Kool Aid is a brand name for a flavored powdered drink mix owned by the Kraft Foods company. It was invented in 1927 by Edwin Perkins and is known as the official soft drink of Nebraska.
It all started when Edwin Perkins and his wife Kitty conducted a series of experiments in their kitchen that resulted in a liquid concentrate called Fruit Smack.
In 1927 Perkins discovered a way to eliminate the liquid and leave only the powder, this powder was first called Kool Ade and later changed to Kool-Aid.
By 1928 the Kool-Aid brand was registered. On the other hand, due to the increase in the demand for the product, the couple decided to move the production to Chicago in 1931, and by 1950 they were already producing around a million envelopes per day.
Three years later, in 1953, Perkins sold the brand to General Foods, where the advertising mascot “The pitcher man” was created as a prototype on July 10, 1954. It was created by Marvin Potts, art director of a marketing agency of New York contracted by General Foods to create an image that would accompany the slogan "A 5-cent package makes two quarts". Marvin got inspiration for this character from watching his young son draw smiley faces on a frosted window, which is how Marvin created a glass pitcher with a wide smile stamped on the side and filled with Kool-Aid. This was one of several designs Potts created, but the only one that stuck, and General Foods began using the Pitcher Man in all of their advertisements.
By 1974, arms and legs were added to this character and he had his official version for the brand on July 26, 1974, changing his name to Kool-Aid Man, and featured as a 6-foot-tall jar of cherry Kool-Aid.
The commercials for this brand consisted of children who would normally exchange a few words in reference to their thirst, then put their hands to the sides of their mouths and shout “Hey, Kool-Aid!”, while this character made his classic entrance with the phrase "Oh yeah!" passing through walls, fences, ceilings or furniture and later serving dehydrated youngsters a glass of Kool-Aid.
By 1979, the character's mouth was animated again to move in sync with the voice actor's singing and/or dialogue. Also, between 1979 and 1981, the character was known in Canada as Captain Kool-Aid.
Later this character was animated.
As a curious fact, Kool Aid Man has had appearances in the Simpsons in the episodes "The Way We Weren't" (Homer's Imagination), and "The Simpsons Guy", ths last being an special collaboration with Family guy; he has also had appearances in this last series as in the episode "Death Has a Shadow".
In December 2018, he released some commercials and even a song in collaboration with rapper Lil Jhon.
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