May 7, 2026 • 39 mins
If you're from the United States, you'll instantly recognize the iconic red Solo cup. It's ubquitous at picnics, parties, sports events -- and often seen in TV shows and movies, so much so that the rest of the world covets these cups as "American souvenirs". So how on Earth did this humble cup rise from a public health product to an international symbol of all things American? In today's episode, Ben, Noel, and Max find out.
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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. Let's hear it for our super producer,
mister Max Party America Premium Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I don't understand, but I couldn't get at. I can't retard.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Max says, that's none other than the legendary mister Noel Brown.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
In his mind.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yes, yes, they call me, Ben Bullen, your legendary in
my mind as well and my heart. Oh my gosh,
Hey guys, when's the last time you had a solo
cup by myself? Ah, that's a great question, nol. But
we're specifically talking about those plastic red cups. Yeahs, you
(01:22):
know it's funny, Ben, it's been a minute.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I don't really see those pop up as much. But
you know what I always think of, and I'm not
a fan of modern country and Western music, red solo cup.
I feel you up, Let's have a party. It became
a bit of a like a pop cultural touchstone for
(01:44):
the redneck class in any pejorative sense. I think they
would gladly accept that term in the country music world
and embrace it.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
And I will argue that Toby Keith is somewhat of
a bankrupt artist.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Is that who does that song? Yes?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Uh, it is the guy who does that song. It
will share more of the lyrics as well. The Internet
calls it a novelty country song. Yes and uh. Mister
Keith himself, also in an interview, called it the worst
song he had ever heard.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah. Yeah, it reminds me of a well it's funny.
At least he owns it.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
It reminds me of a song about the Zach brown
Man that goes just a little chicken fry, cold b
are on a Friday night, a pair of pants.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
The fits just right. It also, Yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
It feels very American such that it reminds me of
the Alan Jackson song where they're like way down yonder
on the chat hooch. Never knew how much I've went to.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Is that that muddy water? How much that much muddy
waters to me? But I learned how to swim, and
I learned what a lot about living in a little bit.
What the second thing you learned how to do? The swim?
He learned.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I learned how to swim, and I learned who I
was who I was living in a little bit.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
See, I was picturing its sort of like the mud
skipper emerging from the water and swimming and then immediately
sprouting legs, evolutionarily speaking down on the chattahoots.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
So if you are so Pardner, are very specific references here, folks.
This is not just for our American ridiculous historians in
the crowd. Yeah, hey, right on, brother, But if you
are from the United States or have spent some time
in this country, you are going to recognize this bad boy,
(03:35):
the humble red solo cup instantly. They're at cookouts, there
are picnics, there are house parties, they're at college campuses.
Noll Backwen, our pal Max used to work at the hospitality,
(03:57):
beverage entertainment industry. You would give people plastic cups if
you knew they would break a glass.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
We actually had all of our rocks glasses for a
very very very long time. We're just plastic rocks glasses.
It's a very large concerned effort to actually switch them
to real glass like many years later. But we also
were known for being a place that would involve some
fights and a little bit of vomit.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, yes, you learn who you was. Yeah, a little vomit.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Ben.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
By the way, research associated shortened air on this particular topic.
I grew up in the shadow of a Dixie cup
factory in my hometown of Augusta, Georgia, where the building,
the facade of the building looks like a giant cup.
Amazing phenomenal. Yeah, and I think there's Dixie down in Dixie.
(04:56):
Dixie plays into this, Yes.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Very much so, Noel, you're correct. The solo cup that
you are going to see in film and fiction and
television shows today, it's ubiquitous, it's cheap, disposable, it's pretty
bad for the environment. It is super convenient. It's one
of those inventions we take for granted. I remember a
(05:19):
few episodes ago we were talking about how we all
took cups for granted. But we have to remember that
somebody at some point in history looked at water and said,
what if I could take this somewhere?
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Oh, a vessel perhaps, right? Right? We were so appressed.
What if it didn't leak? Right? What if it was
not a sieve?
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Why are we dedicating an entire episode to solo cups today?
It's because there is more to these cups that meets
the eye, the red Solo cup in particular, and it
is a brand name owned by a place called the
Dark Corporation. Now it has become this ambassador for American culture.
(06:03):
It's celebrated or venerated. If we want to use that
word across the planet. How do we get there? We
got to start at the beginning. You absolutely nailed it.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Null. It really starts with Dixie cups. So to your point,
Ben about you know, glassware versus disposable cups. It takes
for granted that there was a time where disposable cups
just weren't a thing, dude, not even individual cups. Maybe
at the dentist, you know, where you'd spit into something,
(06:34):
or like those tiny cups you'd see at the water cooler,
but it wasn't as much of an ubiquitous thing. At barbecues,
people would have like plastic, stacky reusable cups or glassware.
Way before this man.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
This is one of the first ridiculous facts of the
day of this episode. Individual cups, folks, were not always
a thing. It wasn't until the early twentieth century that
people in the United States figured out cups for yourselves. Uh,
(07:07):
it was common it was commonplace for the public to
use communal cups. They called them ten dippers. So instead
of a water fountain at your railway station or a
public building, there would be a barrel of standing water
and there would be a little ten thing that looks
like kind of a ladle exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
I've certainly seen that depicted in I want to say
dead would those kinds of shows, but yeah, I mean
you would literally just scoop yourself up a swig and
guzzle it down. It's a lot like what does perpetual stew?
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Yes, Oh, distressingly so, man, because this was a pool
for all the germs. It was before the invention of
the water fountains you will see in schools and hospitals today,
which people still call dirty. This stuff, this communal idea
was cheap to manufacture, but it was a disaster for
(08:06):
public health because think about it, all it takes is
one thirsty guy with a communicable disease to.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Hit that little tin dipper, and their mouths are gross,
even the circumstances reminkable diseases assigned. Yeah, all it.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Took was one thirsty person and everybody after that person
who hit up that communal tin dipper was going to
be exposed to all sorts of nasty conditions. The buffins
of the day, like the biologists, the public health folks,
they embraced what we know as germ theory. By the
(08:44):
eighteen nineties they said, yeah, this is real. The things
that are too small for your eye to see can
transmit between you. They can kill you. Microscopic organisms, bacteria, virus,
but similar to the covid pandemic which continues today. Most
(09:06):
Americans in the late eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds, they
still fought against the idea. They were like, who are
these nerds? If I can't see it, if I can't
smell it, why would it make me sick?
