May 26, 2026 • 44 mins
Back in the 1980s, Coca-Cola -- for reasons the public still can't agree on -- rolled out a controversial new formulation of their legendary, still-secret cola recipe. Public backlash in the south (and, weirdly enough, Monaco of all places) prompted a quick retraction, and a load of conspiracy theories. Tune in for the second sip of this special two-liter episode on the saga of New Coke, as Ben, Noel and Max unravel the rise and fall of 'New Coke', along with the various conspiracies that haunt this bizarre tale in the modern day.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
This is the second leader of a two leader episode
on New Coke. We've got to give We've got to
give a great shout out to our super producer, of course,
mister Max Williams, Max.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Full Calorie Soda Williams.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah, Max, full letter.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Uh done. It's your no brown at Bim Bullen.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
You ever done that thing where you drop a mentos
into a two liter of coke, or at.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Very least it on the internet.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I've definitely done that.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
You've done it, you maniac. You just want to watch
the world burn, don't you.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I don't want to watch it fizzle.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
There.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
There's this dude in particular that does Instagram videos where
he like sings a fun little jaunty song and then
drops a bunch of mentos into a cocam and sticks
his whole face.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
On it, and it just it's wild and nihilistic and
I love him so.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
One thing we should all know, fellow Ridiculous Historians, is
that my brother Noel here just did an amazing cool dance.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
It was. It was the fizzy math dance. I did
be accompanying sounded back.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Use your imagination, hands on either side of the face, uh,
facing in word with a little wiggle.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Noel is a really good dancer, folks, and we like
you taught me one time we were at some disreputable
Atlanta establishment.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
And you're the guy.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
You're the guy who told me, No, Ben, you've got
to throw shapes.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Throw them shapes. I'm a big fan of very small,
self contained dance moves. You know, it just really shows
that you got the confidence.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Well, I appreciate your brother, and we are we we're
sipping the second leader of a two leaders series on
the bizarre saga of New Coke. I want to be
completely transparent with everybody.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
You know, we were talking to Pepsi transparent crystal Pepsi
crystal gravy as well, because that was its own debacle.
That is very similar to New Coke, but it has
its own, honestly, dude, similar origins. I think Pepsi almost
like you know with like, oh wait, we need to
do a clear soda because the clear sodas we're more
(02:56):
associated with health, which is absurd obviously, because sprite has
just as much sugar as coke, if I'm not mistaken.
But we will recall in a little quick previously that
Coca Cola was reacting to PEPSI kind of eating their
lunch in terms of market share for full calorie sodas.
And there was a bit of a sea change in
(03:18):
the country where we talking, Ben, this is in the
ladies late in the mid eighties, towards a more health
conscious approach to consuming fizzybevs.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
And one thing I did not mention when I was
visibly drinking, audibly drinking a Coca Cola zero right, Just
so in our previous episode in this series. Guys, Noel,
you already know this because we hang out a lot.
But I quit drinking soda on a regular basis a
(03:53):
number of years ago. I went cold turkey, non carbonated
cold turkey, and I'm right, carbonated turkey, right. And I
was so as you'll recall, man, I was so freaked
out because sodo was so normalized to me that I
started to dream worse. I started to dream about Coca Cola.
(04:18):
The advertising got into my mind. I remember very real phenomenon, dude.
I remember specifically, I was in a fight with a
vampire lord right me with a long crucifix, them with
vampire powers, and part way through the fight, this is
a nightmare. This never happened, This is just a dream.
(04:39):
Part way through the fight in my own head, guys,
the vampire lord paused and said, let's take a time out,
and then drank a Coca Cola in front of me.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
Like, you know what I'm thinking about when you describe
your dream there, Ben, I feel like it was on
a cartoon or some commercial maybe, but is do you
know how they do spooky versions of commercials around the
Halloween season where there's a vampire who I know there's
one for sure, involving Reese's peanut butter cups, where it's like,
how do you eat a Reesa's and it's just to yeah,
(05:14):
the vampire teeth marks. But I also picture a vampire
rather than popping the top on a Coca Cola, just
sinking his fangs into it like a built in you know, opener,
which was weird.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
To be what I woke up, Like, why do my
nightmares of all things have commercial breaks. It's probably because
Coca Cola is such a giant corporate entity throughout the world,
and when we last left you with a dope sip
to tip to sure, we'll give it sure, all right.
(05:47):
Not everything's going to be a home.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Right, It can't all be Aliyah.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
So so what we last left you? Our CEO at
the time has this phenomenally Trump esque snippy conversation with
reporters at in April twenty third, nineteen eighty five press
conference in New York City, where he says, I did
(06:17):
not assume that New Coke is a success. This is
a success for a time it was, you know, like,
do you remember New Coke?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
I don't remember New Coke. I do remember Crystal Pepsi.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
And I think that tracks, you know, history wise, my
time on this planet, because it seems to me that
Crystal Pepsi would have been a couple of years later,
maybe even as many as five. But I do distinctly
remember the campaign around Crystal Pepsi and involving a song
by Van Hagar aka Van Halen, with Sammy Hagar as
(06:53):
a singer. Right now, Hey, no, Tom, come on, It's
like when they in soda to.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Inspire you.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Reason, Yeah, that magic moment.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
So we get out of here.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
We know that most of the people who were already
drinking Coca Cola. They kept drinking Coca Cola at the
same level they did before the change in the formula
and coke also, to their credit, conducted additional surveys, and
(07:30):
the surveys everything they were finding or telling themselves. They found.
Those surveys seemed to indicate most people did like this
new sweeter taste. They would drink it in the future.
Jolly good, tickety boo tally ho. Until you get to
(07:50):
the South. This is where it becomes a straight up
culture war. The Southeastern United States despises new Coke.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
They think it's Yankee stuff. South's got something to say,
and they said it in the form of strongly worded
letters and calls to the Coca Cola company. You ever
thought you ever even considered the idea of writing a
letter to a corporation complaining about a product. I just
can't imagine being that person. But you know, to to
the point we've been making, this is a cultural identity
(08:21):
issue when it comes to southerns.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Yeah, and I am that entity, Noel as you as
you know, we've talked about this on a couple of
other shows. I will take the time to write a letter,
send it in the post. I like to type them
handwritten seems a little too intimate.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Well, I mean, I'm not anti letter, I just it's
never really occurred to me to write a letter weird corporation.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
I'm a weird dude. It's weird to be that guy.
But you're you're absolutely right. The Southeastern United States in
particular was not having this. It became a straight up
culture war.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
There's an oft cited observation from a professor out Mississippi
who said, changing the formula of coke is a quote
intrusion on tradition, and Southern customers were also saying, why
did you all introduce this in New York? And then
(09:22):
other people were accusing Robert Roberto Guiseetta, the CEO of
the time. He was accused of being a Communist due
to his Cuban heritage.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Oh boy, well that's a bit of a sea. Uh huh,
it sure is been.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
But there's a really great quote that sums it up there.
And let's be frank real quick, guys, it ain't that deep.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (09:51):
Like it, It is funny how people get so bit
out of shape about stuff like this. But nostalgia as
we often point out is a hell of a drug
and one fella uh a guy named Andy Gribble, which
sounds like a character from a Tennessee pal rudebag a sketch.
