Kool-Aid
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Image:Kool-Aid Logo.png Kool-Aid is an artificially-flavored soft drink concentrate made by Kraft Foods. Kool-Aid is sold as a powder to be mixed with water, and versions are made with sugar as well as with an artificial sweetener.
Kool-Aid was invented by Edwin Perkins in Hastings, Nebraska. Its predecessor was a liquid concentrate called Fruit-Smack. To reduce shipping costs, in 1927, Perkins discovered a way to remove the liquid from Fruit-Smack, leaving only a powder. This powder was named Cool-Ade (and a few years later, Cool-Aid). Perkins moved his production to Chicago in 1931, and Cool-Aid was sold to General Foods in 1953, who changed the name to Kool-Aid to associate it more with the Kraft brand.
Image:Kool-AidMan.jpgThe mascot of Kool-Aid, Kool-Aid Man (aka The Big Man), is a gigantic anthropomorphic frosty pitcher filled with Kool-Aid and marked with a fingerprinted smiley face on it, seen in Kool-Aid's advertising. He was introduced shortly after General Foods acquired the brand. In TV and print ads, Kool-Aid Man was known for bursting suddenly through walls, seemingly summoned by the making and imbibing of Kool-Aid by kids. His catch-phrase is "Oh, yeah!"
Because the Perkins Products Company had its origins in Nebraska, and the company's founder kept his ties to the state, Kool-Aid was dubbed the official soft drink of Nebraska. Kool-Aid Days, a summertime festival that includes the World's Largest Kool-Aid Stand, is held annually during the second weekend of August in Hastings, Nebraska.
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Other uses
Kool-Aid's high concentration of food coloring and its low retail cost (US$0.20 a packet as of 2004) has led some to use Kool-Aid to dye fabric and hair. Kurt Cobain, of the band Nirvana had his hair dyed with red Kool-Aid before a performance on Saturday Night Live. Pink admitted to using Kool-Aid to dye her hair for her first concert.
In the 1960s, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters were notorious for lacing Kool-Aid with LSD at gatherings. Publication of journalist Tom Wolfe's recollection of their mad tour, The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, which captured this aspect of the decade, cannot have been greeted with pleasure at Kraft Foods.
Llano Estacado Winery in Lubbock, Texas sells a chilled wine that is referred to as 'Texas Kool Aid'.
"Drinking the Kool-Aid"
Image:Purple punch.jpg The idiomatic expression drinking the Kool-Aid is a reference to the 1978 cult mass-suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. Jim Jones, the leader of the group, convinced his followers to move to Jonestown. Late in the year he then ordered his flock to commit suicide by drinking grape-flavored Flavor Aid laced with potassium cyanide. In what is now commonly called "the Jonestown Massacre", 913 of the 1100 Jonestown residents drank the brew and died. (The discrepancy between the idiom and the actual occurrence is likely due to Flavor Aid's relative obscurity versus the easily recognizable Kool-Aid.)
One lasting legacy of the Jonestown tragedy is the saying, “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.” This has come to mean, "Don’t trust any group you find to be a little on the kooky side," or "Whatever they tell you, don't believe it too strongly."
The phrase can also be used in the opposite sense to indicate that one has blindly embraced a particular philosophy or perspective (a "Kool-Aid drinker"). This usage is generally limited to those in or commenting on United States politics, but also appears in discussions on computer technology, where someone who is a staunch advocate for a particular technology is described as having "drunk the Kool-Aid". This is also frequently used in discussions about sports; when a fan makes an overly-optimistic prediction or hopeful statement, usually about a traditionally woeful team or franchise, others may comment that he is "drinking the Kool-Aid"
This is the only usage of "Kool-Aid" that non-American speakers of English are likely to recognise.
Another phrase used widely among African-Americans in urban areas is "all up in the Kool-Aid". This term is used for a nosy person.
Kool-Aid Comics and Video Games
There were seven Kool-Aid Man comics made in the 80s. Each of them had two stories, each one involving the Kool-aid Man and a bunch of kids fighting off yellow spikey characters called thirsties.
