the ecto cooler effect.

I’m sure you’ve all experienced this at some point in life: you express delight at something, and suddenly you’re bombarded with it until you get so tired of it, you can’t stand the sight of it anymore. The person/people plying this product/whatever have nothing but good intentions towards you, but inevitably, there’s just too much of a good thing. one might call it “overkill”. loveandcyanide calls it “the ecto cooler effect”.

and no, this posting is not about our relationships. *smirk*

let's take a quick trip back to 1990, shall we. On the shelves of the supermarket sat Hi-C’s Ecto Cooler, a citrusy concoction that we immediately grew fond of. not to belittle the merits of the Hi-C corporation, but I’m certain this instantaneous love stemmed more from the fact that we adored all things Ghostbuster (I believe this was mentioned in passing before…but before we continue you must understand the magnitude of it. we loved the movies. we still do. we were avid watchers of the cartoon The Real Ghostbusters. Missy, amongst our care bears and barbies, even had an Egon action figure. and i’ll admit it – I had (ahem, have) a major thing for Bill Murray…which probably explains current issues of mine, as I doubt he’s the sort of man a 7-year-old girl is supposed to be attracted to.) than the fact that juice gave us our daily dosing of vitamin C. and I’m sure Ecto Cooler’s awesomely unnatural neon green hue also contributed to our lust.

So since we were spoiled and given just about anything we said we liked, it wasn’t long before Ecto Cooler became the official drink of our household. Seriously, our mother bought it by the caseload – which, now thinking about it, I don’t even know where or how she found it in bulk, as we were freshly suburban at this point in time and were not yet privy to places like Costco and BJ’s. but i do recall bringing Ecto Cooler to lunch with me EVERY DAY during 5th grade, and it being the juice box of choice for us during long car rides, or afternoons playing outside, or, well, just about anything. of course, after some time came the inevitable backlash, and at some point in 1991, when my heart was probably pumping Ecto Cooler instead of blood, I decided I had had enough. NO MORE ECTO COOLER, I whined and pleaded to my mother and the remaining cans and cases were removed, by forklift, from our basement.

In the years since, we’ve had numerous food products go the way of Ecto Cooler (which will forever be our code for “although I loved this 2 months ago, I’m now sick of this shit”), including:

• Linden's Butter Crunch cookies
• Planter's Cheez Balls
• Nerd Ropes
• Chex Mix (all varieties)
• Luna Bars
• Puffins Cereal (peanut butter flavor)

reading through that list kind of makes me question our eating habits, but i guess what can you expect from two little girls whose childhood was drowned in juice that looked like it leaked out of a highlighter?

if this post has whet your appetite for more ecto coolery goodness, go here: http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/119/ to watch the commercial for it. unfortunately we're not yet savvy enough to just insert the video in here...such is the drawback to having a stuffed bear as your webmaster.