Do check those out, by the way, on our sister
show Stuff they don't want you to know, it's weekly
(10:12):
listener mail at p show.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
He sounds very Andy. What's his name, Andy Moultberry Sandford
and suns.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, yeah, or like more like Andy Griffith.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I think Andy Griffith, I was trying to think of Yeah, and.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
I believe it's Grimbly is the name of the fictional
character that our pal Tennessee has dreamt up over on
Stuff I don't want you to know. So in Wisconsin,
the Washout Daily Herald reported on the trials and tribulations
of Andy Gribble. Andy, Andy Gribbley, he had this to say,
and I just love it. It's just so extra and
so melodramatic. Yeah, so much of my life is changing
(10:50):
outside of my control now. Coke the one thing left
from my childhood, the one thing I had left.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
It gave me joy, I added, that has been changed.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
How old is he?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
He's only nineteen. Then, he's had so much life to live.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
He's got no idea how how bad things in San Antonio.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
This is multiple It's so crazy. Oh god, it's like it's.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Like when you have a nephew who realizes that atheism
is an ideological stance and becomes insufferable in right. In
sananksgivings get weird. Oh they do. In San Antonio, multiple
mass media papers of the day found a guy named
(11:40):
Dan Luok l a U c K. The AJC founded
Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times,
New York.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
City Faily, New York Times.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
So this guy Dan bought his own coolers full of
so with him two restaurants pre new Coke.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, this is how coke. This how Yeah, this is
how addicted the guy was.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
He drank five cases of what we're gonna call old
coke per week.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
He was very particular, six point five ounce glass bottles.
Only he was above cans. And he to multiple reporters
hold new coke debut, quote the blackest day of my life,
continuing and said, you.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Got a lot of living left to do. My friends,
come on that this is as bad as it gets.
If this is your only speed bump in life. Tell
us where you're driving, because that's an awesome road. Dan continued,
and he said, from now on, my life will be
divided into BC and AC. Before the change of coke
(12:54):
and after the change. I honestly don't know what I'm
to do. Man. I really hope he figured it out
and got his life and drawn track.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Because this sounded like a real, a real stumbling block
for our buddy, Dan Lauk.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
On Papers Decide Your.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
Life, absolutely not a New Jersey newspaper themselves kind of
editorialized around some of this culture war Shenaniganry, citing that
the that coke was catering.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
To panty wastes. I thought, you panty wastes by abandoning
its macho bite. And this language is problematic at best,
but I will say I do love the burn and
the bite.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
You know. I can't imagine, though, how how does that
equal macho? And they weren't making it less fizzy, they
just made it a little sweeter.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I do kind of wish there was.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
An opportunity for us in the present day to taste
new Coke. I wonder if there's a vintage cans of
it available on the internet.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Yeah, like Ecto Coolers. We'll have to look it up
maybe for tangents and trivia.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
That's true, we'll get that info to you before the
end of the episode.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
And by the way, Ben, they do occasionally, much like
the seasonal McRib roll out, ecdo cooler from time to time.
If anyone doesn't know what that is of a certain age.
It was a Ghostbusters themed orange flavored non fizzy high
sea drink that had slimer on it. And I believe
(14:28):
it wasn't even green.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
It wasn't even green. I don't think packaging.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
The packaging was, but I don't think the juice was green.
I think they really missed an opportunity. That makes sense.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
We also have a problematic character, a hero. Some would say,
to introduce you to today, let's go to Seattle. There's
a retired real estate speculator going by the name of
and this is his actual name, Gay Mullins. Yeah, your
(15:04):
parents choose your names.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Uh, it's sort of a grandpa name.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
It's up there with you know.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
I I have a.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
I had two people in my Tennessee family who were
named Gaylord. They went by their middle names.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Gaylord's fancy name. That's for fancy.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
Boys who you know wear cravats and ascots, sometimes at
the same.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Times, yes, sometimes both. They they're the type of rock
two monocles at once.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Drinking a man julib on the porch on the random.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Get offended if you just ask him to buy glasses anyway.
Shout out to the gaylords, Shout out to gay mullins.
He formed a protest group called get This Old Cola
Drinkers of America or.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Or O C D.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
O CD perfect, Yeah there are.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
I don't mean to yuck anybody's young, but this is
some serious overreaction.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
If you just like, choose your battles, all right. Popeye's v.
Chick fil A another weirdly off based culture war.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
I walk it back though It's easy for me to
say that in hindsight. But if I really like coke
and all of a sudden they said no more coke
for you, the one that you know and love, I
might get a little bit out of shape too. And
it also reminds me of like how George Lucas went
out of his way to make sure that no one
could get the.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Pre original st D Star Wars movies.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
And I think they finally walked that back, but it
took years and years and years, and people did not
like that. And it's another good example of somebody in
charge not knowing what made their thing cool and good
in the first place.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
That happens pretty often, especially in podcasting.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
It's clearly happening here with this move fast and break
stuff CEO who can't seem to recognize that he's made
a horrible mistake.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
And we're also pre widespread internet. So our buddy the
speculator from Seattle, mister mullins. He sets up a hotline
where people can call and voice their complaints about New
Coke or voice their support for the old Cola drinkers
of America. He was interviewed in so many places, folks,
(17:24):
He told People Magazine, they meaning Coca Cola, have taken
away my freedom of choice. It's un American, and a
lot of people agreed with it. This is what you
talked about in your workdays, right, this is what you
talked about on your first dates. Coca Cola was so
(17:44):
worried that they hired a psychiatrist to get insight on
what was happening with this consumer response. The psychiatrist they
hired had to listen to the over fifteen hundred coals
a day to Coca Cola's official number one eight hundred
(18:05):
get coke.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah, that one on its own is a little funny.
It's like a yeah retros drug dealer hotliners.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
It does sound like it right, And the psychiatrist told
the top brass of Coca Cola, Hey, these callers sound
like they are talking about the death of a family member.
People tried to sue Coca Cola for new coke.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
You know, Ben, I really appreciate you mentioning the whole
pre internet of it all, because you know how quickly
the Internet turns on this kind of thing today. This
would not have lasted a day before they rolled it back,
or they would have teased it out a little bit
before they made the swap, and they would have just
known this is bad and this is not going to
(18:50):
work for us. But it's so interesting to see the
way these things play out. And it also makes sense
that it was thought to have been a success because
there is delayed reaction because we just don't get that
instantaneous feedback sands Internet.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Mm hmmm. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
And it's weird because outside of the South of the US,
outside of the southeastern United States. New coke was doing alright.
It was a particularly exciting competitor alternative to pepsi in
the West, specifically the Pacific Northwest. But here's where they misstepped. Now,
(19:32):
Hating on New Coke became a part of the zeitgeist.
It was fun to make fun of it. You're on
the Late Show. You're the host of the Late Show,
you make fun of new coke, right, and you're at
the water cooler and you guys bond over making fun
of New coke. This created a lot of skepticism in
(19:53):
potential international markets, especially Europe, and a lot of skepticism
in the man of coke itself. Some of the execs,
or the ZX as we call them now started to rebel.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
There's a mutiny of bruin. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
They were subtly arguing with friends and neighbors to reintroduce
the old formula of Coca cola just one month after
the rollout of new coke, and people were also hoarding
old coke. They were trying to they were trying to
order it from different companies or different suppliers in different countries.
(20:36):
Monaco was actually a very popular I don't know why,
but Monica was actually a very popular stronghold for old coke.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah and formacy.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
Neville Isdell wrote in a memoir Inside Coca Cola that
you could feel the tension at HQ, which was fielding
similar complaints, even from bottlers.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
And I just love the upstairs downstairs of all this,
who said they were ostracized at their hometown country clubs.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Not that much downstairs, is it, if you've got.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
A country club.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Yeah, no, it's pretty much all upstairs.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
One of our favorite quotes, Ben, that you found comes
from a hero of the day and Coke freedom fighter,
Gay Mullins, again a lead figure in the Battle of
New Cooke, who told reporters that he'd been planning to
move to Costa Rica before all of this went down.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Crazy.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
He said, and we're quoting here, Ben, the Declaration of
Independence and the Revolutionary War occurred because of taxation, without representation,
there was no freedom of choice. We went to war
to help England because another country was impinging on their
freedom of choice. I feel that this is a battle
of that magnitude.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, I don't know about that, mister Mullins.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
I appreciate your passion, but maybe you could take that
energy and put it into something that like matters.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Yeah, like library or public education in Costa Rica.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
This guy can really make a difference if he just
got his priority straight. Again, I know, hindsight and all
of that.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Everybody's got their thing, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
But there was this represented. This was not a minority voice.