Two video game versions of Kool-Aid Man were made for the Atari 2600 and the Mattel Intellivision, which were a tie-in with the comic books. Both were noted for being totaly differnet games, giving gamers two different experiences involving Kool-Aid Man on each system. It was a change from the norm, where most games that were ported were exactly the same on each system. It is debatable how good the games were, or which system had the better version game. But it was another use of popular marketing that was done at the time,using the famous pitcher icon that had been on TV commercials for so long in a fun and thrilling way in the new video game boom that was going on at the time in the early 1980's. They are considered to be amongst the more scarce (but not necessarily rare) games to find for those systems.
Kool-Aid in Pop Culture
Image:Koolaidfg.JPG Recently, Kool-Aid and the Kool-Aid Man have made a comeback in the mainstream. Spurred by the popularity of comedian Dane Cook's "Kool-Aid Man" sketch, which featured Cook talking about a nightmare involving the talking bowl of punch, phrases such as "oh Yeah" and Kool-Aid references are becoming widely used again. In the first episode of the cartoon series Family Guy, the Kool-Aid man made a cameo appearance, while bursting through a wall.
Kool-Aid is a name of an album and a song by British band Big Audio Dynamite II.
Because of its supposed role in past cult activities, Kool-Aid has also come to acquire a dark reference to the occult, though often in a whimsically humorous context.
Flavors
There are many different flavors and types of Kool-Aid.
| Cherry | Grape | Lemon-Lime |
| Orange | Raspberry | Strawberry |
| Apple | Arctic Green Apple | Bedrock Orange | Berry Blue | Black Cherry |
| Blastin' Berry Cherry | Blastin' Berry Cherry (sugar free) | Blue Moon Berry | Blue Raspberry | Bunch Berry |
| Candy Apple | Changin' Cherry (color-changing mix) | Cherry | Cherry (sugar-free) | Cherry Cracker |
| Cherry Lime | Cherry Subway | Cola | Eerie Orange (Halloween edition) | Golden Nectar |
| Grape | Grape (sugar free) | Grape Berry Splash | Grape Illusion (color-changing mix) | Great Bluedini |
| Ice Blue Island Twist | Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade | Incrediberry | Jamaica (hibiscus flavored) | Kickin' Kiwi-Lime |
| Kiwi Strawberry | Lemonade | Lemonade (sugar free) | Lemonade Tea | Lemon-Grape |
| Lemon Ice | Lemon-Lime | Mandarina-Tangerine | Mango | Man-O-Mango-Berry |
| Mountain Berry Punch | Oh-Yeah Orange-Pineapple | Orange | Piña-Pineapple | Pineapple-Grapefruit |
| Pink Lemonade | Pink Swimmingo | Punch | Purplesaurus Rex | Rainbow Punch |
| Raspberry | Red Fruit | Mountain Spring | Rock-A-Dile Red | Root Beer |
| Scary Blackberry (Halloween edition) | Scary Black Cherry (Halloween edition) | Sharkleberry Fin | Slammin' Strawberry Kiwi | Soarin' Strawberry-Lemonade |
| Soarin' Strawberry-Lemonade (sugar free) | Starry Strawberry Star Fruit | Strawberry | Strawberry Falls Punch | Strawberry Split |
| Strawberry Tea | Sunshine Punch | Surfin' Berry Punch | Swirlin' Strawberry Starfruit | Switchin' Secret |
| Tamarindo | Tangerine | Tropical Punch | Tropical Punch (sugar free) | Watermelon Kiwi |
| Wildberry Tea | Yabba Dabba Doo Berry |
Note: that some flavors appear under different names.
| Cola | Frutas (fruit punch) | Frutas Vermilhas | Grape Blackberry | Grosella (gooseberry/currant) |
| Guarana | Kolita | Lemon | Lemonade Sparkle | Orange Enerjooz |
| Berry Blue | Cherry | Grape |
| Lime | Strawberry Kiwi | Tropical Punch |
| Cherry | Cherry (sugar free) | Grape | Kiwi Strawberry |
| Kiwi Strawberry (sugar free) | Orange | Tropical Punch | Tropical Punch (sugar free) |
| Cherry | Grape | Tropical Punch |