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Kool-Aid

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 203.214.39.185 (talk) at 11:59, 18 November 2005 (''Drinking the Kool-Aid'': standardising the look of "Flavor Aid"; wikipedia article for it appears not to include the hyphen.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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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's predecessor was a liquid concentrate called Fruit-Smack. To reduce shipping costs, in 1927, Edwin Perkins discovered a way to remove the liquid from Fruit-Smack, leaving only a powder. This powder was named Kool-Ade (and a few years later, Kool-Aid).

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Kool-Aid Man.

The mascot of Kool-Aid, Kool-Aid 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. In TV and print ads, Kool-Ad 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 made the official soft drink of Nebraska.

Other uses

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Cameo appearance of Kool-Aid Man on popular cartoon Family Guy.

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.

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.

Negative image

Kool-Aid is a drink commonly associated with America's poor due to its low cost. For example, the character "J.J." on the sitcom Good Times references drinking Kool-Aid (which is also his favorite beverage) for this very reason.

Drinking the Kool-Aid

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 embraced a particular philosophy or perspective (a "Kool-Aid drinker"). This usage is generally limited to those in or commenting on United States politics.

Kool-aid Comics

There were six 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. There were even two video games made for the Atari 2600 and the Mattel Intellivision, which were a tie-in with the comics. The games were considered very bad at the time, and they are one of the more scarce (but not necessarily rare) games to find for those systems.