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Get out of here, pencil neck egghead? Get out of here.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And this is where we have on to the stage
of history. Strolling two brothers in law, Lawrence Llewellyn and
Hugh Moore that's his real name. I have to note
this because you know I love a dumb joke, nol
Hugh Hugh Moore Moore, But Hugh Moore, that's his real name.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Was he a funny guy? Do you think? I hope
so it was a fun guy. I hope so.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Was his brother in law. Lawrence was a lawyer in Boston,
and one of Lawrence's clients was this physician. And this
physician came up and asked the same thing that you
were talking about earlier. He said, Look, I got a
lot of tuberculosis patients. I need easily disposable cups so
(10:17):
I can test their fluids or spoot them.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Jesus, yeah, man spewed them. That's sort of like the
froth that is ejected from one's lips when speaking a
little too robustly. Yeah, taker, shout out to Doc Holiday. Right.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
So our buddy, who is again an attorney in Boston,
he creates this small, pleated, wax coded paper cup, and
then he further comes up with this idea of or cups,
up with this idea of a vending machine. Right, so
you put a penny in this awkward looking porcelain device,
(10:55):
it will dispense a cup made of wax coded paper
filled with cold water. This is the ancestor of the
modern dixie cup.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Well, yeah, I don't. And again, those little mouthwashed cups,
the little dentist cups that we remember from our childhood,
wax coated I remember that distinct tactile sensation of a
waxy cup. I even remember scratching on him, making little
etchings or whatever. It doesn't seem like those are nearly
as popular anymore. You don't see the waxy cups as much.
(11:27):
Maybe in a water cooler, but even nowadays you see
more little plastic ridged cups in the water dispenser in
an officer like a waiting room.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah and okay, so this guy's brother in law, Hugh
Moore never not funny name. Sorry about history there, Bud,
but he was. This guy is a pretty smart dude.
He had actually moved into the neighborhood in Boston to
go to Harvard, but as soon as he learned about
(11:58):
this cup idea, he dropped out of one of the
best schools in the nation to help with this business,
and he got into politics. He joined the progressive movement
at the time to abolish ten dippers.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
What a cost. I think we can all support that. No,
no more ten dippers. It's fun to stillboards, share cups.
But also little self interested right, I mean absolutely was
he was lobbying. Yes, I mean he had a business
plan that would directly benefit from the abolition of the
ten dipper and it also happened to align with the
(12:35):
greater good.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Yes, happened to is the perfect phrase. It's nineteen oh
eight and the brothers in law they incorporate something they
call the American Water Supply Company of New England, and
their whole business is creating, installing, and servicing these vending
machines that will give you a paper cup of water
(12:58):
for one penny.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
One single penny. Writing for Canals, historian Martha Capwell Fox
put it this way. The same year, a Lafayette College
biology professor Alvin Davison published Death in School Drinking Cups
The Lurid. The title was understated compared to the results
of his study of illness and Eastern school children as
(13:21):
a result of common cup hyphenated contamination CCC. Yeah, yeah,
she goes on paraphrasing here. He found, Davison that classroom
cups were absolutely riddled, as you like to say, ben
with germs, causing everything from colds and flus to more
serious conditions that didn't even have vaccinations. I believe at
(13:43):
the time, things like chicken pox and diphtheria. I mean,
we already know that schools, especially elementary and middle are
already breeding grounds for these kinds of illnesses, let alone
introducing shared you know, spit troughs into the.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah, he reminds me of how every year, without fail,
one of my friend's children will get hoof and mouth disease,
foot and mouth disease.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Like, why is that a thing? This guy that we're.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Mouth humans, but foot foot mouth definitely is.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
That's the one we're looking for.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
And the real name of it is cocksacky virus.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Phones bags And he dropped in the knowledge.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
It's just for you.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
So good there we go, all right, what's your mouth? Right?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So most children, human children do not have hoofs. We
have confirmed it here for the first time. This guy,
this professor Alvin Davidson, found that, look, there is a problem.
He went to various public health institutions, various political outfits,
(15:03):
and said, you know what's really smart, This guy Llewellyn
has invented a vending machine with disposable paper cups. And
so state after state begins passing laws that ban those
shared cups, those tin dippers, and railroads start saying, hey,
(15:25):
if we want to look fancy, we're going to put
something like this in our passenger cars. We'll have a
closed tank of water in each car. These guys are
blowing up, dude. This is like, this is like when
podcasts became a thing. It's nineteen oh nine. The guys
have to move past Boston. They move their operation to
(15:48):
New York City, where they eventually get New York City.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
But also the most clever name for any company ever,
I have to say, the Individual Drinking Cup Company. That's
almost as good as the company the Individual Drinking Cup
Company of New York's. Yea, we needed to know where
they were headquartered.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Right, They had to put it in the name, apparently,
and their business skyrockets. A few years later, they're selling
something they're calling the health Cup with a K, and
they make a lot of money during the influenza epidemic
of nineteen eighteen. But they're still not called Dixie cups.
(16:30):
So riddle us this know. How did they become called
Dixie cups?
Speaker 2 (16:41):
It's kind of weird, man. I didn't know this at all,
but mister Moore had the idea that the term Dixie
might be a positive association to make with the cup
because of the Civil War and the Dixie dollar. It
was a type of yeah currency that was used. They
(17:04):
called it the what is it the French French dix
yayya French word for ted uh huh okay. I wish
I was in Dixie. Hooray, hooray Dixie l I don't
know about all that, guys, but at the time it
seemed like it was gonna hit. But unfortunately there was
already a doll company. Yeah, that's right, like dolls, like
like QB Dolls, but you know, not that brand that
(17:27):
bore the name Dixie, the Dixie Doll Company, of course.
And so he asked the doll maker laureate there if
he could borrow the business name Dixie and use it
as a marketing tool, because he figured that adding that
very popular and zeitgeisty name word to it was going
to convey a sense of reliability, kind of finding because
(17:48):
no one only no one really talks about the Dixie
Buck anymore. But I guess at the time it was
it made sense. It would read as like, oh, this
is an old trustee that's gonna get us through the
hard times.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
It's kind of like naming your disposable cup old reliable.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Because just so they should put that in the name
of the company.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
They should have Maybe they didn't they didn't have the
space to print it.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
The old reliable Dixie Cup Company of New York. Oh wow, perfect.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Yeah, the French issued a currency in Louisiana, or was
French language prior to the Civil War. So it's a
weird thing for our buddy Hugh Moore to seek out.
It is out of the box thinking. This is just
what the company needed. Their reputation as a dixie cup
(18:39):
grows over time, and they get this huge boost when
soda fountains throughout the United States introduce their own vending machines,
kind of automatic machines that can fill a cup with
two flavors of ice cream at.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
The same time. Nice. Nice, right forward to the future,
sure a girl.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yeah, just so, we're not at Neapolitan just yet.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
But we're on the way. This is also quite soft serve,
it's not. I believe you're correct. You know, we should
do we should do a history of soft serve because
there's a lot of interesting technology and cultural significance in
soft serve. You know that really popular thing in Japan.
There's like a whole milk based soft serve. The people
are screaming about it finally made its way over here.
(19:28):
I would love to know about all of those things.
We should do it.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
That's an excellent idea, Nol. We also know that there
was a new kind of cup that came along with
all these new ice cream machines. It is called the
ice cream Dixie. It's still the same cup, and the
Dixie brand is around today. But this is not answering
(19:52):
our question about the solo cups. So while the Dixie company,
or while this paper cup manufact company is blowing up,
there is a guy who works there named Leo Holsman.
