Hopefully my readership is one that actually likes the fizzy bubbles of carbonation hit their nose as they drink the nectar : soda, pop, coke, whatever it�s called. Anyone that knows me knows that I am currently 18, an age that indicates a childhood seriously lack in any true recollection of the more interesting nuances in pop culture during the 1980�s and early 1990�s. That being said, I think that most of the zinesters that I speak to on AIM are in the same boat, either being the same age or younger than I. So, I felt a sense of duty as a lemminglike consumer to inform the unknowing about those broad steps by cola companies that were sadly squashed by a conformist, cola-craving consumerist crowd.

Contrary to what one may think, finding information about different types of failed soda by the big 3 (Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and RC Cola) is an incredible chore. A week before actually starting this article, I spent about 4 hours pretty much getting nowhere in the search for cola information. This being said, I humbly present to you this piece, a piece that will hopefully inform you about some of the good (and bad) pops that have simply disappeared.

Coke

Our first cancelled pop, Coke II/New Coke, was the result of a declining market share and a commonly-held consensus that any youthful buyers of the soda were turned off by the acidic taste of Coke. Rapidly losing ground to Pepsi, Coke pushed out a new formulation that modified the original formula, replacing sugar with corn syrup. The vast majority of taste-testers chose the New Coke over the old Coke, but when the blindfolds were off, people rebelled against the new formulation. The populace, yearning for the battery acid, bought cases off the black market for as much as $30. 4 months later, Coca-Cola crumbled and restored the original formulation of Coke back to the can, and relegated New Coke to another product line. New Coke, or Coke II as it is now called, has dwindled in support, only being distributed in a few select places.

Secondly, we have a much more interesting pop made by Coca-Cola, which was deviously marketed in various collegiate and metropolitan area, in order to get increased sales from the segment of the populace that was then called Generation X. This, called OK Cola, called upon Ghost World and Eightball artist Dan Clowes to go and design an indie-style can and case. OK Cola contained some interesting promotional efforts, including placing empty cans containing prizes in random boxes and a 1-800 # to proclaim love for the soda. In the short period that OK Cola was around, it sold over 1 million cases, and still remains a favourite to the former college students who were lucky enough to drink it.

With the last cancellation by Coke, an explanation of why there are very few brands that have been cancelled by Coke is deserved. Coke, unlike PepsiCo, sticks to its brands instead of canceling them. Coke instead offers all brands, but gives a decision to its semi-independent bottling companies. So, if you don�t see Citra, Surge, Tab, or Fresca there is an excellent change that the bottler in your area has decided not to stock that specific line. Thus, I added Coke II to this list, as there has been a noticeable decline in the number of current producers, meaning that one may only find Coke II in one or two regions.

Like Coke II, Pibb Extra was an attempt to go and emulate one of Pepsi�s products, Dr. Pepper. Mr. Pibb was always a clone of Dr. Pepper, but the brass at Coke decided that it would be more profitable for the company if they added a new, more extreme name and reformulation to the ailing Mr. Pibb line. Only being released for a few months, Coca-Cola decided at the best to pull the line and reformulate it, or at the worst, drop the line completely. Time will only tell if Coke brings this product back.

Pepsi

PepsiCo has a much different viewpoint about the success of different lines of soda. Trey will actually cancel lines of sodas if the lines perpetually fail. Thus, numerous PepsiCo lines have fallen by the wayside, with no possibility of ever being resurrected. The only major exception to this rule was the Pepsi Light/Pepsi Twist soda. Both sodas had the honor of being lemon-flavoured, and it was only time from the cancellation of Pepsi Light to the resurrection of Pepsi Twist.

The taste of cinnamon has always been as favourable one, used in foods of all kinds, from the eponynomous rolls to cinnamon toast to applesauce. Pepsi notices the heavy use of cinnamon in popular foods, and formulated 7up Gold. 7up Gold (which although seemingly an independent brand, is controlled by Pepsi) was a soda that mixed the flavour of 7up with Cinnamon. Needless to say, the pop folded quickly, and was pulled a few months after its mid-1988 release.

Crystal Pepsi was, and still is the most magnificent failures by Pepsico. It was rolled out on April 13th, 1992 in the test cities of Providence, Denver, and Dallas. Honestly, this is one of the best ideas that Pepsico has ever came out with, as they removed any and all colouring from Pepsi, creating a much healthier product. The reason why this one failed was the simple fact that people are ignorant. The populace just couldn�t take the fact that a clear soda wasn�t lemon-lime, and didn�t bother buying it. Falling to consumer demand, Pepsico reformulated Crystal Pepsi to be a lemon-lime cola, another addition to the already stocked lemon-lime market. The reformulation of Crystal Pepsi created an in-house battle between 7-up and Crystal Pepsi, dividing profits. Soon after, Pepsi pulled the product in question, and the rumour of a currently producing Crystal Pepsi distributor in Wisconsin is completely unfounded.

