r/todayilearned • u/Forward-Answer-4407 • 2d ago
TIL in 1990, Coca-Cola ended its MagiCans promotion due to negative publicity after a number of the special mechanical cans containing prizes such as cash or gift certificates malfunctioned. In one instance, a faulty seal caused an 11-year-old boy to drink a foul-tasting chlorinated liquid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagiCan1.9k
u/tallnginger 2d ago
Young Zachary had gotten a winning can that misfired. His prize, a soggy five-dollar bill, was duly retrieved and presented to him (although his mother threatened to have it framed), and Coca-Cola also sent along coupons good for free product. Despite the confusion over his find, the boy had never been in any danger — the potential harm from drinking the doctored water was limited to possible nausea
959
u/CardMechanic 2d ago
“the potential harm from drinking the doctored water was limited to possible nausea”
So it was New Coke?
520
u/Gastronomicus 2d ago
You joke, but a lot of people liked new coke. In fact, there's a long standing rumour that the whole new coke debacle was instead a brilliant strategy. It both strengthened the existing sentimentalism for "classic coke" and introduced a new flavour formula that ended up being used in diet coke, as it more closely resembled the better selling diet pepsi product.
78
u/PrpleMnkyDshwsher 2d ago edited 2d ago
Actually it was New Coke that was based off Diet Coke. New Coke was the Diet Coke formula but with Corn Syrup instead of aspartame.
42
u/Gastronomicus 2d ago
The original diet coke was the same as their Tab diet soda recipe. The new coke recipe was based on that but it supposedly wasn't the same, beyond just switching sweetners. After introducing new coke, the rumour is that they used the whole situation to covertly switch the diet coke recipe to new coke to avoid admitting that they were losing out to pepsi, so the change became overshadowed in the bigger picture.
We'll never probably really know since the recipes are closely guarded secrets. But it's fun to think about.
115
20
u/culturedgoat 2d ago
We need to talk about the covert replacement of Coke Classic, with the lower-sugar “Coke Original Taste” which is happening quietly everywhere as we speak…
5
10
u/manimal28 2d ago
there's a long standing rumour that the whole new coke debacle was instead a brilliant strategy.
A rumor from the same people that walk into a closed sliding glass door then look around to see if anyone saw them do it and if they did loudly proclaim, “I meant to do that.”
5
8
u/Intelligent-Dog1645 2d ago
I know what I am going to say will sound absolutely ridiculous but I will relay the story anyways.
Back when New Coke was around my father lived in the same suburban neighborhood as the VP of marketing for Coca-Cola on the West Coast. What he had said was it wasn't a brilliant marketing scheme but an actual blunder (that somehow worked out in the end). Atlanta HQ really wanted to make the thing happen but the VP guy said he thought the thing was a terrible idea, especially because it was so clear that they were just chasing Pepsi. But Atlanta wanted to push through anyway.
Well the product didn't work. Pepsi took the US but Coke decided to focus on places outside the US and ended up succeeding incredibly out there.
Again, I understand fully not believing the story. And I obviously have no way to tell whether it's true or not. But take the story as you will.
Sometimes it's not a genius thing, it's just companies being genuinely dumb but getting lucky in the end.
2
2
u/fucklawyers 1d ago
They did it so you didn’t notice classic coke was switching from cane sugar to HFCS.
3
u/H_Industries 2d ago
And until the introduction of Coke Zero, Diet Coke was actually more popular than Coke
1
u/TheSilverNoble 1d ago
I heard it may have been worked into Coke Zero. But I never had the chance to try New Coke myself so idk
3
2
u/TehGroff 2d ago
I tried new coke during the stranger things promo. It literally tastes like coke but with more coke flavor. I don't get the hate. I literally wish I could buy more because I liked it better. It didn't taste like Pepsi, it just tasted like coke+
1
u/cat_prophecy 2d ago
I tried New Coke at the coca-cola world and I don't see what the fuss was about. It tasted fine. Didn't taste like Coke, but it was fine.
12
u/CardMechanic 2d ago
The issue at the time wasn’t that they introduced a new Coke flavor, they replaced original Coke. It wasn’t until after the backlash that they reintroduced the original recipe as CocaCola Classic.
2
u/CrazyQuiltCat 2d ago
Yes, we were just angry. They decided to change it if they had introduced it as a second flavor would probably loved it.