It's yeah, yeah, this is our solo cup guy. By
the way, Ben, there's apparently even a historical debate on
(20:14):
who invented soft serve, So we've got to do it.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
We have to. There's a lot of science behind it. Sorry,
just putting that out there. It's between Tom Carvel and
Dairy Queen, the big beef, the soft served beef. So
we'll get to that in a future episode. Feels real
pepsi versus coke, It really does. So, as you said, Ben,
we've got Leo Holtzman Hoolsman entering the Chat nineteen thirty six.
(20:38):
He ventured out on his own and founded another brilliantly
descriptively named paper container Manufacturing Company, not of Chicago. It
wasn't in the name, but it was in Chicago. And
by this point a lot of folks were trying to
get into the old paper cup game. There was a
boom time for the big cup. Yeah again like podcast.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
During the pandemic, public opinion grew increasingly on board with
germ theory. Paper cups are a huge business, and their
business is often supported by the medical community and politicians.
So what we're saying here is if there was ever
a tin dipper communal cup lobby, they were done for
(21:22):
at this point. Holsman's the paper container Manufacturing Company. Again,
weird name. I agree with you. There they created a
signature item. It was not read, it was not round.
It was a cone, so very familiar to the kind
of cone paper you might see it a dentist office.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Right. That's right, Then you really nailed it, because I
wasn't even hearkening back that far. But that's certainly you're
triggering a core memory from me because the earlier days
were a come. But problem there is you can't set
a cone.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Down, no, just throw it away, right, It's a paper
cone for a limited time.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
It was Aldso that's kind of a feature, not a bug,
isn't it. You don't want people setting them down. You
want them drinking it once and then tossing it because
it was a built in safeguard from maybe somebody accidentally
sharing it.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah, because you can't put it on the table. God forbid,
there'd be some sketchy dude who rocks up and sees
a sees a paper cup of unidentified liquid and says,
is that tuberculosis?
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Spit mary over right? But you know it's funny. Then
those paper cones did still get some use at places
like diners who invented these little little cone holder things.
So you'd have a cone full of say French fries
or even a moll and it would be in one
of these paper cones, and then the cone would go
(22:49):
in these weird little little uh what do you call
it caddies kind of you know, okay, yeah, kind of
defeats the purpose a little bit. Yeah, that's maybe that's
discussion for another. It's a good way to serve fries.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Also, we have to emphasize that these little guys, these
cone cups, they were called solo cups first, meaning cups
you don't have to share with strangers, just for you,
just for you.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
This Solo cups, Solo Dolo and Solo You.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
And so Solo went on to make other innovations. They
made disposable coffee cups. They made the cups that you
will see in movie theaters, fast food restaurants. So if
you go to a theater and you get a medium soda,
or you go to a fast food place and you
order a drink with your combo meal, you'll see that
(23:45):
the inner and outer lining is wax. That's the Solo cup.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Guys. They're the ones who figured that out. But it
wasn't until the nineteen seventies that Leo's son, Robert Leo Hoolseman,
decided to do a little bit of rebranding because you know,
when we think of the Solo cup, we always think
of the quintessentially fire engine red version. Kim Healy, who
(24:10):
is the VP of Consumer Business for Solo in twenty eleven,
actually admits that the history might be considered a little
bit sketchy, a little bit of a gray area. However,
the company does maintain we know we were one of
the first to introduce a party cup, so making it right,
was just making it fun. It's a fun cup, a
(24:31):
party cup that sounds so crazy. I have a party.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
We've been in a lot of situations, folks, the three
of us over the years, and we have walked into
places where someone says, oh, do you have your badge,
do you have your bracelet or whatever, here's your party cup.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
We've been in those situations.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Well.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
The funny thing about these these cups as well, Ben,
is they're practically I mean, are you not supposed to
dishwash them? I feel like they're not gonna melt if
they're top dishwasher top top exactly. They're top rack.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
So I mean, it's sort of like they're becoming less
disposable at this point, but it's more a product of
consumerism that they're still considered disposable.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
It's interesting. It's just sort of a cheap plastic cup
that is fun looking, right.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Steve Stevenson, writing for Slate back in twenty eleven, describes
it as the Sherman Tank of disposable mealware. It is
made of a thick, molded, specific type of polystyrene, and
it gets uh, let's just.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Give you the pack. Oh he's good. This is good writing.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Okay, so he says, quote, the Sulu party cup could
be squeezed in meadi frat guy pauls it could be
dropped to the ground by tipsy high school cheerleaders and
mercilessly battered by flip cup contestants all the wild, maintaining
shape and functionality. It was stiffer and more resilient than
(26:08):
competitor party cups like Dixies.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Just squeeze it.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Throw it, drop it, flip it, bop it, et cetera.
The Solo cup.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
And it's so funny because it's just as simple as
like making a cup a color that was innovation at
the time. What if what if they were a color? Right?
And then he's got to pick one, and they went
with red, and Solo company representatives told Slay that the
red cups make up about sixty percent of Solo Party
cup sales to this day, with the distantly second blue
(26:39):
cups as the runner up. Right. Yeah, And they've tested
over and over again, no matter what colors or designs
they try, it just seems like the red Solo cup
just really stuck. That's the thing.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yeah, I mean you can see blue cups, as you said,
yellow cups I've seen some green ones in the same design.
Maybe why red. Maybe it's because it is the expected color.
At this point, I was people are creatures of habit
right and tradition and legacy. So maybe, for example, we
(27:14):
could imagine how off putting it would be to walk
through your favorite store and you see your usual can
of Coca cola but it's blue, or you see your
usual can of pepsi but it's red. You know you
you wouldn't trust it.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
No, No, that's why I like. I mean, sometimes brand
recognition is more important than the quality of the product
quite often.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Actually, there's also this color theory argument. We've talked about
this a little bit in the past. The argument of
color theory proposes that there are certain hues or certain
colors that incite immediate primal reactions and human psychology. So
(28:02):
red in color theory would signify the ideas of things
like high energy or passion or emotional and redsity yes,
seeing red, yeah, And blue is more tranquility and depth
or consideration or thought. And I believe they say that
yellow it makes you hungry. So combining red for that
(28:24):
excitement and yellow for hunger makes a whole lot of
sense for the golden arches.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
You know. That's a great point. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
And also yellow in large amounts can apparently make people
panic a little. So that's why you always felt weird
in a yellow kitchen, folks. Apollo gets it, Pile gets it.
So perhaps if color theory holds, a red colored cup
just feels psychologically somehow more correct for your next frat rager.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
You know what I mean. It's the associations, man, And
I mean like when I think of beer pong, which
I've never in my life participated in, I think of
red solo cups, and they even sell little small versions
that are specifically for like shots or for those kind
of games.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
We both spent a lot of time in Athens, Georgia.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
And you know what's funny. I never went to fraternity.
