This week the maker of Kool-Aid announced that it would stop advertising its product to children during children's television programming, effectively banishing itself to the Island of Elba to while away with the likes of Marlboro, Jack Daniel's and Girls Gone Wild dvd's. They say that this is to encourage better nutrition. A curious, tacit admission of guilt in aiding the current child obesity and diabetes crisis for a product that has been on the market for over 80 years, long before the childhood obesity was cool. The product comes unsweetened. It's just a powdered soft drink concentrate. It's the consumer that adds the sugar. Sugar substitutes and have been around since 1879, and the ones that don't cause cancer since 1979. Is it the children who are doing themselves harm?
Kool-Aid is not going to make itself disappear. What I'm not sure about is where Kool-Aid will advertise now? With the state of television today, what programming is not aimed at kids? Maybe The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer?: "Major funding for this program has been provided by The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, Kool-Aid, and viewers like you." Maybe there could be some smart product placement in Showtime's "Weeds." That adult market would certainly loves a nice sip of Kool-Aid along with a good snack. This era's prolonged presidential election cycle offers a good opportunity, too because kids under 18 can't even vote. They certainly won't be watching all the debates. And Kool-Aid would be a perfect political sponsor since "Drinking the Kool-Aid" has become the political cliché of the millennium. People who voted for Bill Clinton's re-election in the face of all the scandals were called "Clinton Kool-Aid Drinkers" because they were willing to sacrifice themselves (their votes) for the greater cause. Today, Bush-ies are considered "Kool-Aid Drinkers" because they will believe anything that the the administration coughs out about the War on Terror. Actually, anyone who believes in anything strongly is considered a "Kool-Aid Drinker" by the opposition.
"Kool-Aid drinkers" a bad thing? But it's sweet, fun and refreshing? It's all Jim Jones's fault. Now, cause of him, it's synonymous with poison. You gonna advertise that to kids? If Jones had just left well enough alone, kept his Peoples Temple cult in the Bay Area and not moved them to Guyana and talked them into group suicide by drinking cyanide laced Koo-Aid with his pscychological manipulation, his mesmerizing speeches and his slick sunglasses, everything would be fine. He not only ruined Kool-Aid, but now no one trusts a preacher who wears gradient sunglasses at the pulpit anymore either. (I'll address the loss of gradient sunglasses in an upcoming blog.)
Who here believes that Kool-Aid is going to stop advertising to kids? But more importantly, why should they? Kool-Aid is a powdered mix that has to be purchased, then mixed in a 2 quart pitcher with one or two cups of sugar, water added and chilled. Is that what kids are doing with their money and their time? Kids are getting fatter, younger, but it's not from stirring Kool-Aid. We had it as kids. We loved it. It gave us instant heartburn and brain punch of adrenaline, it took too long to chill, and we loved it. I was a grape man. I was also in charge of sugar, and I was known to be quite generous. It could even be eaten straight from the packet. On the swim team, kids would bring several packs and eat the powder as an "energy boost" right before a race as if any 8 year old needs that - a precursor of steroid abuse, I suppose, but few of us ended up obese or in rehab. Of course, we were all swimming, which is exercise, which is the basic difference between kids of then and kids of now.
In general Kool-Aid has about 21 grams of sugar per serving. A lot, yes, but no more than most soft drinks, chocolate milk, even orange juice. We didn't have nearly the soft drink options that kids have today. We just had a bit more body motion involvement in our daily lives. Everything in moderation, except good parenting.
As if we didn't know that Kool-Aid wasn't "good for us." Look at the original Kool-Aid man. He's not exactly slim. He's so fat that he couldn't get through a normal doorway, he had to smash through the walls, menacing unsuspecting children with his elephant walk, his sweaty bodice and the tragi-clown permanent smile, all the while yelling, "Oh yeah!!" One wonders if some day Dateline's Chris Hanson won't step out from the pantry saying, "I'd like you to take a seat, oc-koolio-aid69. May I ask you what you're doing here, sir?" I don't trust people who smile all the time. Just once I want to see the Kool-Aid man sitting on a park bench, elbow on his knee, chin resting on a hand, pondering life's limitations.
The new image is a bit slimmed down with slightly longer, thinner legs. The only signs of excess might be the triple chin. And thank goodness he's finally wearing clothes/pants to cover up what now must be supposed as genitalia (though the Hawaiian shirt is pushing the good times a little hard for me). Are we really looking to the Kool-Aid cartoon guy as a role model for body image? The walking, talking, pouring pitcher on TV for a few seconds every Saturday morning? If he has that much influence, then the Jim Jones of the future is going to have a much easier time getting a lot more than 900 people to join his cult.
What you may not know is that Kool-Aid has other uses as well. That may be their new angle. According to fans, you can dye clothes with it, dye yard for knitting, dye your hair - especially blondes. You can tint wooden frames, remove rust and chlorine stains, even remove hard water stains and gunk by running it through your dishwasher. Bad for kids? Unless you love having hard water stains and plain looking wooden frames around your pictures it is.
Below: dwb, a rabid Kool-Aid fan, a "Kool-Aid Kool-Aid Drinker" if you will, offers Kool-Aid keyboard art that looks like an old fashioned telephone. Also, a passionate girl with something to say that no one understands:
I don't know why I opened your Kool-Aid, and I don't know how I possibly couldn't have known the flava unless I was blind, olfactory-challenged and my taste buds had been fried from years of licking the spoon.
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