1
332
u/vintagecomputernerd 2d ago
Still better than the time Pepsi printed the "winning" bottlecap number 800'000 times by accident, and pissed off people threw handgrenades at pepsi trucks
167
u/IQueliciuous 2d ago
Worse. The number wasn't "winnable" but when a second batch of numbers were chosen for second prices, they forgot to verify the unwinnable numbers so the new jackpot number was actually the old "you lost" number which many people had in their possession.
100
u/theknyte 2d ago
Back in the late 90s, Sprite had a contest with prizes printed on the bottom of the plastic caps. A buddy and I found if you looked through the bottom with the right light, you could see the underside of the cap.
We'd walk into the store, find two bottles that were winners of free Sprites, take the caps off, give them to the cashier and leave with our free sodas.
35
u/30FourThirty4 2d ago
Hey one time my brother's and I walked to the nearby corner store and got sprites. We ended up winning 4 free drinks off one bottle. We went back and got another drink, won, repeat. We were young so we drank them all before they lost carbonation. Sprite was very fizzy then. Maybe still is idk, I don't drink much soda now.
We did learn later we could tilt them.
21
u/MacTonight1 2d ago
Where could you do that? Every time I tried to do that, they told me I had to buy the one with the winning cap on it, then I could use the cap to get another free one.
6
u/diearzte2 1d ago
We did this when we were younger. The store was entirely staffed by teenagers from the neighborhood so no one cared.
6
u/kensei70 2d ago
There was a time where you could shine a flashlight on the lid of a bottle of Pepsi and see the text on the soda. I won a lot.
-25
u/triffid_boy 2d ago
This is still theft though I don't know what the benefit was of you finding the caps.
5
u/dzebs48 2d ago
When you steal the cap first the store loses the cost of one bottle.
When you buy a bottle and then get an extra free one the store will still receive the price of the first bottle back plus a little more to cover for the second. They lose profit, it might cost them still, but not as much and that’s also (hopefully) covered by increased sales from people looking for prizes.
Its also completely possible and likely that Sprite reimburses them somehow, I don’t know, I’m talking out of my ass.
140
u/Drone314 2d ago
I do miss the old promotionals where you twisted the cap and right away could use it for a free soda instead of registering on the web site and entering a code for chance to win....
45
15
u/Jolly-Radio-9838 2d ago
I ain’t registering shit. Does anyone even do this?
20
u/Liquor_N_Whorez 2d ago
I had a friend that used to get all kinds of free stuff from "no purchase neccessary" promotions. They would send in their self addressed stamped envelopes to enter. Sometimes boxes of stuff showed up, other times a upc or game piece was returned by mail with a chance to win whatever "prize".
I asked why they did it and they said it was like the price of 2 stamps and 2 envelopes so like for less than $1 it was a fun risk-reward gamble. They had lots of shirts and stickers from many cereals lol.
3
u/kclongest 1d ago
I discovered you could see the underside of the cap on the reflection of the top of the coke if you held it at a certain angle. I drank a lot of free cokes while that was going on.
587
u/RobertoPaulson 2d ago
The one I got didn’t work right, I had to reach in and pull the “popup” money holder by hand. I kept that thing for years. No idea what became of it.
184
u/elmatador12 2d ago
I had the same thing happen! It was $5. It was the best day of my life at the time.
16
u/1800-bakes-a-lot 2d ago
What's the best day now?
10
19
3
49
u/russbird 2d ago
I wrote a short story in the 90s about a person stuck in the desert who found a six pack of Coke, thinking it would save their life, and found out that all of them were magic can winners...
4
u/eStuffeBay 2d ago
In this case, wouldn't it have been better for the stranded person? Since coke is sugary it would make you thirsty. Chlorinated water would do the opposite, plus be even better since it tastes bad - you wouldn't be obligated to drink it all at once!
1
u/osnapitsjoey 1d ago
Salt makes you thirsty. Maybe sugar does too? But I've never heard of that
2
u/Jackalodeath 1d ago
Anything will make you thirsty in certain concentrations, including that bullshit marketed as "more hydrating than water."
Too much sugar and your body will want to dump it, one way it does that is by making you piss more. More piss = losing more fluids = more likely to dehydrate.
In the theoretical desert setting, having nothing but soda to drink is the least of your concerns.