No no, no, It really did start becoming an absolute
embarrassing fiasco for the Coca Cola Company.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Oh yeah, and our buddy Mullins is surfing the outcry
right at the crest of the wave. We have to
remember that, as you said, Noel, there were a lot
of ongoing lawsuits, especially from those third party bottlers who
remained pretty pod about having to make diet coke in
(22:48):
the first place. So with all this public backlash, Coca
Cola Company revers his course and they say, hey, everybody,
we're doing a conference. It's July eleventh, nineteen eighty five.
We're bringing back the original formula of Coca Cola. This
is just seventy nine days after the introduction of new coke,
(23:13):
and they still made this new formulation. They just called
it coke. Then starting in nineteen ninety they called it
coke two. But the returning purportedly original formula was called
Coca Cola Classic. Here's here's the thing, guys, that old
(23:34):
Coke returning Coca Cola Classic was indeed not the old Coke.
Give us a sound q Max, the conspiracies begin.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
I mean there's part of me that all along the
way I was thinking, I mean, it's just it doesn't
seem like very practical. But like, what if they did
this whole thing just to create a renewed surge of
aiation when they gave the people back what they wanted
in the first place.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
One of the most popular conspiracy theories.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Yeah, and rebranded it as Coca Cola Classic, which is
still what it's known as today.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
That is true.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
Yeah, Yeah, I think that's true. I think it's on
the on the can as Coke Classic.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
I only learned the phrase calling it the unleaded from
my dad, who would uh if he was partying, because
he never was a traditional partier, so his idea of
a big wild night out would to be drinking an
unleaded Coca Cola, which meant not diet, not zero. Anyway,
(24:42):
this is the truth. The pre New Coke coke was
made with cane sugar, which is why Mexican coke always
tastes better, right, But the new quote unquote old coke
was now made not with caine sugar, but with high
fructose corn syrup, and man, Big Sugar was pissed off.
(25:05):
They were super mad.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Yeah, and then this had to have been a business decision,
you know, to get around dependence on that industry. They
launched their own campaign arguing that this new stuff was
absolutely not the real thing. The Sugar Association in Washington,
DC a lobbying group, of course, for the beat and
cane sugar industry. I love that they're wrapped up and
(25:29):
won poor beet sugar. Poor nobody talks about beat sugar.
But apparently they're rolled up in that lobby as well.
They took out a full page add of multiple full
page ads in national newspapers that read the following, ben,
you found this and give it to us.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
The Old Cola Drinks of America is an organization that
monitors consumer responses to soft drinks and other products. Out
of July thirty first press conference, they turned their noses
up at Classic coke because it is sweetened with a
cheaper sweetener, corn syrup instead of sugar.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
America's sweetener, sugar, and boy oh boy, don't even get
us started on the corruption and horrific.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
History the sugar industry.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Do check out the podcast Big Sugar, an exploration of
the history and very fraught and problematic presence of the
sugar industry by Celeste Hedley.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
Also to jump in here real quick.
Speaker 6 (26:27):
Uh, since sugar Beet's gotta caught a stray there, sugar beets.
According to sugar dot org actual website, sugar beats the
coup of fifty total sugar produce in the United States.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Phones. He drops in the knowledge just for you.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
So good, there we go, No way, great everybody, Okay,
great job.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I'm sorry for those strays. Beat Sugar, I'm not so.
I do love a roasted beat.
Speaker 5 (27:02):
Beats are amazing. It's a great scene in start at
fifth nine about beats.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
I have a different relationship with them because for a
time in Central America, I could only afford rama latches,
the can the beats.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Oh that is it awful. That is not how you
get a relationship with beats.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Yeah, yeah, Well, we'll repair the reputation one day. I
hope they quote Big Sugar the Sugar Association, excuse us.
They quote Gabe Mullins saying, this is not the original formula,
This is not the coke of my youth. They were right.
For ninety four years. Coca Cola unleaded was in fact
(27:45):
the real thing. It was sweetened with cane sugar. As
we said, it was trusted across the world. But five
years ago, says the Sugar Association in these full page ads,
Coca Cola began quietly changing its formula five years ago,
astute listeners, way before this big reveal of new coke,
(28:11):
that the issue was that Gabe Mullins, despite being sort
of the point man of the protest against new coke,
he did not initially reveal that drinking old Coca Cola
had made him physically ill for a number of years.
He first said, maybe I'm getting older. But it seemed
(28:35):
whatever had changed about the old coke formula prior to
the new coke rollout was the culprit. Reporters learned there
was a secret switcheroo with the old stuff, and also
our guy, Gay Mullins, Our man Mullins, as the sugar
boys told him, turned out to be not so much
(28:58):
of a conscientious subjector not so much of a hero.
He was a grifter. Rule.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
Yeah, Yeah, our man Mullins wasn't the hero that we
made him out to being.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
We're doing a little bit of a twist ending here.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
It turns out his Old Cold Drinkers of America was
in fact a bit of a cash grab. He'd hoped
to cash in on the culture war. It does make
a lot of these really over the top statements start
to click a little more now in retrospect. By getting
either Pepsi, Coca Cola, or Big Sugar to pay him
off shut him up. Heck, he even privately asked Coke
(29:39):
to pay him two hundred grand to endorse New Old
Coke Make your Head Spent when it rolled out, and
they of course declined. When he realized that this was
not going to be a payday for him, he kind
of lost interest and the public outcry kind of faded away,
So it would seem, you know, I was sort of
in the moment just being like, who are these people?
(30:01):
And I think now the question maybe remains, who are
these people? Was this outcry entirely manufactured or was there
some actual, you know, humans that were genuinely upset about this?
Speaker 1 (30:15):
There were actual people who were actually upset but they
were empowered, radicalized, and their complaints is ascerbated by what
we call astroturfing campaigns.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
So remind us the non conspiracy listeners in the crowd
what astroturfing means.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
So astroturfing, excellent question is when a powerful organization attempts
to disguise itself as an organic grassroots movement. So like recycling, right, yeah,
check out our episodes on that. So astro turf versus grassroots.
(30:57):
That's the etymology.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
It has a lot in common with the idea of
crisis acting, and like flag attacks, it's sort of anything
that's done with the intent to deceive the public. I
believe into into thinking that there's a real, actual organic
on the ground response to something, but it is in
fact created for the benefit of the organization that it seems.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
To be opposing. In some ways, it's very.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Or for the obscured proxy benefit of a larger corporate power.
Like a lot of like a lot of maybe land
rights protest that seemed to be organic will ultimately be
sponsored and bankrolled by large corporations that want to conduct
(31:49):
resource extraction without environmental regulation. That happens all the time
in the United States and like you were saying, no,
our buddy y A mullens his grift doesn't work, so
he cancels massive planned protests without the support of Old
(32:09):
Cola Drinkers of America and similar other grifts, The public
outcry starts to fade away, and New Coke limp saw
it in one form or one name or another until
it is finally discontinued in July of two thousand and two.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
I had no idea.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
That log Yeah, dude, I had no idea.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
That's wild. We know that.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
In the wake of the death of New Coke Rip,
multiple conspiracy theories proliferated. Now no Yeti's one of our
favorite ones. It's the idea that Coke intentionally changed the
formula because they were losing to Pepsi and they always
(32:59):
planned to bring back Coca Cola Classic.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
It just seems so risky.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
It seems so risky, and like a lot of conspiracies
that are sort of easily debunked. Usually if there's like
this real circuitous route to get to a thing that
involves all kinds of moving parts, typically the the what
is it Rockham's razor of it all, like it just
doesn't really lend itself to being the way one would
(33:27):
go about accomplishing a goal like that, you know.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Right right, Like if there is some sort of Illuminati,
and there are a lot of cabals, but if there
is some sort of conspiratorial group of secret, very powerful people,
I really doubt any of them look around in their
avatoirs or in their boardrooms and say, you know what
(33:50):
I love about this plan. I love how fing complicated
it is. I love how we have multiple opportunities for
this plan to face. You guys know, I love mouse Trap,
the board game.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
I always just like triggering the trap. I don't think
I ever played I don't think I ever played the
game properly.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Reason and play the game. I don't think people really
play that game as like a tabletop RP.
