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Kool-Aid is an artificially flavored soft drinkconcentrate made by Kraft Foods. Kool-Aid is sold as a powder to be mixed with water and a sweetener (sugar or an artificial sweetener). Some versions include the sweetener with the flavor concentrate, requiring only the addition of water.
Invention and production
Kool-Aid was invented by Gerard and 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 Kool-Ade (and a few years later, Kool-Aid due to a change in government regulations regarding the need for fruit juice in products using the term "Ade"). Perkins moved his production to Chicago in 1931 and Kool-Aid was sold to General Foods in 1953.
Other uses
OH YEAH!
Kool-Aid's high concentration of food coloring and its low retail cost (US$0.25 a packet as of 2006) has led some to use Kool-Aid to dye fabric and hair. Using a packet of Kool-aid, a spoonful of corn starch, and a small amount of water, a paste can be made and applied to the 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. It should be noted, though, that Kool-Aid is a permanent hair dye, and is very difficult (some say impossible) to remove even with bleach.
The 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 slogan or 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.
Kool-Aid points
Kool-Aid points are tiny boxes on the back of Kool-Aid packets that can be clipped out and later redeemed for prizes at the "Wacky Warehouse." Older versions of Kool-Aid points contained a picture of a Kool-Aid Man pitcher, the words PROOF-OF-PURCHASE, and a point value. Newer versions contain the Kool-Aid man's face, the words "Kool-Aid POINT", and a point value.
Generally, points would be collected and sent in with a Wacky Warehouse order form, along with money for shipping and handling. Typical prizes included mugs, t-shirts, boxer shorts, canteens, fannypacks , kazoos, hats, cassette players, etc and varied in point value. A cardboard bank was available to store Kool-Aid points in. When the flavor Purplesaurus Rex debuted, the point value on each packet was doubled.
Kool-Aid's website indicates that the Kool Points program will be discontinued as of 6/30/2007.
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 band 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 totally different 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.
"Drinking the Kool-Aid"
File:Purple punch.jpgContrary to popular belief, Kool-Aid was not used in the infamous punch at Jonestown
The idiomatic expression "drinking the Kool-Aid" was originally a reference to the Merry Pranksters, a group of people associated with novelist Ken Kesey who in the early 1960s travelled around the United States and held events called "Acid Tests", where LSD-laced Kool-Aid was passed out to the public (LSD was legal at that time). Those who "drank the Kool-Aid" passed the "Acid Test." "Drinking the Kool-Aid" in that context meant accepting the LSD drug culture, and the Pranksters' "turned on" point of view. These events were described in Tom Wolfe's 1968 classic, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
It is also now closely associated with the 1978 cult mass-suicide/murder in Jonestown, Guyana. Jim Jones, the leader of the Peoples Temple, 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," a large majority of the 913 people later found dead drank the brew. (The discrepancy between the idiom and the actual occurrence is likely due to Flavor Aid's relative obscurity versus the easily recognizable Kool-Aid.) The precise expression can be attested in usage at least as early as 1987.
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", or, as a cynical response to a fanatical claim, "sounds like someone's been drinking the Kool-Aid!").
In technology circles "drinking the Kool-Aid" is often used to describe the misguided or over-abundant enthusiasm someone has for their product and it's capabilities.
Kool-Aid in popular culture
Another phrase, "Kool-Aid Mom," is used to describe a mother in whose home her children's friends habitually congregate. The reference is used in a complimentary fashion, to imply that the mother creates a home-away-from-home atmosphere for her children's friends.
The phrase "drink the Kool-Aid" is commonly used to describe mindless following or supporting of an argument. It stems from a mass suicide involving the cult of Jim Jones, though the phrase mis-attributes the beverage: the incident actually involved Kool-Aid competitor Flavor Aid.
A "Kool-Aid Smile" is a sarcastic expression used by urban youth to describe a wide, childlike smile.
File:Koolaidfg.JPGCameo appearance of Kool-Aid Man on popular cartoon Family Guy. Recently, Kool-Aid and the Kool-Aid Man have made a comeback in the mainstream. In the first episode of the cartoon series Family Guy, the Kool-Aid man made a cameo appearance, while bursting through a wall of a courtroom after Peter is sentenced to serve jailtime for trying to give back the welfare money he accumulated. In a later episode of Family Guy called Peterotica, a man listening to a book on tape of one of Peter's Justin novels accidentally crashes his car through the Kool-Aid Man's wall, prompting the Kool-Aid Man to comment "You know, from the other side, that's kind of annoying..." Later, in the same episode, his wall is crashed through again just after he finished repairing it. He also appears in the Family Guy Movie, at the premiere in the opening frame, as the date of Drew You Barrymore. When asked by the press on the red carpet if "Things are going well with Drew", he replies with an "Oh yeah!"
Humor publication The Onion's book Our Dumb Century reports on the Jonestown massacre with the headline "Giant Anthropomorphic Juice Pitcher Among Victims Of Jonestown Suicide". (Note that Fla will vor Aid, not Kool-Aid, was used at Jonestown, and neither of these beverages actually even contain juice.)
Kool-Aid is the name of an album and a song by British band Big Audio Dynamite II, even though Kool-Aid is not officially die available in the UK.
The Kool-Aid Man also appears in strips from the webcomics The Perry Bible Fellowship (in the strip entitled "Kids Are Thirsty" ), Penny Arcade (in "Cultural References 'R Us" ), and Applegeeks.
A song by the band Team Sleep is titled "Kool-Aid Party". It features guest vocalist Mike Patton. It was, however, not released on any Team Sleep album.
Flavors
There are many different flavors and types of Kool-Aid.