I was never in a college that had fraternities. I
never went to frat parties when I was actually of
college age. But when I moved to Athens as a adult,
I had some younger friends who invited me to these
frat parties that I went to more a sociological experiments,
and man, red solo cups were everywhere.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yes, Debri Gore, Yeah, solo keg cups. In particular, they
hold more liquid than competing cups. They have an eighteen
ounce flush fill. The company calls it as opposed to
the sixteen outs fill offered by their competitors. So let's
exercise empathy if we're a college kid with a perishing
(29:59):
third and not much in the way of cash. The
big cups maximize the amount of cheap beer you can
scarf at a single time, which is why they're at
every party and they're grippy, and they're grippy, you're pounding
it back for knocking them back, as they say.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Yeah, they evolved.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Now the current cup model has four grips, one on
each side for indentations.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Which is funny though because they still, to the naked eye,
appear round. They're not like square cups. But they have
these edges. It's a pretty clever design, if I'm being honest. Yeah,
it's a very clever design. The earlier versions had ridges
that people made folklore about, like the red cup has
become folklore. The idea was you could measure liquid. You
(30:49):
could even if you needed to mix cocktails based on
the ridges. The horizontal ridges in the solo cup, and
there are some substance abuse educators that even say college
students should use the lines in the solo cup to
monitor how much alcohol they are ingesting. Pretty weird. Good
(31:13):
luck getting them to do that, right.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
But this is not the end of the story. As
we tease, Nola, I think you did a beautiful job
in this. In particular, as we tease, the United States
is more than just home to the Solo cups. It's
also home to one of the world's largest, most successful
entertainment industries. It's been one of Uncle Sam's largest exports
(31:46):
post World War Two, up there with the arms trade
and the defense industry. So if you are European or
Australia and South America, if you are heck, a person
from any but the United States, you will see so
many films and TV shows that feature red solo cups
(32:08):
at every party. This became more than a product, It
became a symbol. Like when I can't remember the last
time you were in Europe. The last time I was
in Europe, I did go to an American party. They
had solo cups as a themed prop, and weirdly a
lot of peanut butter.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
You know, there's this arcade that I love to go
to called Round One that specializes in a lot of
kind of more obscure Japanese cabinet games and rhythm games.
And there is a Japanese game that is a beer
pong simulator that absolutely has read solo cups, but not
(32:49):
actually branded. It's just that's the look, because that is
how they see us.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
That's the folklore, you know. And it's weird because a
lot of people might travel to the US and look
for low cost souvenirs instead of partying and chucking the
cups in the trash the way so many people in
the States do. Folks in Europe wash them, put them
in the top rack of the dishwasher, and then reuse them.
(33:17):
This does not seem to be the result of a conspiracy,
does not seem to be the result of a backroom
deal or some crazy awesome Bernese level pr campaign. These
cups are cheap, handy, convenient, ubiquitous. Now they're thoroughly American.
We even mentioned at the top Toby Keith, who recorded
(33:40):
a weirdly addictive homage to the Red Solo Cup in
twenty eleven. So, now, for better or worse, this is
a piece of Americana. I don't know how it works
for everybody in this wide, beautiful country of ours, but
we do have to debunk one thing. The lines on
(34:03):
the cups. Man, I think they're plastic extrusion. And then
later the Solo Cup company went back and said, here
will publish a guide to how to measure stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
But they do acknowledge that it was arbitrary and that
they were sort of just I kind of give them
props for this, you know, the point that you made
about how much liquor you should consume, how much wine
or how much beer. They say, what you've seen in
this advertisements. The real understanding of lines on Solo cup
from the Solo company, not true or an original part
(34:38):
of Solo cup design, but surprisingly accurate. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Yeah. They have a great breakdown of an old school
Solo cup, the one without the grips, but the one
that does have the lines over the cup. They have
one picture that says, twelve ounces of beer. That's the
help me out here.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
In the third line down, there's a double line around
the ridge and there's two big lines, so it would
be the second big line would be like, okay, that'd
be your fill line for around twelve ounces of beer.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Okay, and then five ounces they have lower wine. They
have one ounce for liquor. But then they go to
the next picture and they have the same beer line
twelve ounces and they say this is the amount of
water you should drink five times a day, and then.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Then five ounces for cereal standard serving of cereal, and
then one ounce. I love this because it's the same
as a shot of liquor. So you know, if you
if you're out of liquor and you want to just
pound some mouthwash, the same amount h super christ, Wow,
a pretty solid amount of mouthwash each morning. Do not
drink it. I was joking.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
And they also give you other things like five ounces
a perfect amount of juice for kids. One out, this
is how much chocolate syrup you need to make chocolate milk. Look,
these folks are selling.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Cups, no doubt that hard doing a fine job of it.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah, and we do know that obviously, this kind of
mass production can be controversial because these cups are made
from number six thermoplastic polystyrene. It is multiple, it is ductile,
it's very cheap to make it, but it is also
very difficult to recycle it.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
And it's inside of all of our bodies.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
And all your bits, and these profits from the Solo Cup,
we're happy to report have helped make the world a
better place in other ways. The guy you mentioned earlier,
Noel Hulsman Senior, was super big on philanthropy. He donated
a ton of his money to Catholic education, to anti
(36:57):
poverty initiatives, and religious unities.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
I didn't know that you never played flip cup. Well,
I played the game at the arcade.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Ha. Yes, well, okay, good for anyone that doesn't know, though, Ben,
Oh sorry, flip cups different. I played the beer pong
simulator for anyone that doesn't know, myself included. I don't
think I know what flip cup is.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Flip cup is where you have to take a standing
cup and then flip it perfectly upside down. Oh, kind
of like a bottle flip right, Yeah, just so on
a horizontal surface.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
And at which point you're punished or rewarded by having
to take a drink.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
The beer and you put it down. You have to
flip it.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Yeah, and if you flinch, you have to marry your
mother in law.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Got it. Yeah, it's a it's a it's a reference too.
I think you should leave. We're a lot of fun
at parties. Next, how do we have a car with
steering wheel? It doesn't fly off, fly out your hands
and you turn it. I don't know how goes look
at me, admits it.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
So thank you so much for tuning in, fellow ridiculous historians.
We had a great time with this one. We hope
you tune in as we continue to explore the ridiculous
history of potatoes. Max, you've got some background on this
holp we do overall with red solo cups.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
You did them well, you served them well.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
I will say that they've served us well, you know.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Big thanks to our super producer, mister Max Williams. Big
thanks to Alex Williams who composed this slap and bop.
Big thanks to everybody who is playing flip cup tonight
right now?
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Noel? Who else? Well, first of all, drink responsibly when
playing flip cup or beer pong or you know, attending
frat parties. Gosh, who else? You know? Who we heard
from today via email our buddy the puzzler A J.
Bahamas Jacobs. I think we're going to get him to
come back around real soon. Jonathan Strickland aka the Quist
(38:58):
who he did not hear from today.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
And big thanks, of course to our returning friend of
the show, Jordan run Todd. Check him out very soon.
We're gonna be getting weird with Elvis. Big thanks to
the rude dudes over a ridiculous crime. If you dug
our story about Dali and Rikers Island, you will.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Love these folks.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
So hie thee to a podcast platform of your choice
check him out ed. You know what, I'll say it.
