obscure soda.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: Some are discontinued, some are still around. Some I think
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: are invented entirely because a person liked a pun. I'm
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: thinking of dra Cola of course.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well that hey, that that that would have been
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: the ad in your dream. I would have been that
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: would Yeah, it was made for Halloween, you know, seasonal
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: kind of Halloween stuff. But Transylvania Imports made this. We
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: got to wonder if this is somehow, you know, at
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: least at least a philosophically adjacent to those seasonal cereals
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: like Yummy Mummy and Barry.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: I gotta jump in and say that that's what this
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: feels like, because when I was researching cereal, whenever we
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: did that episode, there was so many just like terrible
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: Cereal that was built one hundred percent.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Off of a pun. Yeah, what's a count I think,
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: yummy Mummy, Yummy mummy. Yeah. And then we've.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Got we've got stuff that's a little more sexy. Soda
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: companies have tried every genre and demographic of appeal, so
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Aphrodite had us. Their slogan was get some tonight.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's right, and I believe some of these it
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: contained quotes from like screen, Angeen news, like May West
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: and the like mm hmm. Yeah.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: It was two thousand and two, only lasted a few years,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: as we know of the United States was still attempting
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: to find its way as a nation.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: And they said no to the uh.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: They said no to the tempting allure of Aphrodite, a
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: cherry red soda with a fruit punch flavor.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: I think maybe we briefly mentioned tab. I think most
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: people just know Tab as a product of the eighties,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: and I think it was just like kind of a
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: amorphous diet soda. And it was discontinued recently, is twenty twenty,
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: because I do remember they kind of had a little
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: bit of a resurgence again on that nostalgia tip. Now
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Fresco's back in a big way. I've noticed that was
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: sort of it seemed like it had gone the way
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: of the Dodo for a while. But yeah, Tab is
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: something now you just really associate with, like kind of
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: eighties yuppie culture. Yeah. Yeah.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: For when I first started at How Stuff Works, my
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: boss was the only person I had ever met who
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: drank Tab, and she loved it was the only soda
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: she drank.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: Roxanne, Yeah, I had.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: No idea it was still around. Roxanne Reed opened us
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: to the world of Tab, and I was tuning in,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: we're thinking about you. I had no idea Tab was
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: still around until you told us, and had no idea
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: that it discontinued in twenty twenty. But Tab I never
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: quite I don't know, never quite.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: Got with it. It's such an innocuous name too. It's
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: just meaningless, you know, It's like tab, like what What
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: does that even mean? Was it like.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: They were proud of the bodily technology or they can't.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Well, that's just I guess that you know, a tab
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: the thing that you pop, But I don't know. It
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: just seems like it was made to be kind of
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: vanilla and just bland diet generic diet soda. What about
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: Let's see, we talked about Doctor Brown's. They had kind
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: of a fun one that was pretty popular. Cel Ray,
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Did it taste like celery polka cola? Oh no, no, no,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I'm skipping a. Yeah, yeah, cel Ray.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was celery based soda still around, And it
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: came about because celery was seen as a superfood at
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: the time in the mid eighteen hundreds. People would say,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: it'll relaxs you, it'll cure headaches, it is the key
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: to what ails you. And so Doctor Brown's also made
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: cream soda, right.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Sure, And you know that that black cherry soda and
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: root beer and all of that other stuff, the classic
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: soda flavors.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: And it's weird because now that I think about it,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: that medicinal association is the reason so many soda brands
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: have a fictional doctor at the head.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: It's funny. I can think about that. Now, You're totally right.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: And ginger too is considered kind of a super food
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: or yeah, it still is. I mean, you put you
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: put ginger in your chicken soup. It does you know,
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Results may vary, but there is the
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: sense that it's good for you in some way. But
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: the Doctor Brown soda very popular in Jewish delicatessens as well.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: And a lot of the reporting you found on this
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: came from really the Jewish Star and you know, specifically
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: referring to the history of some of these sodas, you know,
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: in the Jewish culture.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can still find Doctor browns. You can
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: still find cel ray in delis and in specific markets
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: across the country. We could probably find some in Atlanta.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: I sort of want to try it. I'm not you know,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: I'm not a big celery head.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: Iet It kind of reminds me of like something having
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: a wisp of cucumber, you know what I mean. Oh yeah,
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: It's a similarly kind of earthy, kind of plant matter
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: flavor that I could see if it was paired with
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: the right other you know, ingredients being a little bit refreshing. Yeah, yeah,
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: I can see that. Do you guys know about Fago?