Speaker 6 (34:17):
You played it before. The game is not very fun.
And the problem the game is you try to play
it and you actually bump the board.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
You just trigger off the Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
We we also know there are other conspiracy theories, one
of which would be that Coca Cola designed New Coke
to fail as a way to cover up that earlier
shift from sugar to high fructose corn syrup. And before
we get to our third conspiracy here, Please everybody, do
(34:51):
check out stuff they don't want you to know. Is
episode on America's Addiction to corn and no, you found
some hf CS facts for us.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
Well, I don't know, having a hard time parsing it out,
like it does seem that, you know, consuming too much sugar,
whether it's HFCs or you know, actual sugar which they
call added sugar, can lead to obviously excessive weight gain,
potential for diabetes, you know, empty calories, dental problems, et cetera,
(35:26):
cardiovascular disease, and excessive intake of fryctose from hyprotose corn
syrup or added sugars can increase liver fat, can lead
to things like fatty liver, can raise triglycerides in the body,
and can also contribute to things like insulin resistance. And
I think that the issue with hyrictose corn syrup is
(35:49):
that it's just like really potent, and it's almost like
if you're just consuming that on the regular, it's a
hell of a lot worse. And say you're just getting
normal organic sugars from like fruits, you know, and things
like that, so annie overly sugary or like sugar flavored beverages,
(36:09):
like sort of like putting a little sugar in your
coffee or whatever. I actually, my godmother was telling me
that her doctor, when she asked, should I what fault sweetener?
Should I use? Artificial sweeteners? Should I use? The doctor
actually recommended just using regular sugar. So there's even a
whole we should do this stuff that I want you
to know sometime all of the various conspiracies around artificial sweeteners.
(36:32):
But I was interested to hear that the doctor recommended just,
you know, moderate use of regular, regular, regular sugar.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Yeah, fructose metabolizes differently. Please check check out our earlier
episode how corn took over America back from I want
to say twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
But well, and we have to think about the behind
the scenes pivot of like what it means for a
big corporation like Coke to pivot to corn syrup away
from being imbedded sugar.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
And hundreds of millions of dollars big sugar.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
So pissed.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
Yeah, but I'm saying like they had a reason because
it was more cost effective for them, and that also
led to this increased reliance on corn based products.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
And then of course we've got ethanol and things.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Of course, we have ethanol and flex fuel, and we
also have a third conspiracy around this bizarre saga of
new coke. There are people now who will tell you
with a straight face that it was actually a move
to get rid of all the Coca derivatives and to
(37:38):
swash the DEA under the Reagan administration's heightened war on drugs.
So we talked plausible. Well, no, you mentioned in our
first leader here that there is a processing mechanism with
Coca Cola today that will take out all the cocaine
(38:01):
of the coca plant, right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
Ben, And actually after the fact, when we finished recording
the episode, dug around a little bit and found the
article that I was thinking of. Coca Cola produced as
three billion dollars worth of pure cocaine every single year
that gets processed extracted from you know, the product that
they end up using to make the drink, and then
(38:23):
it is chipped to a massive pharmaceutical manufacturing company that
uses it for topical anesthesia.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
All right, that makes sense, And none of these conspiracies
can be conclusively proven. In fact, a lot of these
theories and similar theories can be debunked pretty easily. But
They're still fun to think about. This is the end
of the saga. What we can tell you is this
New Coke's failure was due to a number of factors,
(38:56):
but it genuinely seems the primary issue of that failure
was not taste. It was cultural identity. No people were
ready to lash out at something, and this new spin
on their beloved nostalgia ridden sugary standby just happened to
be in the right place at the wrong or the
(39:18):
perfect tide, you know what I mean, something to get
mad at.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
Oh gosh, yeah, people love flexing righteous indignation.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Ben, I love this fact that you found.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
If we're wrapping up and talking about New Coke for
a new generation and the nostalgia play of it all
and like the big business of nostalgia. On May twenty first,
in twenty nineteen, Coke Coal Company announced that they were
going to reissue or do a special drop of New
Coke as a tie in for the very nostalgia driven
(39:51):
Netflix series Stranger Thing.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
That is correct, and some of us may remember, if
you're a Stranger Things fan, some of us may remember,
there's a moment where I think it's the character Dustin
who drinks a new coke and says I think it's good.
I don't think it's that bad, and his whole crew goes,
what the heck is here? Get it out here. Yeah.
(40:18):
We also know, as we're wrapping up, that Coca Cola
does clean pennies due to phosphoric acid.
Speaker 4 (40:25):
Well, it'll also dissolve corrosion off of your battery terminals.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
And that is true.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
Oh, well done, Yeah, that is true.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Did you ever have to do that? I have had that.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
I have done that before, and it works like a
charm and it's real satisfying to watch it is.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
It's a cool science experiment at home. We also know that,
to be fair, folks, if you're hearing about this saga
and you're worried about the Coca Cola company, don't just
don't worry about them. They own way more brands than
you might imagine. They control soft drinks, water, sports drinks, coffee, tea, juice,
(41:06):
even dairy products. Coca Cola is all up in your refrigerator.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
I think they even not that recently, but in the
last five years acquired Topo Chico, which is a delightful
mineral water that for a long time felt a little
more regional and kind of special. But it's another good
example of a giant corporation, sort of like the micro
breweries acquired by bush Mills, still keeping the old school
(41:31):
packaging and not making a big show of the fact
that they acquired it.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
It just all of a sudden becomes more available.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Yeah, they own Sprite, They own Fanta, which I think
should be an episode in its own right.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
We've talked about Fanta, I believe.
Speaker 4 (41:47):
I don't know if it was as I mentioned in
another episode, but we talked about the apple scraps in
the wartime of wait.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
For an episode in its own Reich.
Speaker 4 (41:56):
Oh that's right, Yeah, do dig through the archives. I'm
certain that we've done something about the history of fantas
super interesting.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Absolutely, and folks, thank you so much for tuning in.
We are big fans of soda in particular. We are
big supporters of learning hidden history. And you know what,
I was looking back and I asked my parents if
they had ever tried a new coke and they said
(42:27):
they did.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
It was too.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Sweet, but it was a culture war. Here endeth the Saka.
We can't wait for your input, folks. Please do check
out our earlier episode on discontinued sodas throughout history and
big big thanks to our super producer, mister Max new
Coke Williams, Max Nolan and I are going to lie
(42:51):
about you every time you're not around. We're gonna say
the only soda that Max drinks is Vintage New Coke.
Speaker 6 (43:00):
I mean, considering I was not even born when this
came out, I think giving me another chance to job
how much younger I am than y'all I am.
Speaker 5 (43:09):
I'm fine with that rumor because I can quickly and
easily disprove it.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
We'll see. Sometimes you become the monsters you hunt.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Max.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
All right, that's a little cryptic, big thanks to you.
Speaking of monsters we hunt, big thanks to Jonathan Strickland
aka the Quist Noel who else? Who else?
Speaker 4 (43:27):
Well, Geez Louise Ben Christopherrasiotis's name is Jeff Coats.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Here in spirit a j Bahamas Jacobs, the Puzzler. I'm
gonna do one of yours this time. Rachel Big Spinach Lands.
Speaker 4 (43:36):
The doctor of underwater explosions, who we reference at the
end of every episode despite her only having been on
the show twice.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Right right, world expert in underwater explosions. Big thanks also
to the rude dudes of Ridiculous Crime. If you dig us,
you will dig the Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Joined us in the near future when
we explore the trials and travails of a little thing
(44:05):
called Santa Con. I've been our research associate for this
episode at Noel. Thank you man. What's the last soa
you drink?