We can prank them a little bit, Nola Max. Just
write to them and challenge them to a game of
flip cup.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Yeah, and Ben, thanks to you for the research on
this one. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Oh Man, same thanks.
Heck yeah, We'll see you next time. Folks. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(39:55):
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. Let's hear it for our super producer,
mister Max Party America Premium Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I don't understand, but I couldn't get at. I can't retard.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Max says, that's none other than the legendary mister Noel Brown.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
In his mind.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yes, yes, they call me, Ben Bullen, your legendary in
my mind as well and my heart. Oh my gosh,
Hey guys, when's the last time you had a solo
cup by myself? Ah, that's a great question, nol. But
we're specifically talking about those plastic red cups. Yeahs, you
(01:22):
know it's funny, Ben, it's been a minute.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I don't really see those pop up as much. But
you know what I always think of, and I'm not
a fan of modern country and Western music, red solo cup.
I feel you up, Let's have a party. It became
a bit of a like a pop cultural touchstone for
(01:44):
the redneck class in any pejorative sense. I think they
would gladly accept that term in the country music world
and embrace it.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
And I will argue that Toby Keith is somewhat of
a bankrupt artist.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Is that who does that song? Yes?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Uh, it is the guy who does that song. It
will share more of the lyrics as well. The Internet
calls it a novelty country song. Yes and uh. Mister
Keith himself, also in an interview, called it the worst
song he had ever heard.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah. Yeah, it reminds me of a well it's funny.
At least he owns it.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
It reminds me of a song about the Zach brown
Man that goes just a little chicken fry, cold b
are on a Friday night, a pair of pants.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
The fits just right. It also, Yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
It feels very American such that it reminds me of
the Alan Jackson song where they're like way down yonder
on the chat hooch. Never knew how much I've went to.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Is that that muddy water? How much that much muddy
waters to me? But I learned how to swim, and
I learned what a lot about living in a little bit.
What the second thing you learned how to do? The swim?
He learned.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I learned how to swim, and I learned who I
was who I was living in a little bit.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
See, I was picturing its sort of like the mud
skipper emerging from the water and swimming and then immediately
sprouting legs, evolutionarily speaking down on the chattahoots.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
So if you are so Pardner, are very specific references here, folks.
This is not just for our American ridiculous historians in
the crowd. Yeah, hey, right on, brother, But if you
are from the United States or have spent some time
in this country, you are going to recognize this bad boy,
(03:35):
the humble red solo cup instantly. They're at cookouts, there
are picnics, there are house parties, they're at college campuses.
Noll Backwen, our pal Max used to work at the hospitality,
(03:57):
beverage entertainment industry. You would give people plastic cups if
you knew they would break a glass.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
We actually had all of our rocks glasses for a
very very very long time. We're just plastic rocks glasses.
It's a very large concerned effort to actually switch them
to real glass like many years later. But we also
were known for being a place that would involve some
fights and a little bit of vomit.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, yes, you learn who you was. Yeah, a little vomit.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Ben.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
By the way, research associated shortened air on this particular topic.
I grew up in the shadow of a Dixie cup
factory in my hometown of Augusta, Georgia, where the building,
the facade of the building looks like a giant cup.
Amazing phenomenal. Yeah, and I think there's Dixie down in Dixie.
(04:56):
Dixie plays into this, Yes.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Very much so, Noel, you're correct. The solo cup that
you are going to see in film and fiction and
television shows today, it's ubiquitous, it's cheap, disposable, it's pretty
bad for the environment. It is super convenient. It's one
of those inventions we take for granted. I remember a
(05:19):
few episodes ago we were talking about how we all
took cups for granted. But we have to remember that
somebody at some point in history looked at water and said,
what if I could take this somewhere?
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Oh, a vessel perhaps, right? Right? We were so appressed.
What if it didn't leak? Right? What if it was
not a sieve?
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Why are we dedicating an entire episode to solo cups today?
It's because there is more to these cups that meets
the eye, the red Solo cup in particular, and it
is a brand name owned by a place called the
Dark Corporation. Now it has become this ambassador for American culture.
(06:03):
It's celebrated or venerated. If we want to use that
word across the planet. How do we get there? We
got to start at the beginning. You absolutely nailed it.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Null. It really starts with Dixie cups. So to your point,
Ben about you know, glassware versus disposable cups. It takes
for granted that there was a time where disposable cups
just weren't a thing, dude, not even individual cups. Maybe
at the dentist, you know, where you'd spit into something,
(06:34):
or like those tiny cups you'd see at the water cooler,
but it wasn't as much of an ubiquitous thing. At barbecues,
people would have like plastic, stacky reusable cups or glassware.
Way before this man.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
This is one of the first ridiculous facts of the
day of this episode. Individual cups, folks, were not always
a thing. It wasn't until the early twentieth century that
people in the United States figured out cups for yourselves. Uh,
(07:07):
it was common it was commonplace for the public to
use communal cups. They called them ten dippers. So instead
of a water fountain at your railway station or a
public building, there would be a barrel of standing water
and there would be a little ten thing that looks
like kind of a ladle exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
I've certainly seen that depicted in I want to say
dead would those kinds of shows, but yeah, I mean
you would literally just scoop yourself up a swig and
guzzle it down. It's a lot like what does perpetual stew?
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Yes, Oh, distressingly so, man, because this was a pool
for all the germs. It was before the invention of
the water fountains you will see in schools and hospitals today,
which people still call dirty. This stuff, this communal idea
was cheap to manufacture, but it was a disaster for
(08:06):
public health because think about it, all it takes is
one thirsty guy with a communicable disease to.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Hit that little tin dipper, and their mouths are gross,
even the circumstances reminkable diseases assigned. Yeah, all it.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Took was one thirsty person and everybody after that person
who hit up that communal tin dipper was going to
be exposed to all sorts of nasty conditions. The buffins
of the day, like the biologists, the public health folks,
they embraced what we know as germ theory. By the
(08:44):
eighteen nineties they said, yeah, this is real. The things
that are too small for your eye to see can
transmit between you. They can kill you. Microscopic organisms, bacteria, virus,
but similar to the covid pandemic which continues today. Most
(09:06):
Americans in the late eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds, they
still fought against the idea. They were like, who are
these nerds? If I can't see it, if I can't
smell it, why would it make me sick?
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Get out of here, pencil neck egghead? Get out of here.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And this is where we have on to the stage
of history. Strolling two brothers in law, Lawrence Llewellyn and
Hugh Moore that's his real name. I have to note
this because you know I love a dumb joke, nol
Hugh Hugh Moore Moore, But Hugh Moore, that's his real name.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Was he a funny guy? Do you think? I hope
so it was a fun guy. I hope so.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Was his brother in law. Lawrence was a lawyer in Boston,
and one of Lawrence's clients was this physician. And this
physician came up and asked the same thing that you
were talking about earlier. He said, Look, I got a
lot of tuberculosis patients. I need easily disposable cups so
(10:17):
I can test their fluids or spoot them.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Jesus, yeah, man spewed them. That's sort of like the
froth that is ejected from one's lips when speaking a
little too robustly. Yeah, taker, shout out to Doc Holiday. Right.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
So our buddy, who is again an attorney in Boston,
he creates this small, pleated, wax coded paper cup, and
then he further comes up with this idea of or cups,
up with this idea of a vending machine. Right, so
you put a penny in this awkward looking porcelain device,
(10:55):
it will dispense a cup made of wax coded paper
filled with cold water. This is the ancestor of the
modern dixie cup.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Well, yeah, I don't. And again, those little mouthwashed cups,
the little dentist cups that we remember from our childhood,
wax coated I remember that distinct tactile sensation of a
waxy cup. I even remember scratching on him, making little
etchings or whatever. It doesn't seem like those are nearly
as popular anymore. You don't see the waxy cups as much.
