
You know those Pepsi commercials, they're some of the most irritating commercials you'll ever see on tv. And this is an era in which horrendous one-liners from previews for movies such as Legally Blonde and American Outlaws are plaguing our television sets. And let's not forget how difficult it is to get the disgusting taste out of our mouths after seeing products such as shampoo and microwavable noodles advertised by being associated with sex. And yet, Pepsi ranks right up there in some of the most annoying commercials ever.
Take your mind a few years back, and try to remember a Pepsi commercial involving monkeys. Can't remember it huh? That's ok, I'll explain. Basically what happened is that scientists did an experiment involving one chimp they forced to drink Pepsi, and one who was forced to drink Coke. Why Pepsi would want their product to be promoted as fodder for zoo animals and not as a refreshing beverage for humans is beyond me, but that's beside the point. In the end, the hypothesis was confirmed that Pepsi is better for chimps than Coke. Why? Because the one who drank Pepsi miraculously became smarter! He was able to hammer plastic shapes into a table with respective slots for the shapes, you know, those little toy table things toddlers use to amuse themselves. And he wasn't able to do that before. Now the question is, how did the Coke-drinking chimp fare? He didn't became smarter, that's for sure. In fact, he DIED. Actually he didn't die, he "somehow disappeared", as the narrator explained. So what did we learn from all this? We learned that Pepsi makes monkeys smart enough to play with blocks, and Coke makes monkeys disintegrate.
They had another commercial I didn't like. Remember the one with the boat rocking back and forth? If you don't, pretend you do, I don't feel like explaining it for those of you who need to watch more tv. The people on this boat were all drinking cans of soda, but when the boat rocked back and forth, the cans slide along the table. This caused everyone to drink the soda of the person they were sitting next to. Is it possible that you could become so fascinated with your reading material that you would drink an entire beverage and not notice it was a different one than what you started out with? Maybe a boatfull of people were reading Playboy, who knows. However, this was a commercial for Pepsi 1 vs. Coke, unlike the usual Pepsi vs. Coke. They used a different strategy this time: rather than making it seem like their product was better than Coke, they made it equal to Coke. Of course you remember the end part, where the guy says "Pepsi One, I ought to try that". I'd have to say Pepsi took another big step down the ladder on that one.

For a long time, Pepsi used that freaky looking little girl to promote their product. Frankly, I preferred the chimps. At least they don't come up with super-obnoxious phrases, and look at the camera as though they are going to jump up at your throat and maul to to death, like that rabbit from the Monty Python movie. Words can not describe how annoying this child was, and I am willing bet that product sales went down by at least 25% from her starring in those awful commercials. Imagine yourself at the grocery store, looking at various brands of soda. Your eyes scan past Mountain Dew, over RC Cola, and land on Pepsi. You reach over to grab a bottle or two, but then suddenly in your head you hear the Pepsi commercial playing: "baa ba ba ba ba baa" sounding disturbingly similar to a young goat with its testicles getting caught in a barn door on its way out to the meadow. You picture that freakish girl singing, for what seems like much longer than the 30-second time period for standard commercials. Then you scowl, put the bottle back on the shelf, and decide to get some Sprite instead. Hey, if it's good enough for basketball players, maybe it's good enough for you.
The Pepsi girl, name uncertain, starred in many commercials, and even made one with Faith Hill and one with the legendary rock band KISS. It seemed as though her reign of terror would last forever, but there was a ray of hope.

In early 2001, along came Britney Spears, the finest piece of ass to ever grace a soda commercial. This became one of the most popular commercials on television, for some odd reason. This is one thing I have to give Pepsi credit for, they finally did something right.
One thing I've never understood is the Pepsi challenge. How do we know the people who took this challenge actually drank Pepsi, and the drink they preferred it over was actually Coke? How do we know they weren't bribed? You'd think that the takers of the Pepsi challenge were not actors, due to the bad acting, but that's nothing that can't be said about other Pepsi commercials.
Forget the advertisements, let's get right to the drink itself. To be honest, I've always preferred Coke. There isn't too much of a difference, but it seems more mild and refreshing. But the only noticeable difference between these rival beverages is extra sugar and 10 more calories.

One thing I do know is this: I hate the idea of diet soda. For ANY brand. Have you ever wondered why diet soda was invented? You're probably thinking "for fat people, of course". Perhaps, but my theory is better. Sometime, probably about 100 years ago, a restaurant owner sold hot dogs and hamburgers that were lethally high in fat. But no one cared. Keep in mind that this was a time when dust and rats could fall into a meat grinder in the factory, and it would be processed and packaged without anyone so much as raising an eyebrow. Anyway, the restaurant owner had customers come in all the time who ordered hamburgers by the dozen, but they didn't want to feel guilty, so they'd order a glass of water to go with it. "Water?" He'd always think to himself. "That doesn't have any flavor, and since over 70% of the world's surface is covered with it, I don't think I'm going to make much money." After much thinking and pacing back and forth in a cartoonish fashion, the restaurant owner decided to create a soda that, like water, would have zero calories. To add to his genius plan, he decided this soda would also have slightly more flavor than water! Diet soda....that's what he would call it. Sure enough, he became rich by inventing a product with very little flavor that saved people 140 precious calories with every can. Customers could now come to his restaurant, and eat with comfort while their arteries screamed for mercy at the food's high cholesterol content. But it was different this time, since they were now drinking DIET soda, which was bound to make them lose weight and become healthier.
Too bad these customers missed their century. In recent years, the wonderful people working at Pepsi made something new. Pepsi One! It has just one calorie, and tastes exactly like the regular kind! Here's where they're wrong: it DOESN'T taste like regular Pepsi. In fact, it tastes just like diet, possibly worse. You have something that doesn't taste better than diet, and has an additional calorie. So don't be fooled by this tacky marketing gimmick. Be smart, just like the Pepsi chimp, and drink whatever soda your heart leads you to. Do yourself a favor. Drink Juicy Juice, drink Faygo, drink Mexican water, but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't drink diet soda. Or anything followed by a "One", which is the amount of fingers I'd like to hold up to those commercial producers.
~Poopflinger