Speaker 4 (44:15):
Like I said, I'm a DDP man, Yeah, diet doctor
paptro I haven't had one this week, but I really
do like making myself a little pomegranate sprits, So I'm
a Lacroix boy.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 4 (44:33):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
This is the second leader of a two leader episode
on New Coke. We've got to give We've got to
give a great shout out to our super producer, of course,
mister Max Williams, Max.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Full Calorie Soda Williams.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah, Max, full letter.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Uh done. It's your no brown at Bim Bullen.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
You ever done that thing where you drop a mentos
into a two liter of coke, or at.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Very least it on the internet.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I've definitely done that.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
You've done it, you maniac. You just want to watch
the world burn, don't you.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I don't want to watch it fizzle.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
There.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
There's this dude in particular that does Instagram videos where
he like sings a fun little jaunty song and then
drops a bunch of mentos into a cocam and sticks
his whole face.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
On it, and it just it's wild and nihilistic and
I love him so.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
One thing we should all know, fellow Ridiculous Historians, is
that my brother Noel here just did an amazing cool dance.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
It was. It was the fizzy math dance. I did
be accompanying sounded back.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Use your imagination, hands on either side of the face, uh,
facing in word with a little wiggle.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Noel is a really good dancer, folks, and we like
you taught me one time we were at some disreputable
Atlanta establishment.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
And you're the guy.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
You're the guy who told me, No, Ben, you've got
to throw shapes.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Throw them shapes. I'm a big fan of very small,
self contained dance moves. You know, it just really shows
that you got the confidence.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Well, I appreciate your brother, and we are we we're
sipping the second leader of a two leaders series on
the bizarre saga of New Coke. I want to be
completely transparent with everybody.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
You know, we were talking to Pepsi transparent crystal Pepsi
crystal gravy as well, because that was its own debacle.
That is very similar to New Coke, but it has
its own, honestly, dude, similar origins. I think Pepsi almost
like you know with like, oh wait, we need to
do a clear soda because the clear sodas we're more
(02:56):
associated with health, which is absurd obviously, because sprite has
just as much sugar as coke, if I'm not mistaken.
But we will recall in a little quick previously that
Coca Cola was reacting to PEPSI kind of eating their
lunch in terms of market share for full calorie sodas.
And there was a bit of a sea change in
(03:18):
the country where we talking, Ben, this is in the
ladies late in the mid eighties, towards a more health
conscious approach to consuming fizzybevs.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
And one thing I did not mention when I was
visibly drinking, audibly drinking a Coca Cola zero right, Just
so in our previous episode in this series. Guys, Noel,
you already know this because we hang out a lot.
But I quit drinking soda on a regular basis a
(03:53):
number of years ago. I went cold turkey, non carbonated
cold turkey, and I'm right, carbonated turkey, right. And I
was so as you'll recall, man, I was so freaked
out because sodo was so normalized to me that I
started to dream worse. I started to dream about Coca Cola.
(04:18):
The advertising got into my mind. I remember very real phenomenon, dude.
I remember specifically, I was in a fight with a
vampire lord right me with a long crucifix, them with
vampire powers, and part way through the fight, this is
a nightmare. This never happened, This is just a dream.
(04:39):
Part way through the fight in my own head, guys,
the vampire lord paused and said, let's take a time out,
and then drank a Coca Cola in front of me.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
Like, you know what I'm thinking about when you describe
your dream there, Ben, I feel like it was on
a cartoon or some commercial maybe, but is do you
know how they do spooky versions of commercials around the
Halloween season where there's a vampire who I know there's
one for sure, involving Reese's peanut butter cups, where it's like,
how do you eat a Reesa's and it's just to yeah,
(05:14):
the vampire teeth marks. But I also picture a vampire
rather than popping the top on a Coca Cola, just
sinking his fangs into it like a built in you know, opener,
which was weird.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
To be what I woke up, Like, why do my
nightmares of all things have commercial breaks. It's probably because
Coca Cola is such a giant corporate entity throughout the world,
and when we last left you with a dope sip
to tip to sure, we'll give it sure, all right.
(05:47):
Not everything's going to be a home.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Right, It can't all be Aliyah.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
So so what we last left you? Our CEO at
the time has this phenomenally Trump esque snippy conversation with
reporters at in April twenty third, nineteen eighty five press
conference in New York City, where he says, I did
(06:17):
not assume that New Coke is a success. This is
a success for a time it was, you know, like,
do you remember New Coke?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
I don't remember New Coke. I do remember Crystal Pepsi.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
And I think that tracks, you know, history wise, my
time on this planet, because it seems to me that
Crystal Pepsi would have been a couple of years later,
maybe even as many as five. But I do distinctly
remember the campaign around Crystal Pepsi and involving a song
by Van Hagar aka Van Halen, with Sammy Hagar as
(06:53):
a singer. Right now, Hey, no, Tom, come on, It's
like when they in soda to.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Inspire you.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Reason, Yeah, that magic moment.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
So we get out of here.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
We know that most of the people who were already
drinking Coca Cola. They kept drinking Coca Cola at the
same level they did before the change in the formula
and coke also, to their credit, conducted additional surveys, and
(07:30):
the surveys everything they were finding or telling themselves. They found.
Those surveys seemed to indicate most people did like this
new sweeter taste. They would drink it in the future.
Jolly good, tickety boo tally ho. Until you get to
(07:50):
the South. This is where it becomes a straight up
culture war. The Southeastern United States despises new Coke.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
They think it's Yankee stuff. South's got something to say,
and they said it in the form of strongly worded
letters and calls to the Coca Cola company. You ever
thought you ever even considered the idea of writing a
letter to a corporation complaining about a product. I just
can't imagine being that person. But you know, to to
the point we've been making, this is a cultural identity
(08:21):
issue when it comes to southerns.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Yeah, and I am that entity, Noel as you as
you know, we've talked about this on a couple of
other shows. I will take the time to write a letter,
send it in the post. I like to type them
handwritten seems a little too intimate.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Well, I mean, I'm not anti letter, I just it's
never really occurred to me to write a letter weird corporation.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
I'm a weird dude. It's weird to be that guy.
But you're you're absolutely right. The Southeastern United States in
particular was not having this. It became a straight up
culture war.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
There's an oft cited observation from a professor out Mississippi
who said, changing the formula of coke is a quote
intrusion on tradition, and Southern customers were also saying, why
did you all introduce this in New York? And then
(09:22):
other people were accusing Robert Roberto Guiseetta, the CEO of
the time. He was accused of being a Communist due
to his Cuban heritage.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Oh boy, well that's a bit of a sea. Uh huh,
it sure is been.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
But there's a really great quote that sums it up there.
And let's be frank real quick, guys, it ain't that deep.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (09:51):
Like it, It is funny how people get so bit
out of shape about stuff like this. But nostalgia as
we often point out is a hell of a drug
and one fella uh a guy named Andy Gribble, which
sounds like a character from a Tennessee pal rudebag a sketch.
Do check those out, by the way, on our sister
show Stuff they don't want you to know, it's weekly
(10:12):
listener mail at p show.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
He sounds very Andy. What's his name, Andy Moultberry Sandford
and suns.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, yeah, or like more like Andy Griffith.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I think Andy Griffith, I was trying to think of Yeah, and.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
I believe it's Grimbly is the name of the fictional
character that our pal Tennessee has dreamt up over on
Stuff I don't want you to know. So in Wisconsin,
the Washout Daily Herald reported on the trials and tribulations
of Andy Gribble. Andy, Andy Gribbley, he had this to say,
and I just love it. It's just so extra and
so melodramatic. Yeah, so much of my life is changing
(10:50):
outside of my control now. Coke the one thing left
from my childhood, the one thing I had left.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
It gave me joy, I added, that has been changed.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
How old is he?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
He's only nineteen. Then, he's had so much life to live.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
He's got no idea how how bad things in San Antonio.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
This is multiple It's so crazy. Oh god, it's like it's.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Like when you have a nephew who realizes that atheism
is an ideological stance and becomes insufferable in right. In
sananksgivings get weird. Oh they do. In San Antonio, multiple
mass media papers of the day found a guy named
(11:40):
Dan Luok l a U c K. The AJC founded
Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times,
New York.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
City Faily, New York Times.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
So this guy Dan bought his own coolers full of
so with him two restaurants pre new Coke.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, this is how coke. This how Yeah, this is
how addicted the guy was.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
He drank five cases of what we're gonna call old
coke per week.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
He was very particular, six point five ounce glass bottles.