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Of course, yeah, I mentioned that earlier about like how
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: you know Fago was very much a Detroit, you know,
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Michigan thing, and then I think, largely because of the
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: insane clown Posse really kind of developed a reputation. But
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: like moon mist and what's some other popular flavors of Fago.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: Well, the red is the one that's always red roka
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: something right, Yeah, that is my dad's all time favorite,
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: you know, Detroit soda. So I would be remiss to
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: not bring it up, because I mean, missed. Papa Williams
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: is a very calm man, unless who don't talk about
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: his Fago.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Rock and Rye is another one, rock and Rye, which
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: I believe what does it even taste like? It says
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: rock and Rye was a medicinal medley of rye, whiskey, rock, candy,
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: citrus and herbs. Now that was the original. Now it's
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: a light vanilla cream soda with a hint of semi
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: tart cherry flavor had nothing to do with anything from
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: the cocktail.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: And this is yeah, this is weird because we see
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: that the names are so fascinating in every case of
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: a soda we're talking about that's been discontinued. By the way,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: there's probably gonna be a grassroots movement to save it.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Like you can go to save Josta online before Loki
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: you can you can see. I think the Saved Tap
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Soda Committee took out billboards to try to get Coca
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: Cola to bring back tab for some reason.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: Do you guys remember High Sea Ecto cooler. Yeah, huge
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: glaciers item and they carbonated. There was a period. There
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: was a brief period where they were available again in
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: cans because originally they were in the little juice boxes.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: But it was a tie in with Ghostbusters, I believe,
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: the real Ghostbusters cartoon. It wasn't necessarily the first Ghostbusters movie,
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: but it had Slimer on it. It was green, but
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: it tasted like orange. Yeah, that was the whole deal.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: But I briefly when it was around, I bought a
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: case of it on Amazon, thinking that it was going
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: to be available now and again forever, and it wasn't.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: And now you can go online and find those going
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: for a pretty penny. Nice Did you keep it?
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: No?
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: I drank them because I was like, yeah, Acto Cooler's back.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: We're all good, not that I would needed to be
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: buying those on the regular, but yeah, nostalgia, you know,
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: and we should talk about that aspect, especially when it
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: comes to things like ginger ale, root beer coke. A
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: lot of this stuff capitalizes on nostalgia. Yeah, it's it's programming.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: It's brilliant.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: The study of the history of modern soda is also
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: a study in social psychology. It's also a study in
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: good marketing. It's it's a study in accessing or incepting
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: people's memories.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: It's it's quite effective too, and that's why they like,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: they tried so much stuff. I mentioned Polka cola that
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: was made to promote polka music. Whoopy soda was woopy.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Soda cushions making.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: They had they had a contest where they said, we
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: will give you up to five hundred dollars if you
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: write a letter talking about your saddus most injurious or
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: embarrassing experience trying to take off the bottle cap of
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: a whoopee soda that.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: Was really weird.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: That's that's kind of self deprecating to a dangerous level.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: And this so this.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: This concept, this nostalgic goes on what we're seeing. The
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: reason bringing up Polka soda is because that is just
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: one example of a soda company finding pre existing communities
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: and memories that people already share and then just sort
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: of inserting a soda in that situation, kind of like
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: when Wayne's World one or two, I can't remember, did
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: that amazing stuff about native advertising where they just started
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: drinking pepsi and talking about how they'd never sell out totally.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, oh man, like it's a little yellow, different
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: new print exactly exactly.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: I do have to I do have to shout out
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: doctor enough. And it seems like you guys are interested
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: in learning.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: A little bit of that. Okay.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: So the East Tennessee, toward the northeast part of the
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: state is home to an area called the Tri Cities.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: This is Bristol, Kingsport, and Johnson City. Bristol's in Virginia,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: and in nineteen forty nine something called the Tri City
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Beverage Corporation started bodiling a drink doctor Enough, invented by
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: a guide named Charles Gordon Enough Enough.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: It does not sound like a particularly attractive branding play.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know he said this was this so weird? Right?