(11:27):
Maybe in a water cooler, but even nowadays you see
more little plastic ridged cups in the water dispenser in
an officer like a waiting room.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah and okay, so this guy's brother in law, Hugh
Moore never not funny name. Sorry about history there, Bud,
but he was. This guy is a pretty smart dude.
He had actually moved into the neighborhood in Boston to
go to Harvard, but as soon as he learned about
(11:58):
this cup idea, he dropped out of one of the
best schools in the nation to help with this business,
and he got into politics. He joined the progressive movement
at the time to abolish ten dippers.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
What a cost. I think we can all support that. No,
no more ten dippers. It's fun to stillboards, share cups.
But also little self interested right, I mean absolutely was
he was lobbying. Yes, I mean he had a business
plan that would directly benefit from the abolition of the
ten dipper and it also happened to align with the
(12:35):
greater good.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Yes, happened to is the perfect phrase. It's nineteen oh
eight and the brothers in law they incorporate something they
call the American Water Supply Company of New England, and
their whole business is creating, installing, and servicing these vending
machines that will give you a paper cup of water
(12:58):
for one penny.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
One single penny. Writing for Canals, historian Martha Capwell Fox
put it this way. The same year, a Lafayette College
biology professor Alvin Davison published Death in School Drinking Cups
The Lurid. The title was understated compared to the results
of his study of illness and Eastern school children as
(13:21):
a result of common cup hyphenated contamination CCC. Yeah, yeah,
she goes on paraphrasing here. He found, Davison that classroom
cups were absolutely riddled, as you like to say, ben
with germs, causing everything from colds and flus to more
serious conditions that didn't even have vaccinations. I believe at
(13:43):
the time, things like chicken pox and diphtheria. I mean,
we already know that schools, especially elementary and middle are
already breeding grounds for these kinds of illnesses, let alone
introducing shared you know, spit troughs into the.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah, he reminds me of how every year, without fail,
one of my friend's children will get hoof and mouth disease,
foot and mouth disease.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Like, why is that a thing? This guy that we're.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Mouth humans, but foot foot mouth definitely is.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
That's the one we're looking for.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
And the real name of it is cocksacky virus.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Phones bags And he dropped in the knowledge.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
It's just for you.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
So good there we go, all right, what's your mouth? Right?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So most children, human children do not have hoofs. We
have confirmed it here for the first time. This guy,
this professor Alvin Davidson, found that, look, there is a problem.
He went to various public health institutions, various political outfits,
(15:03):
and said, you know what's really smart, This guy Llewellyn
has invented a vending machine with disposable paper cups. And
so state after state begins passing laws that ban those
shared cups, those tin dippers, and railroads start saying, hey,
(15:25):
if we want to look fancy, we're going to put
something like this in our passenger cars. We'll have a
closed tank of water in each car. These guys are
blowing up, dude. This is like, this is like when
podcasts became a thing. It's nineteen oh nine. The guys
have to move past Boston. They move their operation to
(15:48):
New York City, where they eventually get New York City.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
But also the most clever name for any company ever,
I have to say, the Individual Drinking Cup Company. That's
almost as good as the company the Individual Drinking Cup
Company of New York's. Yea, we needed to know where
they were headquartered.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Right, They had to put it in the name, apparently,
and their business skyrockets. A few years later, they're selling
something they're calling the health Cup with a K, and
they make a lot of money during the influenza epidemic
of nineteen eighteen. But they're still not called Dixie cups.
(16:30):
So riddle us this know. How did they become called
Dixie cups?
Speaker 2 (16:41):
It's kind of weird, man. I didn't know this at all,
but mister Moore had the idea that the term Dixie
might be a positive association to make with the cup
because of the Civil War and the Dixie dollar. It
was a type of yeah currency that was used. They
(17:04):
called it the what is it the French French dix
yayya French word for ted uh huh okay. I wish
I was in Dixie. Hooray, hooray Dixie l I don't
know about all that, guys, but at the time it
seemed like it was gonna hit. But unfortunately there was
already a doll company. Yeah, that's right, like dolls, like
like QB Dolls, but you know, not that brand that
(17:27):
bore the name Dixie, the Dixie Doll Company, of course.
And so he asked the doll maker laureate there if
he could borrow the business name Dixie and use it
as a marketing tool, because he figured that adding that
very popular and zeitgeisty name word to it was going
to convey a sense of reliability, kind of finding because
(17:48):
no one only no one really talks about the Dixie
Buck anymore. But I guess at the time it was
it made sense. It would read as like, oh, this
is an old trustee that's gonna get us through the
hard times.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
It's kind of like naming your disposable cup old reliable.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Because just so they should put that in the name
of the company.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
They should have Maybe they didn't they didn't have the
space to print it.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
The old reliable Dixie Cup Company of New York. Oh wow, perfect.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Yeah, the French issued a currency in Louisiana, or was
French language prior to the Civil War. So it's a
weird thing for our buddy Hugh Moore to seek out.
It is out of the box thinking. This is just
what the company needed. Their reputation as a dixie cup
(18:39):
grows over time, and they get this huge boost when
soda fountains throughout the United States introduce their own vending machines,
kind of automatic machines that can fill a cup with
two flavors of ice cream at.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
The same time. Nice. Nice, right forward to the future,
sure a girl.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yeah, just so, we're not at Neapolitan just yet.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
But we're on the way. This is also quite soft serve,
it's not. I believe you're correct. You know, we should
do we should do a history of soft serve because
there's a lot of interesting technology and cultural significance in
soft serve. You know that really popular thing in Japan.
There's like a whole milk based soft serve. The people
are screaming about it finally made its way over here.
(19:28):
I would love to know about all of those things.
We should do it.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
That's an excellent idea, Nol. We also know that there
was a new kind of cup that came along with
all these new ice cream machines. It is called the
ice cream Dixie. It's still the same cup, and the
Dixie brand is around today. But this is not answering
(19:52):
our question about the solo cups. So while the Dixie company,
or while this paper cup manufact company is blowing up,
there is a guy who works there named Leo Holsman.
It's yeah, yeah, this is our solo cup guy. By
the way, Ben, there's apparently even a historical debate on
(20:14):
who invented soft serve, So we've got to do it.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
We have to. There's a lot of science behind it. Sorry,
just putting that out there. It's between Tom Carvel and
Dairy Queen, the big beef, the soft served beef. So
we'll get to that in a future episode. Feels real
pepsi versus coke, It really does. So, as you said, Ben,
we've got Leo Holtzman Hoolsman entering the Chat nineteen thirty six.