Only he was above cans. And he to multiple reporters
hold new coke debut, quote the blackest day of my life,
continuing and said, you.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Got a lot of living left to do. My friends,
come on that this is as bad as it gets.
If this is your only speed bump in life. Tell
us where you're driving, because that's an awesome road. Dan continued,
and he said, from now on, my life will be
divided into BC and AC. Before the change of coke
(12:54):
and after the change. I honestly don't know what I'm
to do. Man. I really hope he figured it out
and got his life and drawn track.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Because this sounded like a real, a real stumbling block
for our buddy, Dan Lauk.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
On Papers Decide Your.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
Life, absolutely not a New Jersey newspaper themselves kind of
editorialized around some of this culture war Shenaniganry, citing that
the that coke was catering.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
To panty wastes. I thought, you panty wastes by abandoning
its macho bite. And this language is problematic at best,
but I will say I do love the burn and
the bite.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
You know. I can't imagine, though, how how does that
equal macho? And they weren't making it less fizzy, they
just made it a little sweeter.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I do kind of wish there was.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
An opportunity for us in the present day to taste
new Coke. I wonder if there's a vintage cans of
it available on the internet.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Yeah, like Ecto Coolers. We'll have to look it up
maybe for tangents and trivia.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
That's true, we'll get that info to you before the
end of the episode.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
And by the way, Ben, they do occasionally, much like
the seasonal McRib roll out, ecdo cooler from time to time.
If anyone doesn't know what that is of a certain age.
It was a Ghostbusters themed orange flavored non fizzy high
sea drink that had slimer on it. And I believe
(14:28):
it wasn't even green.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
It wasn't even green. I don't think packaging.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
The packaging was, but I don't think the juice was green.
I think they really missed an opportunity. That makes sense.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
We also have a problematic character, a hero. Some would say,
to introduce you to today, let's go to Seattle. There's
a retired real estate speculator going by the name of
and this is his actual name, Gay Mullins. Yeah, your
(15:04):
parents choose your names.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Uh, it's sort of a grandpa name.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
It's up there with you know.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
I I have a.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
I had two people in my Tennessee family who were
named Gaylord. They went by their middle names.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Gaylord's fancy name. That's for fancy.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
Boys who you know wear cravats and ascots, sometimes at
the same.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Times, yes, sometimes both. They they're the type of rock
two monocles at once.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Drinking a man julib on the porch on the random.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Get offended if you just ask him to buy glasses anyway.
Shout out to the gaylords, Shout out to gay mullins.
He formed a protest group called get This Old Cola
Drinkers of America or.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Or O C D.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
O CD perfect, Yeah there are.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
I don't mean to yuck anybody's young, but this is
some serious overreaction.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
If you just like, choose your battles, all right. Popeye's v.
Chick fil A another weirdly off based culture war.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
I walk it back though It's easy for me to
say that in hindsight. But if I really like coke
and all of a sudden they said no more coke
for you, the one that you know and love, I
might get a little bit out of shape too. And
it also reminds me of like how George Lucas went
out of his way to make sure that no one
could get the.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Pre original st D Star Wars movies.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
And I think they finally walked that back, but it
took years and years and years, and people did not
like that. And it's another good example of somebody in
charge not knowing what made their thing cool and good
in the first place.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
That happens pretty often, especially in podcasting.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
It's clearly happening here with this move fast and break
stuff CEO who can't seem to recognize that he's made
a horrible mistake.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
And we're also pre widespread internet. So our buddy the
speculator from Seattle, mister mullins. He sets up a hotline
where people can call and voice their complaints about New
Coke or voice their support for the old Cola drinkers
of America. He was interviewed in so many places, folks,
(17:24):
He told People Magazine, they meaning Coca Cola, have taken
away my freedom of choice. It's un American, and a
lot of people agreed with it. This is what you
talked about in your workdays, right, this is what you
talked about on your first dates. Coca Cola was so
(17:44):
worried that they hired a psychiatrist to get insight on
what was happening with this consumer response. The psychiatrist they
hired had to listen to the over fifteen hundred coals
a day to Coca Cola's official number one eight hundred
(18:05):
get coke.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah, that one on its own is a little funny.
It's like a yeah retros drug dealer hotliners.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
It does sound like it right, And the psychiatrist told
the top brass of Coca Cola, Hey, these callers sound
like they are talking about the death of a family member.
People tried to sue Coca Cola for new coke.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
You know, Ben, I really appreciate you mentioning the whole
pre internet of it all, because you know how quickly
the Internet turns on this kind of thing today. This
would not have lasted a day before they rolled it back,
or they would have teased it out a little bit
before they made the swap, and they would have just
known this is bad and this is not going to
(18:50):
work for us. But it's so interesting to see the
way these things play out. And it also makes sense
that it was thought to have been a success because
there is delayed reaction because we just don't get that
instantaneous feedback sands Internet.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Mm hmmm. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
And it's weird because outside of the South of the US,
outside of the southeastern United States. New coke was doing alright.
It was a particularly exciting competitor alternative to pepsi in
the West, specifically the Pacific Northwest. But here's where they misstepped. Now,
(19:32):
Hating on New Coke became a part of the zeitgeist.
It was fun to make fun of it. You're on
the Late Show. You're the host of the Late Show,
you make fun of new coke, right, and you're at
the water cooler and you guys bond over making fun
of New coke. This created a lot of skepticism in
(19:53):
potential international markets, especially Europe, and a lot of skepticism
in the man of coke itself. Some of the execs,
or the ZX as we call them now started to rebel.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
There's a mutiny of bruin. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
They were subtly arguing with friends and neighbors to reintroduce
the old formula of Coca cola just one month after
the rollout of new coke, and people were also hoarding
old coke. They were trying to they were trying to
order it from different companies or different suppliers in different countries.
(20:36):
Monaco was actually a very popular I don't know why,
but Monica was actually a very popular stronghold for old coke.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah and formacy.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
Neville Isdell wrote in a memoir Inside Coca Cola that
you could feel the tension at HQ, which was fielding
similar complaints, even from bottlers.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
And I just love the upstairs downstairs of all this,
who said they were ostracized at their hometown country clubs.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Not that much downstairs, is it, if you've got.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
A country club.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Yeah, no, it's pretty much all upstairs.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
One of our favorite quotes, Ben, that you found comes
from a hero of the day and Coke freedom fighter,
Gay Mullins, again a lead figure in the Battle of
New Cooke, who told reporters that he'd been planning to
move to Costa Rica before all of this went down.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Crazy.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
He said, and we're quoting here, Ben, the Declaration of
Independence and the Revolutionary War occurred because of taxation, without representation,
there was no freedom of choice. We went to war
to help England because another country was impinging on their
freedom of choice. I feel that this is a battle
of that magnitude.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, I don't know about that, mister Mullins.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
I appreciate your passion, but maybe you could take that
energy and put it into something that like matters.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Yeah, like library or public education in Costa Rica.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
This guy can really make a difference if he just
got his priority straight. Again, I know, hindsight and all
of that.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Everybody's got their thing, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
But there was this represented. This was not a minority voice.
