When Drinking the Kool-Aid Was a Good Thing

Then came 1978...

The ‘Kool Aid Man’ spent the good part of a decade bursting through walls and screaming “Oh Yea!” to startled parents and kids.

Oh, Yea!

When you hear “Kool-Aid,” you either think of something pleasant, making you smile, or something so horrible that smiling is the last thing you’d think to do.

This came to mind recently when a Millennial friend of mine mentioned something about “drinking the Kool-Aid,” and I realized that she had no idea about the etymology of the phrase.

Growing up in the 1970s, Kool-Aid was everywhere. From popular culture references to store shelves to in-between TV shows on regular rotation.

Let’s face it: we drank the Kool Aid. Lots of it. And it was too sweet, not at all refreshing and chemically-coloured, yet we loved it anyway.

Perhaps our love of this very artificial drink was buoyed by our love of its ubiquitous mascot, “The Kool Aid Man.”

He was everywhere, making his entrance known by smashing through walls and breaking through ceilings, all the while screaming “Oh, yea!!” And in addition to being part of the commercial breaks that we couldn’t skip past in our analogue world, it wouldn’t help us avoid him if we could. You see, the Kool Aid Man was embedded into some of our favourite TV shows of the day: Good Times, being the most well-known. Along with yelling “DY-NO-MITE!!” unexpectedly, “JJ,” one of the main characters on the show, had a thirst for Kool Aid more often than not.

Kool Aid was king in his household.

“Let’s have some Kool-Aid!”

Light and breezy. Fun. This syrupy-sweet powder elixir that turned into a thirst-defying drink had only good memories attached to it - for a time.

Good times were equated with friends, family and a sugary drink to boot. The images of the Kool Aid Man bursting through walls at the most unlikely of times is seared into the minds of so many Gen-Xers.

“Kool Aid” equalled fun.

“Kool Aid” equalled childhood

“Kool Aid” equalled good times.

And then a psychotic maniac came along and tainted the Kool Aid brand forevermore.

I didn’t want to put a trigger warning on this post, nor did I want to recount the horror of the Kool Aid-related event that occurred in November of 1978. If you’re a Gen-Xer, you know of which I speak. If you’re not, and you really don’t know what I’m talking about, you can get some background information here and here. It’s ugly and tragic. And so very sad. You have been warned.

Anyway, Kool Aid as part of the cultural consciousness became a thing in the latter part of the “Me Decade.” Fast forward to the decades since and we’ve seen its prominence move from first, an anodyne drink to then, a vessel of death to finally a popular phrase, often used lightheartedly by those too young to remember.

A pitcher of cool, refreshing Kool Aid (Photo credit: Raquel Beauchamp)

Kool Aid’s prominence has moved from an anodyne drink to then a vessel of death to finally, a popular phrase, often used lightheartedly by those too young to remember.

A new meaning for a simple phrase

“Drinking the Kool Aid” had a whole different meaning moving into future decades and generations. The phrase - which is casually bandied about amongst people of all ages - began to mean something very specific. If one was “drinking the Kool Aid” after 1978, one was blindly buying into an ideal, philosophy or similar, with no questions asked. While there are obvious problems with being so devoted to a cause post 1970s, rarely would doing so be fatal in the years since.

Following the news of something so dark, one would never be able to appreciate the lighthearted nature of the Kool Aid commercials with a cartoon-like character busting through the walls. Yes, the drink powder still existed, but it now had an unmistakeable taint that came from its association with an unforgettable event that none of us wanted to remember.

We didn’t change, but our perceptions of what was once considered as something good and wholesome did. The drink was still sweet; its legacy was not. It had forever changed by association and would always be connected to a darker element of humanity - one that used something seemingly innocent for nefarious purposes.

Does time heal all wounds?

Do memories fade?

Perhaps.

Or maybe we just have to accept that those who were born in more recent times are lucky enough to still think that a sweet, flavourful drink marketed to kids and families is just that, and nothing more. Those of us born in earlier times know better: in this instance, we’re older and wiser, whether we like it or not.

Kool Aid commercial from the 1970s