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Because it's nineteen forty nine, So the medicinal thing is
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: still kind of in the mix for people. You're not
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: just selling you know, liquid candy. And his advertising was
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: a little bit too hardcore's a little bit militant. Doctor
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: enough was supposed to relieve people's quote untold misery from
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: aches and paids, stomach disturbances and malaise. That okay, doesn't sound.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Fun, No, no it doesn't, but it.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Tastes pretty good. It's like a lemon lime kind of thing.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, well again that's the thing. We get
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: into a certain place where there's nothing new under the sun,
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: and when it comes to sodas and then now you'll
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: see Coke occasionally release these limited runs of like Starlight,
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: and they all taste like crap. They're not good, they're
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: too sugary. But they're banking on that thing that you said,
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Ben about everyone maybe we'll try a thing once. And
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: that's why they don't stick around, because they're just you know,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: capitalizing on everyone wanting to try it once. And I everyone,
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: I just mean, you know, enough people to warrant having
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: the thing come out. But they're you know, everything's a
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: lemon lime kind of thing, some sort of cola product
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: some sort of you know, mountain dew esque thing, uh,
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: and root beer and and of course ginger ale. But
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: then there's not like new soda. Well there's like it's
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: taken off. There's novelty soda. Has it taken off?
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: And I gotta say for anybody who finds themselves in
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: East Tennessee, doctor enough is worth it. It's great.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: It's not.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: And also ran I think regional sodas have a great
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: appeal too, because they start people start associating them with
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: an area's identity, right like cheer wine or.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: Fago or fago. Yeah.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: And I think burners burners of course. Yeah.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: There's another one that gave rise to modern slang, which
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: is moxie. I didn't know when somebody says you've got moxie,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: they're referencing a soda.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: No way, I would have been certain that it was
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: the other way around. Please tell us more so.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Moxi soda is created as a medicine in eighteen seventy eight,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: and the creator, Augustine Thompson, originally calls it moxie nerve food.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: He says this medicine contains a proprietary, quite rare South
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: American plants. I refuse to name it in public. Now
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: we know what it is, Gentian root. And he said,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: I've named this after a dear friend of mine, one
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Moxie, who adventured in South America and who discovered
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: this rare plant that is the basis of my nerve food.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: Nerve food real Indiana Jones type figure. Huh. Yeah. And
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: apparently the term much more likely came from a Native
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: American word moxie, which means dark water. Which that's that
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: tracks for like a soda. You know, most cola type
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: or root beer type sodas. They're dark water with bubbles,
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: And that was used in the names of some of
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: the bodies of water near where Thompson was born.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think they embellished at least a little.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: Oh you thinks. What about the other claims made about
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: what this product could do for your health wise? Oh right,
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: right right, snake oil all the way right, Yeah, it's
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: patent medicine style.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, paralla, are you paralyzed? Get some moxie. Can't sleep,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Get some moxie. Need to wake up? Get some moxie. Uh,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: you know, stuff shop and it's it's it becomes a
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: soft drink, right.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the syrup existed in eighteen seventy eight, but
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: it wasn't until eighteen eighty four that it was mixed up,
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: like you said, with carbonated water. So the earlier version
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: of it would have been much more like those snake
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: oil remedies that we talked about in the previous episode,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: But it wasn't until eighteen eighty four that it was
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: mass produced and bottled and sold, you know, to the
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: like the Lowell Sun did an article on the drink
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: talking about how it became super popular in New England
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: but never got nearly as successful as Coca cola.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the term moxie is actually more popular than
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: the soda because people started using it as slaying to
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: describe someone who seemed very determined or.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It makes me think of a really great I
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: Love Lucy episode where she's being a spokes person or
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: spokesmodel for this product on like you know, the Craft
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: whatever hour of television when ads were done live called
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: Vita meta vegimin. I bet a lot of yes, I
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: remember that one, and they had a slogan which she's like,
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Vita meat a veggiemin spoon your way to health. But
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: the joke was that it had like a ton of
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: alcohol in it, and they kept making her drink it
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: as she did successive takes, and by the end of
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: it she's Vita mood of vision mood. It was a
