I've given up all beverages except for water and water flavored with this stuff…but when I was a kid, I drank tons of soda and kids' drinks. I already told you about what Flav-R Straws did to milk. Let's discuss what Fizzie's tablets did to H2O. This originally ran here on 2/25/02…
Let's have a Happy Fizzies party! No, on second thought, let's save our DNA and stomachs and not have a Happy Fizzies Party! I just came across these rather old pictures of a product I always felt should have, "Not to be taken internally" stamped on the outside. Back when I was a kid, a Fizzies drink was fun to make. You dropped a tablet into a glass of H2O and it bubbled like Alka-Seltzer, turning the water — and if you touched the tablet, your fingers, as well — orange or red or whatever the operative, alleged flavor was. The fun, however, stopped when the tablet finishing dissolving and you sorta, kinda had to drink the stuff.
That was the part I didn't like. I'm not sure I ever finished an entire tumbler, even of the "Imitation Orange Flavor" variety…and that was my favorite. As it turned out, this was a good thing. Later in life, I was diagnosed as having a very bad reaction to any kind of artificial sweetener. Had Fizzies been more tasty, I might have ingested more of them and done God-knows-what to my body. A "Happy Fizzies Party" — as the commercials kept urging us to have — could have been like some sort of 5th grade mutual suicide pact.
That was back when the product contained — as per the package depicted here — sucaryl and saccharin, and we thought those were oh-so-much better for you than nasty ol' sugar or corn syrup sweetener. Today, they still make Fizzies and the key ingredient is Nutrasweet, which has about the same effect on me as hemlock did on Socrates, only it probably doesn't taste as good.
It's odd that I have such fond memories of something that tasted so awful. I especially enjoyed the time I took about 20 Fizzies tablets and hid them in the pockets of my friend Sidney Passey's swimming trunks. Sidney put on the trunks, jumped in the pool and his shorts suddenly began to foam, as a rainbow of colors emanated from his crotch area. He later thanked me and said it gave him his first erection. Now, that was a Happy Fizzies Party!