No no, no, It really did start becoming an absolute
embarrassing fiasco for the Coca Cola Company.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Oh yeah, and our buddy Mullins is surfing the outcry
right at the crest of the wave. We have to
remember that, as you said, Noel, there were a lot
of ongoing lawsuits, especially from those third party bottlers who
remained pretty pod about having to make diet coke in
(22:48):
the first place. So with all this public backlash, Coca
Cola Company revers his course and they say, hey, everybody,
we're doing a conference. It's July eleventh, nineteen eighty five.
We're bringing back the original formula of Coca Cola. This
is just seventy nine days after the introduction of new coke,
(23:13):
and they still made this new formulation. They just called
it coke. Then starting in nineteen ninety they called it
coke two. But the returning purportedly original formula was called
Coca Cola Classic. Here's here's the thing, guys, that old
(23:34):
Coke returning Coca Cola Classic was indeed not the old Coke.
Give us a sound q Max, the conspiracies begin.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
I mean there's part of me that all along the
way I was thinking, I mean, it's just it doesn't
seem like very practical. But like, what if they did
this whole thing just to create a renewed surge of
aiation when they gave the people back what they wanted
in the first place.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
One of the most popular conspiracy theories.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Yeah, and rebranded it as Coca Cola Classic, which is
still what it's known as today.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
That is true.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
Yeah, Yeah, I think that's true. I think it's on
the on the can as Coke Classic.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
I only learned the phrase calling it the unleaded from
my dad, who would uh if he was partying, because
he never was a traditional partier, so his idea of
a big wild night out would to be drinking an
unleaded Coca Cola, which meant not diet, not zero. Anyway,
(24:42):
this is the truth. The pre New Coke coke was
made with cane sugar, which is why Mexican coke always
tastes better, right, But the new quote unquote old coke
was now made not with caine sugar, but with high
fructose corn syrup, and man, Big Sugar was pissed off.
(25:05):
They were super mad.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Yeah, and then this had to have been a business decision,
you know, to get around dependence on that industry. They
launched their own campaign arguing that this new stuff was
absolutely not the real thing. The Sugar Association in Washington,
DC a lobbying group, of course, for the beat and
cane sugar industry. I love that they're wrapped up and
(25:29):
won poor beet sugar. Poor nobody talks about beat sugar.
But apparently they're rolled up in that lobby as well.
They took out a full page add of multiple full
page ads in national newspapers that read the following, ben,
you found this and give it to us.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
The Old Cola Drinks of America is an organization that
monitors consumer responses to soft drinks and other products. Out
of July thirty first press conference, they turned their noses
up at Classic coke because it is sweetened with a
cheaper sweetener, corn syrup instead of sugar.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
America's sweetener, sugar, and boy oh boy, don't even get
us started on the corruption and horrific.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
History the sugar industry.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Do check out the podcast Big Sugar, an exploration of
the history and very fraught and problematic presence of the
sugar industry by Celeste Hedley.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
Also to jump in here real quick.
Speaker 6 (26:27):
Uh, since sugar Beet's gotta caught a stray there, sugar beets.
According to sugar dot org actual website, sugar beats the
coup of fifty total sugar produce in the United States.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Phones. He drops in the knowledge just for you.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
So good, there we go, No way, great everybody, Okay,
great job.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I'm sorry for those strays. Beat Sugar, I'm not so.
I do love a roasted beat.
Speaker 5 (27:02):
Beats are amazing. It's a great scene in start at
fifth nine about beats.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
I have a different relationship with them because for a
time in Central America, I could only afford rama latches,
the can the beats.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Oh that is it awful. That is not how you
get a relationship with beats.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Yeah, yeah, Well, we'll repair the reputation one day. I
hope they quote Big Sugar the Sugar Association, excuse us.
They quote Gabe Mullins saying, this is not the original formula,
This is not the coke of my youth. They were right.
For ninety four years. Coca Cola unleaded was in fact
(27:45):
the real thing. It was sweetened with cane sugar. As
we said, it was trusted across the world. But five
years ago, says the Sugar Association in these full page ads,
Coca Cola began quietly changing its formula five years ago,
astute listeners, way before this big reveal of new coke,
(28:11):
that the issue was that Gabe Mullins, despite being sort
of the point man of the protest against new coke,
he did not initially reveal that drinking old Coca Cola
had made him physically ill for a number of years.
He first said, maybe I'm getting older. But it seemed
(28:35):
whatever had changed about the old coke formula prior to
the new coke rollout was the culprit. Reporters learned there
was a secret switcheroo with the old stuff, and also
our guy, Gay Mullins, Our man Mullins, as the sugar
boys told him, turned out to be not so much
(28:58):
of a conscientious subjector not so much of a hero.
He was a grifter. Rule.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
Yeah, Yeah, our man Mullins wasn't the hero that we
made him out to being.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
We're doing a little bit of a twist ending here.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
It turns out his Old Cold Drinkers of America was
in fact a bit of a cash grab. He'd hoped
to cash in on the culture war. It does make
a lot of these really over the top statements start
to click a little more now in retrospect. By getting
either Pepsi, Coca Cola, or Big Sugar to pay him
off shut him up. Heck, he even privately asked Coke
(29:39):
to pay him two hundred grand to endorse New Old
Coke Make your Head Spent when it rolled out, and
they of course declined. When he realized that this was
not going to be a payday for him, he kind
of lost interest and the public outcry kind of faded away,
So it would seem, you know, I was sort of
in the moment just being like, who are these people?
(30:01):
And I think now the question maybe remains, who are
these people? Was this outcry entirely manufactured or was there
some actual, you know, humans that were genuinely upset about this?
Speaker 1 (30:15):
There were actual people who were actually upset but they
were empowered, radicalized, and their complaints is ascerbated by what
we call astroturfing campaigns.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
So remind us the non conspiracy listeners in the crowd
what astroturfing means.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
So astroturfing, excellent question is when a powerful organization attempts
to disguise itself as an organic grassroots movement. So like recycling, right, yeah,
check out our episodes on that. So astro turf versus grassroots.
(30:57):
That's the etymology.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
It has a lot in common with the idea of
crisis acting, and like flag attacks, it's sort of anything
that's done with the intent to deceive the public. I
believe into into thinking that there's a real, actual organic
on the ground response to something, but it is in
fact created for the benefit of the organization that it seems.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
To be opposing. In some ways, it's very.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Or for the obscured proxy benefit of a larger corporate power.
Like a lot of like a lot of maybe land
rights protest that seemed to be organic will ultimately be
sponsored and bankrolled by large corporations that want to conduct
(31:49):
resource extraction without environmental regulation. That happens all the time
in the United States and like you were saying, no,
our buddy y A mullens his grift doesn't work, so
he cancels massive planned protests without the support of Old
(32:09):
Cola Drinkers of America and similar other grifts, The public
outcry starts to fade away, and New Coke limp saw
it in one form or one name or another until
it is finally discontinued in July of two thousand and two.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
I had no idea.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
That log Yeah, dude, I had no idea.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
That's wild. We know that.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
In the wake of the death of New Coke Rip,
multiple conspiracy theories proliferated. Now no Yeti's one of our
favorite ones. It's the idea that Coke intentionally changed the
formula because they were losing to Pepsi and they always
(32:59):
planned to bring back Coca Cola Classic.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
It just seems so risky.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
It seems so risky, and like a lot of conspiracies
that are sort of easily debunked. Usually if there's like
this real circuitous route to get to a thing that
involves all kinds of moving parts, typically the the what
is it Rockham's razor of it all, like it just
doesn't really lend itself to being the way one would
(33:27):
go about accomplishing a goal like that, you know.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Right right, Like if there is some sort of Illuminati,
and there are a lot of cabals, but if there
is some sort of conspiratorial group of secret, very powerful people,
I really doubt any of them look around in their
avatoirs or in their boardrooms and say, you know what
(33:50):
I love about this plan. I love how fing complicated
it is. I love how we have multiple opportunities for
this plan to face. You guys know, I love mouse Trap,
the board game.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
I always just like triggering the trap. I don't think
I ever played I don't think I ever played the
game properly.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Reason and play the game. I don't think people really
play that game as like a tabletop RP.