(20:38):
He ventured out on his own and founded another brilliantly
descriptively named paper container Manufacturing Company, not of Chicago. It
wasn't in the name, but it was in Chicago. And
by this point a lot of folks were trying to
get into the old paper cup game. There was a
boom time for the big cup. Yeah again like podcast.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
During the pandemic, public opinion grew increasingly on board with
germ theory. Paper cups are a huge business, and their
business is often supported by the medical community and politicians.
So what we're saying here is if there was ever
a tin dipper communal cup lobby, they were done for
(21:22):
at this point. Holsman's the paper container Manufacturing Company. Again,
weird name. I agree with you. There they created a
signature item. It was not read, it was not round.
It was a cone, so very familiar to the kind
of cone paper you might see it a dentist office.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Right. That's right, Then you really nailed it, because I
wasn't even hearkening back that far. But that's certainly you're
triggering a core memory from me because the earlier days
were a come. But problem there is you can't set
a cone.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Down, no, just throw it away, right, It's a paper
cone for a limited time.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
It was Aldso that's kind of a feature, not a bug,
isn't it. You don't want people setting them down. You
want them drinking it once and then tossing it because
it was a built in safeguard from maybe somebody accidentally
sharing it.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah, because you can't put it on the table. God forbid,
there'd be some sketchy dude who rocks up and sees
a sees a paper cup of unidentified liquid and says,
is that tuberculosis?
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Spit mary over right? But you know it's funny. Then
those paper cones did still get some use at places
like diners who invented these little little cone holder things.
So you'd have a cone full of say French fries
or even a moll and it would be in one
of these paper cones, and then the cone would go
(22:49):
in these weird little little uh what do you call
it caddies kind of you know, okay, yeah, kind of
defeats the purpose a little bit. Yeah, that's maybe that's
discussion for another. It's a good way to serve fries.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Also, we have to emphasize that these little guys, these
cone cups, they were called solo cups first, meaning cups
you don't have to share with strangers, just for you,
just for you.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
This Solo cups, Solo Dolo and Solo You.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
And so Solo went on to make other innovations. They
made disposable coffee cups. They made the cups that you
will see in movie theaters, fast food restaurants. So if
you go to a theater and you get a medium soda,
or you go to a fast food place and you
order a drink with your combo meal, you'll see that
(23:45):
the inner and outer lining is wax. That's the Solo cup.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Guys. They're the ones who figured that out. But it
wasn't until the nineteen seventies that Leo's son, Robert Leo Hoolseman,
decided to do a little bit of rebranding because you know,
when we think of the Solo cup, we always think
of the quintessentially fire engine red version. Kim Healy, who
(24:10):
is the VP of Consumer Business for Solo in twenty eleven,
actually admits that the history might be considered a little
bit sketchy, a little bit of a gray area. However,
the company does maintain we know we were one of
the first to introduce a party cup, so making it right,
was just making it fun. It's a fun cup, a
(24:31):
party cup that sounds so crazy. I have a party.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
We've been in a lot of situations, folks, the three
of us over the years, and we have walked into
places where someone says, oh, do you have your badge,
do you have your bracelet or whatever, here's your party cup.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
We've been in those situations.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Well.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
The funny thing about these these cups as well, Ben,
is they're practically I mean, are you not supposed to
dishwash them? I feel like they're not gonna melt if
they're top dishwasher top top exactly. They're top rack.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
So I mean, it's sort of like they're becoming less
disposable at this point, but it's more a product of
consumerism that they're still considered disposable.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
It's interesting. It's just sort of a cheap plastic cup
that is fun looking, right.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Steve Stevenson, writing for Slate back in twenty eleven, describes
it as the Sherman Tank of disposable mealware. It is
made of a thick, molded, specific type of polystyrene, and
it gets uh, let's just.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Give you the pack. Oh he's good. This is good writing.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Okay, so he says, quote, the Sulu party cup could
be squeezed in meadi frat guy pauls it could be
dropped to the ground by tipsy high school cheerleaders and
mercilessly battered by flip cup contestants all the wild, maintaining
shape and functionality. It was stiffer and more resilient than
(26:08):
competitor party cups like Dixies.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Just squeeze it.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Throw it, drop it, flip it, bop it, et cetera.
The Solo cup.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
And it's so funny because it's just as simple as
like making a cup a color that was innovation at
the time. What if what if they were a color? Right?
And then he's got to pick one, and they went
with red, and Solo company representatives told Slay that the
red cups make up about sixty percent of Solo Party
cup sales to this day, with the distantly second blue
(26:39):
cups as the runner up. Right. Yeah, And they've tested
over and over again, no matter what colors or designs
they try, it just seems like the red Solo cup
just really stuck. That's the thing.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yeah, I mean you can see blue cups, as you said,
yellow cups I've seen some green ones in the same design.
Maybe why red. Maybe it's because it is the expected color.
At this point, I was people are creatures of habit
right and tradition and legacy. So maybe, for example, we
(27:14):
could imagine how off putting it would be to walk
through your favorite store and you see your usual can
of Coca cola but it's blue, or you see your
usual can of pepsi but it's red. You know you
you wouldn't trust it.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
No, No, that's why I like. I mean, sometimes brand
recognition is more important than the quality of the product
quite often.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Actually, there's also this color theory argument. We've talked about
this a little bit in the past. The argument of
color theory proposes that there are certain hues or certain
colors that incite immediate primal reactions and human psychology. So
(28:02):
red in color theory would signify the ideas of things
like high energy or passion or emotional and redsity yes,
seeing red, yeah, And blue is more tranquility and depth
or consideration or thought. And I believe they say that
yellow it makes you hungry. So combining red for that
(28:24):
excitement and yellow for hunger makes a whole lot of
sense for the golden arches.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
You know. That's a great point. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
And also yellow in large amounts can apparently make people
panic a little. So that's why you always felt weird
in a yellow kitchen, folks. Apollo gets it, Pile gets it.
So perhaps if color theory holds, a red colored cup
just feels psychologically somehow more correct for your next frat rager.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
You know what I mean. It's the associations, man, And
I mean like when I think of beer pong, which
I've never in my life participated in, I think of
red solo cups, and they even sell little small versions
that are specifically for like shots or for those kind
of games.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
We both spent a lot of time in Athens, Georgia.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
And you know what's funny. I never went to fraternity.