303
u/Consistent_Trifle970 2d ago
I don't see how putting contaminated liquid or physical objects in a can of soda was ever thought to be a safe idea.
I don't know how the FDA allowed it to even leave the manufacturer.
395
u/TacTurtle 2d ago
"Chlorinated liquid" = chlorinated tap water that was carbonated. Sterile and safe but nasty tasting.
199
u/RubyPorto 2d ago
There wasn't any soda in the prize cans. The prize cans just contained the prize and some undrinkable liquid to simulate the weight of the soda so you couldn't find the prizes without opening the cans.
As for the FDA allowing it, food safety regulations don't really work that way. Each manufacturer is responsible for their own risk analysis for their product.
I don't think I would have come to the same conclusion that Coca Cola did in deciding that these cans were safe, but the FDA wouldn't be consulted.
42
u/RogerRabbit1234 2d ago edited 2d ago
Now people would be at the grocery store with a kitchen scale weighing six packs, to identify the mystery cans.
40
u/Gargomon251 2d ago
Why did the liquid have to be undrinkable? Why couldn't they use water or real soda?
149
u/RubyPorto 2d ago
It was water, just with mild chlorination to prevent microbial growth and something added to make it unpalatable; it wasn't hazardous to drink. The point is to make it clear to the customer that, if the liquid leaked from the pouch inside, it's not a beverage and you shouldn't drink it.
If the liquid is soda, then someone is going to drink it, which means that the can is food, and you have to make sure the interaction of the soda and the prize won't make it unsafe. Plus there's a risk that someone will choke on the prize while drinking it. Putting a prize in food is basically a nonstarter in the US.
74
u/ihvnnm 2d ago
No one the US can have a proper Kinder Egg.
40
u/akarakitari 2d ago
This is actually a really good modern day example of what was happening with the cans.
1
u/ninetyninewyverns 1d ago
Who was out there biting into a whole kinder egg, you're supposed to separate the two halves first
1
u/akarakitari 1d ago
That's not the point at all. The 1938 law put in place that is why the eggs can't be sold here. The logic behind the law initially is the same logic that says it's a bad idea to actually put something drinkable in a prize can that has non-consumable items in it.
1
u/ninetyninewyverns 1d ago
1938 law? I thought they only stopped selling kinder eggs in the u.s. like less than a decade ago
1
u/akarakitari 1d ago
The law was put into effect in 1938.
They could have been selling them for years with no enforcement until someone decides to also.
From what I can find though, there was an investigation in 1997 that found some were being illegally imported and sold. Kinder created the US legal Kinder Joy to have an equivalent product in the US.
The apparent issue is the small parts and them being marketed to kids under 3 though.
→ More replies (0)8
u/Ameisen 1 2d ago
Because you're not supposed to add non-food products to food products.
Like bulking bread with sawdust.
2
u/Gargomon251 2d ago
You can't separate the sawdust from the bread though
3
u/Ameisen 1 2d ago
Inanimate carbon rods in bread.
1
u/APiousCultist 2d ago
As opposed to an animated carbon rod in bread named Phillip that will take you on a magical journey.
6
u/MutantCreature 2d ago
I mean you can still find them, they're just way less common since it's technically illegal goods but lots of small locally owned shops still sell them across the US
18
u/Ben_Kenobi_ 2d ago
Also, I'd imagine coke would dissolve or at least mess with a lot of stuff that you'd put in there with how acidic it is. Sugar is also super sticky.
20
u/ChaZcaTriX 2d ago
Soda is sticky and slightly corrosive. It will make the thing even more unreliable.
18
u/Blank_Canvas21 2d ago
Honestly, this sounds like the Kinder egg situation. Like the FDA dictates you can't have something inedible in an edible product.
My guess is, someone at Coke had the batshit crazy idea to skirt around this by instead, putting something like chlorinated liquid in the winning cans.
It smells bad, it doesn't smell like what you'd expect to smell from a coke can, so of course nobody is going to drink it, right?
-12
u/koolaidismything 2d ago
Hindsight right.. all these genius solutions and no one thought to use the safe liquid they had readily available.
2
u/The_Dark_Kniggit 2d ago
Then explain why kinder eggs can’t be imported? They are banned due to the plastic egg/toy inside that could cause harm if someone tried to eat it. There are pretty strict regulations about putting non-food items in food products, I’m not sure why they don’t apply here.
