10/21/15

Diet Dr. Pepper Can with Godzilla T-Shirt Offer (1986)

Here's one of the most unusual items in my Godzilla collection.  I have seen the T-shirt on Ebay (usually in kind of dingy condition), but I must confess I did not know how it was acquired.  Here is a Diet Dr. Pepper can from 1986...with Nutra-Sweet!
Most of us probably remember the Dr. Pepper ad campaign, and cross-pollination with the GODZILLA 1985 movie, which resulted in a couple of neat commercials that you can still see on YouTube.  
If you sent them $4.95 before December 31, 1986, you could have had one of these swell T-shirts.  It's fascinating to me that there is no proof of purchase required--not even a receipt.  You could have just picked up a can, copied the address, and gone home to buy your shirt.  
Shirt image, from Ebay Australia.  The artwork matches the Godzilla Skateboard (mentioned here before by Sean Linkenback), which was apparently a contest prize.
Also, not only have times changed, but also cans.  Despite the blue label and choice of sweetener, this can is heavier than I remember, and more so than cans today.  I'm led to believe that the top and bottom are steel, while the middle is aluminum (or aluminium, for my UK readers).  There are traces of corrosion on the bottom that wouldn't happen to an aluminum can.  I wasn't smart enough to give it the magnet test, but I will have to do that! Still, quite a bizarre addition, and those are some of my favorite kinds.

3 comments:

Chris Sobieniak said...

Yeah pop cans us to be heavier back then when they still used steel.

Nowadays, promoting a drink has being "Aspartame Free" seems to be a thing I noticed (at least with Pepsi so far). I miss the old NutraSweet branding of the 80's.

Sampoerna Quatrain said...

It's amazing how quickly we forget what products USED to be like, if we haven't held onto an example!

Chris Sobieniak said...

Which is why I've been doing that lately myself, saving random packages and other stuff, though I had throw out a few things as the bugs got to 'em.