In the mid-1990�s, Pepsi was losing heavily to heavily caffinated, fruity drinks in the refreshment market. Going to Latin America, Pepsico began to research the Guarana extract found in native berries. Out of the research came Josta, the second berry pop that Pepsi produced. This soda, with its characteristic red color, was the first non-core product that Pepsico produced after Crystal Pepsi, and did not have the Pepsi log on it. Aside from being the second berry soda, Josta was the first soda produced by Pepsi that was visibly red. This fact is a major one, as product research has indicated that Pepsi is typically associated with the color blue, and Coke with color red. Thus, to colour a beverage red and include a red label would subconsciously tell the average consumer that the product in question was produced by Coke. Josta�s massive commercial campaign couldn�t help the dismal sales it encountered, causing it to be withdrawn from consumption in 1998.

The only bad thing with doing a piece about cancelled sodas is that Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and RC is that each of the companies do not have any information about these failed pops. So, I have little information about some of these sodas, including Pepsi Kona and Pepsi A.M. Pepsi Kona was an innovative creation by Pepsi, being a mix of Pepsi and Coffee. In 1994, when this soda came out, Pepsi began to limit production of the lines that were just released, only selling 20oz and 2 liters. Also in the highly caffinated arena, but in a different era, was Pepsi A.M. A.M. actually stands for what one thinks A.M. should stand for, being the period in the day before noon. In the mid 1980�s, Pepsi came out with A.M. to reach a lot of the coffee-drinking youth. Of all of the failed sodas, Pepsi A.M. was the only soda that I remember a commercial for. The commercial ended with a sunny window and Pepsi : The Taste of a New Generation in horridly bright white letters.

In the late 1990�s, the two most major cola companies began to stagnate, and Pepsi finally broke the period of years without a completely new soda with Storm. Storm was also a test product, albeit for a longer period than OK Soda. Pepsi starting distributing Storm in 1997 in Omaha, Denver, San Francisco, and Milwaukee. Storm is and was the only lemon-lime soda that had caffeine in it. It is an odd soda in the fact that, as a tested product, Pepsico also simultaneously released a second, diet version of the drink. Storm the first pop to use Ace-K, a new type of sweetener that is currently being used with products such as Pepsi One and Diet Sierra Mist. Many former drinkers of Storm believe that Storm was the precursor to Sierra Mist.

Finally in the Pepsico realm of things, there were a set of 6 colas tested in the early 1990s. Tested only in one or two markets a piece, these sodas were Raging Razzberry, Strawberry Burst, and Tropical Chill along with their diet counterparts. One must recognize that Pepsico cannot succeed with fruit pops. The sales for these pops were abysmal and they were pulled from their test markets of Peoria, Sacramento, and Tulsa. An interesting note to this: Pepsi Blue, Pepsico�s newest fruit drink, has failed to an amazing degree, worse then these sodas and Josta.

RC Cola

People might debate my terminology of RC Cola as a �major� pop line. Well, they are third in soda sales, at least where I live. RC Cola has competed with Pepsi and Coke for years, and yet maintain a certain amount of creativity with their sodas that smaller brands lose in their pursuit of market share. RC is the 2nd place company in fruit sodas, only losing out to Coke/Fanta, with their line of Diet Fruit drinks. They are the only major user of sucralose, a new sweetener that has fewer health risks then Aspartame, the primary sugar substitute for diet colas. However, RC has had their share of failures during their lengthy career. Such is the case with such colas as Kick and RC Edge. Kick was RC�s response to Mountain Dew. The name of it came from the (also) failed sports drink line, Quick Kick. Kick was also the purveyor of a number of beverage innovations. It co-opted the widemouth tab from the popular beers of the time and also was the first to put their website on the can. The other cancelled soda, RC Edge, was produced from early 1999 to 2002, and was RC�s version of a higher-energy cola. It was inexorable tied to the WWF/WWE, and was cancelled earlier this year.

Thanks for reading this article, and thanks to Brian for the Kick information. If any of you have any cancelled soda stores, email me and I will produce an addendum in #8. E-mail me as well if you wish to find some information about other sodas. I will send anyone rare colas if they send me actual cost plus shipping.