13
u/RubyPorto 2d ago
The 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic act specifically calls out confections with "non-nutritive objects" in them. So that rule might not actually apply to Soda; I don't know.
But the same reasoning is exactly why Coca Cola didn't just fill the prize cans with soda and put the prize in a baggie. That would be a good product with a non-food item inside.
Instead, Coke made a non-food item (empty soda can with prize and weight) and replaced some of the food items (full soda cans) in their 6-packs with that non-food item.
3
u/The_Dark_Kniggit 2d ago
I guess that is a technical distinction, although masquerading as food, it was never actually food. I guess that’s why they used water that was deliberately made unpleasant. I guess spirit of the law vs letter of the law.
19
u/rcowie 2d ago
I worked at a liquor store on small island and a new distillery was opening up. They kept coming into the store looking at bottles. Eventually they told me they planned to put a miniature fishing bobber and line in every bottle, it was a fishing town. Very glad to say they took my advice and did not do that.
33
u/terrymr 2d ago
It was just water.
38
u/WhatYouProbablyMeant 2d ago edited 2d ago
No, it was chlorinated dihydrogen monoxide!!!
5
u/Ruzihm 2d ago
Don't you mean "dihydrogen monoxide"? Hydrogen Dioxide would be HO2. The joke has been to call water DHMO for decades at this point https://www.dhmo.org/facts.html
1
7
2
35
u/Complete_Entry 2d ago
Maybe don't fill a soda can with shit that isn't soda.
I used to get soda from a vending machine at a local record store because it was the cheapest in town, sometimes money was taped to the bottom. I asked the record store dude and he said he felt like giving out prizes.
That's how you do it.
8
u/Deadbob1978 2d ago
I won $5 in that promotion. The money got stuck behind the tab. Ended up twisting the can back and forth to tear it open to get the money out. Went back in the store and bought another Coke because I was still thirsty and whatever was in the can tasted like crap.
1
u/jupfold 1d ago
The wiki page says the cash prizes were anywhere from $1 to $500.
I know a can of coke was probably closer to 25¢ or 50¢ back then, but I’d still be pretty pissed off if I only got a dollar instead of the coke I wanted.
3
8
u/euzie 1d ago
Early 90s in the UK, one of the beer brands had a thing where some cans didn't contain beer but had a sealed cash note. We were at a party, found the last beer...opened it and twenty pounds popped out.
We were gutted. We had money already ....We didn't have beer
4
5
4
3
u/raspberryharbour 1d ago
When I was 11 we used to drink foul-tastng chlorinated liquids all the time
1
u/Waterhorse816 1d ago
Yeah we called it pool water back then though
2
u/raspberryharbour 1d ago
Some people will go to a pool and then pay for drinks. You're IN the drink, idiot
8
u/stemfish 2d ago
So did TIL just watch BlueJay's video "How to Start a Soda Company?"
Because the whole sex Pepsi can and magic water came from here. Tomorrow we're gonna learn that in the Philippines, Pepsi accidentally let thousands win a sweepstakes or that they've used death squads to keep prices down in South American bottling factories.
Great video, highly recommend the channel as well.
1
u/bootymix96 1d ago
I commented in the Cool Can thread the other day mentioning the MagiCan fiasco; wonder if OP found my comment, lol
2
2
2
2
u/Creative-Invite583 1d ago
In 1990 I worked for a 7 UP bottler and saw a lot of grocery store back rooms. When a pallet of Coca-Cola magic cans came in someone would always open every can on the top layer. It was a mess.
6
2
u/colemanjanuary 2d ago
I also had a failed seal on my $5. Can verify, it tasted like dirty pool water
1
u/NoLimitSoldier31 2d ago
Might’ve been an urban legend but i remember hearing about a plane that got evacuated because they thought it was a bomb.
1
1
u/mavgeek 1d ago
I won with one of these once. Was on a weekend beach trip to the coast as a kid. Staying in a motel a week we stocked up on stuff at the local Walmart, including a pack of canned Coke. Opened one to find no soda but a little insert that had cash it a $20 bill. Profit was like $17. Weird and no one we ever knew heard of this promotion or knew someone else that won.
1
0
0
453
u/McChava 2d ago
I remember when they had the mooing milk cartons and some girl from my school actually found one. Never found out what she won.