Speaker 6 (34:17):
You played it before. The game is not very fun.
And the problem the game is you try to play
it and you actually bump the board.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
You just trigger off the Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
We we also know there are other conspiracy theories, one
of which would be that Coca Cola designed New Coke
to fail as a way to cover up that earlier
shift from sugar to high fructose corn syrup. And before
we get to our third conspiracy here, Please everybody, do
(34:51):
check out stuff they don't want you to know. Is
episode on America's Addiction to corn and no, you found
some hf CS facts for us.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
Well, I don't know, having a hard time parsing it out,
like it does seem that, you know, consuming too much sugar,
whether it's HFCs or you know, actual sugar which they
call added sugar, can lead to obviously excessive weight gain,
potential for diabetes, you know, empty calories, dental problems, et cetera,
(35:26):
cardiovascular disease, and excessive intake of fryctose from hyprotose corn
syrup or added sugars can increase liver fat, can lead
to things like fatty liver, can raise triglycerides in the body,
and can also contribute to things like insulin resistance. And
I think that the issue with hyrictose corn syrup is
(35:49):
that it's just like really potent, and it's almost like
if you're just consuming that on the regular, it's a
hell of a lot worse. And say you're just getting
normal organic sugars from like fruits, you know, and things
like that, so annie overly sugary or like sugar flavored beverages,
(36:09):
like sort of like putting a little sugar in your
coffee or whatever. I actually, my godmother was telling me
that her doctor, when she asked, should I what fault sweetener?
Should I use? Artificial sweeteners? Should I use? The doctor
actually recommended just using regular sugar. So there's even a
whole we should do this stuff that I want you
to know sometime all of the various conspiracies around artificial sweeteners.
(36:32):
But I was interested to hear that the doctor recommended just,
you know, moderate use of regular, regular, regular sugar.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Yeah, fructose metabolizes differently. Please check check out our earlier
episode how corn took over America back from I want
to say twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
But well, and we have to think about the behind
the scenes pivot of like what it means for a
big corporation like Coke to pivot to corn syrup away
from being imbedded sugar.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
And hundreds of millions of dollars big sugar.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
So pissed.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
Yeah, but I'm saying like they had a reason because
it was more cost effective for them, and that also
led to this increased reliance on corn based products.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
And then of course we've got ethanol and things.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Of course, we have ethanol and flex fuel, and we
also have a third conspiracy around this bizarre saga of
new coke. There are people now who will tell you
with a straight face that it was actually a move
to get rid of all the Coca derivatives and to
(37:38):
swash the DEA under the Reagan administration's heightened war on drugs.
So we talked plausible. Well, no, you mentioned in our
first leader here that there is a processing mechanism with
Coca Cola today that will take out all the cocaine
(38:01):
of the coca plant, right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
Ben, And actually after the fact, when we finished recording
the episode, dug around a little bit and found the
article that I was thinking of. Coca Cola produced as
three billion dollars worth of pure cocaine every single year
that gets processed extracted from you know, the product that
they end up using to make the drink, and then
(38:23):
it is chipped to a massive pharmaceutical manufacturing company that
uses it for topical anesthesia.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
All right, that makes sense, And none of these conspiracies
can be conclusively proven. In fact, a lot of these
theories and similar theories can be debunked pretty easily. But
They're still fun to think about. This is the end
of the saga. What we can tell you is this
New Coke's failure was due to a number of factors,
(38:56):
but it genuinely seems the primary issue of that failure
was not taste. It was cultural identity. No people were
ready to lash out at something, and this new spin
on their beloved nostalgia ridden sugary standby just happened to
be in the right place at the wrong or the
(39:18):
perfect tide, you know what I mean, something to get
mad at.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
Oh gosh, yeah, people love flexing righteous indignation.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Ben, I love this fact that you found.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
If we're wrapping up and talking about New Coke for
a new generation and the nostalgia play of it all
and like the big business of nostalgia. On May twenty first,
in twenty nineteen, Coke Coal Company announced that they were
going to reissue or do a special drop of New
Coke as a tie in for the very nostalgia driven
(39:51):
Netflix series Stranger Thing.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
That is correct, and some of us may remember, if
you're a Stranger Things fan, some of us may remember,
there's a moment where I think it's the character Dustin
who drinks a new coke and says I think it's good.
I don't think it's that bad, and his whole crew goes,
what the heck is here? Get it out here. Yeah.
(40:18):
We also know, as we're wrapping up, that Coca Cola
does clean pennies due to phosphoric acid.
Speaker 4 (40:25):
Well, it'll also dissolve corrosion off of your battery terminals.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
And that is true.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
Oh, well done, Yeah, that is true.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Did you ever have to do that? I have had that.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
I have done that before, and it works like a
charm and it's real satisfying to watch it is.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
It's a cool science experiment at home. We also know that,
to be fair, folks, if you're hearing about this saga
and you're worried about the Coca Cola company, don't just
don't worry about them. They own way more brands than
you might imagine. They control soft drinks, water, sports drinks, coffee, tea, juice,
(41:06):
even dairy products. Coca Cola is all up in your refrigerator.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
I think they even not that recently, but in the
last five years acquired Topo Chico, which is a delightful
mineral water that for a long time felt a little
more regional and kind of special. But it's another good
example of a giant corporation, sort of like the micro
breweries acquired by bush Mills, still keeping the old school
(41:31):
packaging and not making a big show of the fact
that they acquired it.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
It just all of a sudden becomes more available.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Yeah, they own Sprite, They own Fanta, which I think
should be an episode in its own right.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
We've talked about Fanta, I believe.
Speaker 4 (41:47):
I don't know if it was as I mentioned in
another episode, but we talked about the apple scraps in
the wartime of wait.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
For an episode in its own Reich.
Speaker 4 (41:56):
Oh that's right, Yeah, do dig through the archives. I'm
certain that we've done something about the history of fantas
super interesting.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Absolutely, and folks, thank you so much for tuning in.
We are big fans of soda in particular. We are
big supporters of learning hidden history. And you know what,
I was looking back and I asked my parents if
they had ever tried a new coke and they said
(42:27):
they did.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
It was too.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Sweet, but it was a culture war. Here endeth the Saka.
We can't wait for your input, folks. Please do check
out our earlier episode on discontinued sodas throughout history and
big big thanks to our super producer, mister Max new
Coke Williams, Max Nolan and I are going to lie
(42:51):
about you every time you're not around. We're gonna say
the only soda that Max drinks is Vintage New Coke.
Speaker 6 (43:00):
I mean, considering I was not even born when this
came out, I think giving me another chance to job
how much younger I am than y'all I am.
Speaker 5 (43:09):
I'm fine with that rumor because I can quickly and
easily disprove it.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
We'll see. Sometimes you become the monsters you hunt.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Max.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
All right, that's a little cryptic, big thanks to you.
Speaking of monsters we hunt, big thanks to Jonathan Strickland
aka the Quist Noel who else? Who else?
Speaker 4 (43:27):
Well, Geez Louise Ben Christopherrasiotis's name is Jeff Coats.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Here in spirit a j Bahamas Jacobs, the Puzzler. I'm
gonna do one of yours this time. Rachel Big Spinach Lands.
Speaker 4 (43:36):
The doctor of underwater explosions, who we reference at the
end of every episode despite her only having been on
the show twice.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Right right, world expert in underwater explosions. Big thanks also
to the rude dudes of Ridiculous Crime. If you dig us,
you will dig the Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Joined us in the near future when
we explore the trials and travails of a little thing
(44:05):
called Santa Con. I've been our research associate for this
episode at Noel. Thank you man. What's the last soa
you drink?
Speaker 4 (44:15):
Like I said, I'm a DDP man, Yeah, diet doctor
paptro I haven't had one this week, but I really
do like making myself a little pomegranate sprits, So I'm
a Lacroix boy.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 4 (44:33):
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