Gastronomica has a piece up today about Coke’s mid-nineties attempt to appeal to Ethan Hawkes’ character from Reality Bites. I had forgotten all about the soda, but I think I liked it? Maybe? I remember that one day a new vending machine was wheeled into Jefferson Middle School, and a couple months later it was gone. I remember that everyone who tried said: “It’s OK. Har Har.” I remember the marketing was quirky and cheeky, and had a phone number you could call for funny messages about okay-ness. I remember the packaging, designed by Daniel Clowes (though I wouldn’t discover Ghost World until a couple years later). I don’t remember, however, what it tasted it like. My vaguest recollection is that it resembled a suicide/graveyard (you know, when you mix all the fountain sodas together), but my memory of those years is fickle.
Can someone help me out? (And can we keep this from devolving into a soda vs. pop shitstorm?)
tasted like cola and orange soda, but fruitier and colaier.
can was a mishmash of clowes drawings, those eyes on the guy were from a charles manson drawing. i think he also worked with charles burns on the campaign?
FUCK YOU TONY, IT’S SODA!
Oh wait, you said soda.
Nevermind.
i’m sorry…
Yeah, it was definitely a “graveyard”. I still have a Dan Clowes can I got from my high school vending machine. Is that worth any money these days?
I still do the graveyard thing whenever I drink fountain drinks. I just wish there was a vodka spout next to 7-Up and Fanta.
I remember it tasting somewhere between Big Red and Dr. Pepper. Not great.
Er, I do believe the mix was Coke and Fresca. Something easily repeatable this day.
It tasted fruity. Exactly the opposite of the bitterness suggested by the packaging.
It tasted like flat Coke and citric acid in an aluminum can. AKA “A unique fruity soda!”
yeah it was fruity for sure, but I kind of liked the stuff, and I think it wasn’t bad with some HRD vodka, but at that point in time I’d drink just about anything with some HRD vodka in it…
Screw this stuff, the 90s were all about Surge.
OK, I think it’s coming back to me. And oh yeah…Surge. I also remember some soda pop (take that, Graham) they promoted at my middle school that had some kind of jaguar imagery on the label. Like, maybe it was purporting to be from South America? And maybe had a strange natural sweetening agent that was only found in the Amazon? Anybody? No?
Fucking Californians! It’s POP!!!
Dr. Brown’s or GTFO.
The Amazonian soda was called Josta. The key ingredient was guarana, for energy. One time, I won of a case of it when I was 8 or 9 for winning a game of musical chairs during the halftime of a University of Portland soccer game. Awesome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josta
In this post-Atkins Diet world we live in, can you imagine Surge still being around, trying to entice us with its “carbos”?
I loved OK. Liked the commercials too; the music was good, as I recall.
I don’t remember what it tasted like, but I remember that the can looked enough like a Coors Light to get me pulled over on I-70 outside of Denver and get my car searched by the Colorado Sate Police.
Bring back JOLT!
@cat and beerd
This is the second post that you have mentioned your OK soda can. Im going to guess that you have it in a china cabinet next to your BNIB c3po and favorite garbage pail kids. Now hand it over.
Tony — you’re thinking of JOSTA.
@cat & beard: You bet that Clowes can is worth money.
Five cents. Just like every other returnable can in Oregon.
Oh, and those ads that promised you’d find a Mona Lisa in your attic? They lied, too.
Oh, this so reminded me of Crystal Pepsi. God help me but I loved Crystal Pepsi. Strangest, most delightful drink ever created …
Yes…Josta! Thank you.