Comedy Examiner Commentary: An ode to 'Big Red' soda (with video)

 What the hell is going on with "Big Red"?  We don't even know what flavor it is.

In this edition of Comedy Examiner Commentary, we'd like to take a moment to pay homage to a very strange drink: "Big Red" soda.  What is it about "Big Red" that causes it to be so compulsively drinkable?  Who are the people behind it?  If it tastes so gross (and it does), then why do we like it so much?  The Comedy Examiner investigates all of this and more below, my gentle Examiner readers...

First off, I hate "Big Red".  Can't stand it.  Don't understand why anyone would drink it.  Always avoided it, never associated with anyone that enjoyed it, and find the taste mysterious at best and horrific at worst. 

So, why am I sitting here with a glass of it right now?

It started several weeks ago: I was grocery shopping, and I passed by an end-cap that was home to a bajillion red bottles of the mystery-flavored soda.  I looked at it, and actually had this interior monologue take place:

I hate "Big Red". 

"Big Red": why would anyone drink that sh-t? 

You know what?  I think I'll buy a bottle of "Big Red".  That sounds oddly tasty right now.

Then I stood there, dumbstruck, having an out-of-body experience as my trembling hand reached for the hideous drink, grasped it, and gingerly placed it into my cart.  I could not-- and still cannot-- fathom why I did this.  When I arrived home, I put away my groceries and left the bottle of "Big Red" sitting on the counter, where it sat, mocking me, until I opened it and took a pull from it.

The flavor of "Big Red" is almost impossible to describe.  I defy you to come up with a reasonable approximation of its flavor.  Looking up the drink on Wikipedia, I learned that:

("Big Red") is generally considered to be one of many American varieties of cream soda, and is the original "red cream soda"...Its unique taste, though often thought to be bubble gum, is created by mixing orange and lemon oils with the traditional vanilla used in other cream sodas.

Let's be clear, especially for those that have never tasted "Big Red": "Big Red" does not taste like bubble gum, orange, lemon, vanilla, or cream.  It is "mystery" flavored, and that's the best description you will ever get of the beverage.  You may have your own thoughts and feelings about what "Big Red" tastes like, and I encourage you to leave them in the comments section below, but I warn you: I will not agree with any of your opinions unless they are to agree with mine, that "Big Red" has no discernible flavor and thus must be considered "mystery-flavored".  Here's something from the official website:

Texas-based Big Red, Inc. has offered BIG flavor to consumers since 1937. Big Red continues to bring refreshment through its line of fun-filled flavored beverages. Now available in eight varieties – Big Red, Big Blue, Diet Big Red, Big Red Vanilla Float, Big Peach, Big Pineapple, Big Punch and Big Honey Lemonade – each one will bring you back to a time when you didn't have a care in the world. Drink a Big Red Instead!

So, notice that the other "Big" sodas all have definite flavors attributed to them: Peach, Pineapple, Honey Lemonade (?!), etc.  We submit to you-- and, more emphatically, to the makers of "Big Red"-- that "Red" is not, in fact, a flavor.  Nor is "Blue", so stop doing that, as well.  In an attempt to better understand what flavor "Big Red" could possibly be, we turned to YouTube, thinking that a "Big Red" commercial might shed some light on the issue.  Go ahead and try to YouTube "Big Red".  You'll get this:

What the hell was that?  Why are there no "Big Red" commercials?  What the hell is going on here?  I knew that I'd have to do some deeper digging, so I decided to read through the entire Wikipedia entry on "Big Red" to see what I could learn. 

Turns out, "Big Red" has been around for some time.  Two guys clearly out to punish the world created the drink in Waco, TX back in 1937, which brings the total for "Great things to come out of Waco, Texas" to: zero.  Back in the early 60's, the name of the drink was changed from "Sun Tang Cream Soda" to "Big Red", probably because that name makes more sense (remember: "Big Red" is not "cream-flavored").  A little digging also teaches us that "Big Red" was marketed specifically to Texans during the 70's, because the people pushing "Big Red" probably knew that "Big Red" is precisely the sort of thing that Texans would drink.  Over in Arkansas (where the men are men and the sheep are nervous), we're sure that Mountain Dew is king of the carbonated beverages, but here in Texas, "Big Red" is your drink-God.

I also learned that, as of 2009, "Big Red" has become available "...to consumers in 43 states", which means that there are still seven states that were smart enough not to let "Big Red" cross their borders.  It remains unconfirmed that "Red Labs" have sprung up in trailer parks and inside mobile homes in the states where "Big Red" is not currently sold, but we wouldn't be surprised: take away an American's right to ingest something this profoundly disturbing, and you can bet they'll find a way to make it in a bathtub.

In my research for this commentary (read: poking around Wikipedia and through one of the two links it provided at the bottom of the "Big Red" page), I came no closer to understanding why I would ever consider this drink drinkable.  For something this unbelievably bad, we'd expect there to be a whole series of websites dedicated to cracking the code on "Big Red's" drinkability, but no such sites exist. 

It occurred to me that I might appeal to my fellow Examiner readers, that someone out there may be able to verbalize the strange attraction I've recently developed to "Big Red" in a way that I find myself unable to.  As such, I encourage you, the secret "Big Red"-enjoyer (not a word, yes, but perfectly acceptable to use while discussing something like "Big Red"), to leave your thoughts and comments below.  Please, help us understand this bizarre drink.

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