I was never in a college that had fraternities. I
never went to frat parties when I was actually of
college age. But when I moved to Athens as a adult,
I had some younger friends who invited me to these
frat parties that I went to more a sociological experiments,
and man, red solo cups were everywhere.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yes, Debri Gore, Yeah, solo keg cups. In particular, they
hold more liquid than competing cups. They have an eighteen
ounce flush fill. The company calls it as opposed to
the sixteen outs fill offered by their competitors. So let's
exercise empathy if we're a college kid with a perishing
(29:59):
third and not much in the way of cash. The
big cups maximize the amount of cheap beer you can
scarf at a single time, which is why they're at
every party and they're grippy, and they're grippy, you're pounding
it back for knocking them back, as they say.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Yeah, they evolved.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Now the current cup model has four grips, one on
each side for indentations.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Which is funny though because they still, to the naked eye,
appear round. They're not like square cups. But they have
these edges. It's a pretty clever design, if I'm being honest. Yeah,
it's a very clever design. The earlier versions had ridges
that people made folklore about, like the red cup has
become folklore. The idea was you could measure liquid. You
(30:49):
could even if you needed to mix cocktails based on
the ridges. The horizontal ridges in the solo cup, and
there are some substance abuse educators that even say college
students should use the lines in the solo cup to
monitor how much alcohol they are ingesting. Pretty weird. Good
(31:13):
luck getting them to do that, right.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
But this is not the end of the story. As
we tease, Nola, I think you did a beautiful job
in this. In particular, as we tease, the United States
is more than just home to the Solo cups. It's
also home to one of the world's largest, most successful
entertainment industries. It's been one of Uncle Sam's largest exports
(31:46):
post World War Two, up there with the arms trade
and the defense industry. So if you are European or
Australia and South America, if you are heck, a person
from any but the United States, you will see so
many films and TV shows that feature red solo cups
(32:08):
at every party. This became more than a product, It
became a symbol. Like when I can't remember the last
time you were in Europe. The last time I was
in Europe, I did go to an American party. They
had solo cups as a themed prop, and weirdly a
lot of peanut butter.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
You know, there's this arcade that I love to go
to called Round One that specializes in a lot of
kind of more obscure Japanese cabinet games and rhythm games.
And there is a Japanese game that is a beer
pong simulator that absolutely has read solo cups, but not
(32:49):
actually branded. It's just that's the look, because that is
how they see us.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
That's the folklore, you know. And it's weird because a
lot of people might travel to the US and look
for low cost souvenirs instead of partying and chucking the
cups in the trash the way so many people in
the States do. Folks in Europe wash them, put them
in the top rack of the dishwasher, and then reuse them.
(33:17):
This does not seem to be the result of a conspiracy,
does not seem to be the result of a backroom
deal or some crazy awesome Bernese level pr campaign. These
cups are cheap, handy, convenient, ubiquitous. Now they're thoroughly American.
We even mentioned at the top Toby Keith, who recorded
(33:40):
a weirdly addictive homage to the Red Solo Cup in
twenty eleven. So, now, for better or worse, this is
a piece of Americana. I don't know how it works
for everybody in this wide, beautiful country of ours, but
we do have to debunk one thing. The lines on
(34:03):
the cups. Man, I think they're plastic extrusion. And then
later the Solo Cup company went back and said, here
will publish a guide to how to measure stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
But they do acknowledge that it was arbitrary and that
they were sort of just I kind of give them
props for this, you know, the point that you made
about how much liquor you should consume, how much wine
or how much beer. They say, what you've seen in
this advertisements. The real understanding of lines on Solo cup
from the Solo company, not true or an original part
(34:38):
of Solo cup design, but surprisingly accurate. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Yeah. They have a great breakdown of an old school
Solo cup, the one without the grips, but the one
that does have the lines over the cup. They have
one picture that says, twelve ounces of beer. That's the
help me out here.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
In the third line down, there's a double line around
the ridge and there's two big lines, so it would
be the second big line would be like, okay, that'd
be your fill line for around twelve ounces of beer.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Okay, and then five ounces they have lower wine. They
have one ounce for liquor. But then they go to
the next picture and they have the same beer line
twelve ounces and they say this is the amount of
water you should drink five times a day, and then.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Then five ounces for cereal standard serving of cereal, and
then one ounce. I love this because it's the same
as a shot of liquor. So you know, if you
if you're out of liquor and you want to just
pound some mouthwash, the same amount h super christ, Wow,
a pretty solid amount of mouthwash each morning. Do not
drink it. I was joking.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
And they also give you other things like five ounces
a perfect amount of juice for kids. One out, this
is how much chocolate syrup you need to make chocolate milk. Look,
these folks are selling.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Cups, no doubt that hard doing a fine job of it.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah, and we do know that obviously, this kind of
mass production can be controversial because these cups are made
from number six thermoplastic polystyrene. It is multiple, it is ductile,
it's very cheap to make it, but it is also
very difficult to recycle it.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
And it's inside of all of our bodies.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
And all your bits, and these profits from the Solo Cup,
we're happy to report have helped make the world a
better place in other ways. The guy you mentioned earlier,
Noel Hulsman Senior, was super big on philanthropy. He donated
a ton of his money to Catholic education, to anti
(36:57):
poverty initiatives, and religious unities.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
I didn't know that you never played flip cup. Well,
I played the game at the arcade.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Ha. Yes, well, okay, good for anyone that doesn't know, though, Ben,
Oh sorry, flip cups different. I played the beer pong
simulator for anyone that doesn't know, myself included. I don't
think I know what flip cup is.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Flip cup is where you have to take a standing
cup and then flip it perfectly upside down. Oh, kind
of like a bottle flip right, Yeah, just so on
a horizontal surface.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
And at which point you're punished or rewarded by having
to take a drink.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
The beer and you put it down. You have to
flip it.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Yeah, and if you flinch, you have to marry your
mother in law.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Got it. Yeah, it's a it's a it's a reference too.
I think you should leave. We're a lot of fun
at parties. Next, how do we have a car with
steering wheel? It doesn't fly off, fly out your hands
and you turn it. I don't know how goes look
at me, admits it.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
So thank you so much for tuning in, fellow ridiculous historians.
We had a great time with this one. We hope
you tune in as we continue to explore the ridiculous
history of potatoes. Max, you've got some background on this
holp we do overall with red solo cups.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
You did them well, you served them well.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
I will say that they've served us well, you know.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Big thanks to our super producer, mister Max Williams. Big
thanks to Alex Williams who composed this slap and bop.
Big thanks to everybody who is playing flip cup tonight
right now?
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Noel? Who else? Well, first of all, drink responsibly when
playing flip cup or beer pong or you know, attending
frat parties. Gosh, who else? You know? Who we heard
from today via email our buddy the puzzler A J.
Bahamas Jacobs. I think we're going to get him to
come back around real soon. Jonathan Strickland aka the Quist
(38:58):
who he did not hear from today.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
And big thanks, of course to our returning friend of
the show, Jordan run Todd. Check him out very soon.
We're gonna be getting weird with Elvis. Big thanks to
the rude dudes over a ridiculous crime. If you dug
our story about Dali and Rikers Island, you will.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Love these folks.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
So hie thee to a podcast platform of your choice
check him out ed. You know what, I'll say it.
We can prank them a little bit, Nola Max. Just
write to them and challenge them to a game of
flip cup.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Yeah, and Ben, thanks to you for the research on
this one. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Oh Man, same thanks.
Heck yeah, We'll see you next time. Folks. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(39:55):
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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