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: whole bit very fun. I love Lucy holds up it does.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: It does a comedic genius at work. There There are,
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: of course, novelty, weird sodas, like you can find black
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: garlic flavor, onion flavor, pumpkin pie flavor one maybe like
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: you're saying with Jones, Yeah, like Jones.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: One I think would be interesting to try the next
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: time when we finally travel across the Pacific together is
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: that Japan has a curry flavored soda. I don't think
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: it's going to be good, but I do think we
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: should try it.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: You know, there's a really cool bar that's keeps winning,
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: like best bar in America I'm not mistaken in New
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: York called Double Chicken Please. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: I haven't been, but it's hard to get into. But
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: they do like a cold soba noodle cocktail, and they
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: do one that's like leftover pizza and stuff. But apparently
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: they're all like they sound gimmicky, but they're actually really
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: good and like very Willy Wonka esque in their creations.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: We didn't mention Sasparrella Sioux City sasparella. They call that
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: like a soft sasparella. That was one of the early
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: kind of root rootie drinks that were, you know, sold
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: as an alternative for those that maybe did not want
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: to imbibe the harder stuff. And it's kind of like
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: root beer. You can still get it. It very much
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: tastes like root beer, but you can get it like
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: Cracker Barrel where they have all the different vintage sodas.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Uh huh and all the recordings you could ever want.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: The golden What is the falla New Vegas equivalent to that?
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know. It's just it's just called Nuka Cola.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: Well, no, there's Nuca Cola by New Vegas. There's a Sasparillo.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: I don't remember the Yeah, I don't remember that.
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: But that's that's the big joke, because it's the only
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: one where Nuca Cola does not run the whole show.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: Got it? Yeah? I do. I do love me some
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: New Vegas. I need to get back into that one too.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: We got to get through Skyrim first, guys got to
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: get through Skyrim.
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: I and I I love Sky. I turned through Sky.
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: You don't know I did last time. I went to
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: the Land of Dragons and was underpowered, and I kept
• 39:04
  Speaker 5: getting my ass handed to get.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Buggy with the DLC to be fair and early official patch. Yeah, well,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: we'll consider it.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: But then are were Have we reached the end of
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: our our carbonated adventure, our journey into the heart of soda?
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: I believe we are with a brief epilogue or coda.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: I think we'd safe for us to say, do what
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: makes you happy, be responsible, but try, don't be afraid
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: to try weird or new or unfamiliar with soda. And
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: we can't wait to hear about the weirdest ones you found.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: There is one soda that I do think. I hope
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: you guys grow with me. No one should drink birds
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: nest soda. I don't think you should drink it because
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: birds nest like the fungus from it. It's problematic the
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: way they get it. So that's the only soda I
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: think you shouldn't drink.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: It's not the one made of virgin boys urine, is it? No?
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: No, not the the eggs oh gosh.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: There was also what's that really gross? One from Italy?
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: They let you sample with the World of Coke. Oh god, Beverly,
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no way. Yeah. There are two sodas that
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: no one should try. Sunset That Sunset saspa fall in
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: New Vegas.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: That one person who's very mad at us for not
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: remembering that remember it now?
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Yea.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: Also chill out, don't be mad at a podcast Mellow Yellow,
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: quite right. I love that song.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much to our super producer, mister Max Williams.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: This has been This has been a heck of a
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: soda week, and I gotta say, also, nol, thank you,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: thank you for letting me do this as a therapy session.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: I thought I end up missing soda more, but I
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: feel like now we kind of understand more of the
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: context and I'll be okay, just sticking to coffee and water.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: Got to exercise those soda demons. Thank you as well, Bam.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: This is a nostalgia last to the cranium for me
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: as well. Huge thanks to super producer Max Williams Alex
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: Williams who composed this theme.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Big big thanks to Jonathan Strickland aka the Quist as
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: he's known on the mean streets of the Ridiculous Universe.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: Big big thanks, of.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Course to let's see who else, Chrispheros yotis.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: Aj Jacobs, the Puzzler, who is now kind of I
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: think he's accepted our invitation into the Ridiculous Universe. So
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: maybe we'll have to have the Puzzler and the Quiztor
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: have some sort of you know, puzzle off. Yeah.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Fun, It'll be like when Hannibal Lecter meets another serial killer.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: Just so, we'll see you next time, folks. For more
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.