Mello Yello

Mello Yello proves once again that Pepsi is, and will always be, superior to Coca-Cola. It's not an especially bad beverage, in fact, it's pretty good, but it's quite difficult to find in stores. I didn't check any supermarkets, though. I would have, except those stores are far too specialized for my tastes. When I make a purchase, I like to get a variety of things along with it, and grocery stores can't provide me that luxury.

I first checked Wal-Mart for Mello Yello. Not only did that store not carry it, it didn't even have a beverage aisle. All the beverages were stockpiled at the front of the store to create artificial walls, the way savages do it in third-world countries. Uncouth, to be sure. Fortunately, that store did have two Star Wars action figures I didn't even know were out (Plo Kloon and IG-88), so the trip wasn't a total waste.

Next on my list was Walgreens, because it happened to be less than a block from where I was that night. They didn't have Mello Yello either. What I did find, though, was an issue of People magazine that had a picture of Tom Cruise wearing a Mello Yello racing outfit from Days of Thunder.

I finally found my bounty at Super K-Mart, though it was only available in a 24-can case. All I wanted was one can. The can itself isn't what I remember it to be, though the last time I drank it was in maybe 1987, the year Buck Rogers got launched into space. The modern look is clearly a ripoff a Mountain Dew's can, a Pepsi beverage that would twist Mello Yello's arm around its back when no one was looking. God christ, I have 23 cans of Mello Yello left to drink.

I just realized that I have not seen a Mello Yello commercial on television for maybe my entire life. Is this how you expect to beat the almighty Pepsi, Coke? By not only producing weaker drinks, but also not even advertising them? I'll admit, the absence of commercials is better than the pungent discharge that Pepsi puts on TV, but still, I thought the idea of advertising was to get the name out.

In fact, it seems to be a popular notion that Mello Yello was replaced by Sierra Mist. I like that. People are thinking that something made by Coke has been replaced by a PEPSI product. What I don't get is why Pepsi ever got rid of Storm, which only made it as far as test markets.

Either way, Storm and Sierra Mist are both shitty drinks. I haven't had Sierra Mist, but it sounds like a real garden-variety Mountain Dew clone, which it's not even trying to be. Mello Yello is one of Coke's better products, so it befuddles me why they're so ashamed of it.

Mello Yello really has potential, but Coke insists on promoting computer-generated polar bears and stupid music instead. Yeah, okay, Coke, it was your product that was used in The Gods Must Be Crazy. That's not exactly a claim to fame.

Review by Albert Stephanides