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XXXXX DRUDGE RETORT XXXXX 08:03:01 UTC MON OCT 5 1998 XXXXX How NutraSweet It Isn't -- New Pepsi Product is Coke-Blocked!
By Jonathan Bourne For once it look like PEPSI was going to take the lead over its perpetual archenemy COCA-COLA: PEPSI ONE, the brand new diet soda debuting later this month, was sure to yank the rug out from under the monopoly held by the ubiquitously uber-popular DIET COKE. But just for the taste of it -- and just for the *hell* of it -- COCA-COLA will introduce its super-secret low-cal concoction mere days before the Cuba Gooding Jr.-endorsed PEPSI ONE campaign pops its top. Pop! While PEPSI ONE takes advantage of a state-of-the-art scientific sweetener called SUNETT (made with acesulfame potassium) which provides a taste 200 times as sweet as sugar at a cost of only one calorie, the DRUDGE RETORT has learned that COKE's new beverage actually contains no calories whatsoever! "It's a real scientific breakthrough," crowed a spokesperson from COCA-COLA's secret underground laboratory [located beneath THE GLASS SLIPPER, Atlanta's Only Bridal Shoe Salon in Norcross, Georgia]. This latest libation has "no sugar, no saccharine, and no aspartame -- in fact, it has no artificial sweetener of any kind! And there's no artificial flavors or colors either. Yet no other product on the market quenches a powerful thirst quite like it." After inexplicably mentioning that he never found scientific evidence indicating that nicotine is addictive, the corporate scientist added, "And this new drink will never ever ever cause cancer in rats or people!" Glug... Glug... Glug... Tomorrow's NEW YORK TIMES will report that the new drink will be called H2ONE and is poised to take the diet beverage industry by storm. And as if to add insult to injury, the folks at Coke -- the Coke folks -- managed to secure their own JERRY MAGUIRE superstar to endorse H2ONE -- androgynous enfant enigma JONATHAN LIPNICKI. The same unnamed Shortz -- I mean source -- at the TIMES also leaked to the DRUDGE RETORT that 6 ACROSS in tomorrow's crossword will be "DEFENESTRATE." Lord only knows what 6 DOWN will be. Like Natalie Portman, developing... © DRUDGE RETORT 1998 |