I Ain't Afraid Of No Diabetes: Ecto Cooler Returns?

Hi-C, a company owned by soft drink giant Coca-Cola, has a sugary place in the heart of any '80s kid with a cool mom, and no nostalgic drink is more fetishized than Hi-C's Ecto Cooler. The gross-looking green drink popped up as a marketing tie-in with the 1987 Real Ghostbusters animated series, and stayed on shelves in one form or another until 2007, when it was finally sent back into the containment unit. This week, Coca-Cola renewed their trademark on the brand. The move comes a few months in advance of the rebirth of the Ghostbusters franchise, leading many to speculate about the drink's fabled return.

Cults centered around comets and spilling the blood of the innocent haven't showed as much slavish dedication as those who have held faith in the prophesied return of Ecto Cooler. It may just be time to plug in those auxiliary basement fridges, for the hour of the pellucid green ghost draweth nigh.

For some reason and much to the dismay of parents, slime was really, really popular in the late '80s and early '90s. Between Double Dare's Gak, the Ninja Turtles' retromutagen ooze, He-Man's slime pit, and the nefarious Jabba Glob, we had one incredibly slimy generation. So, even though Ecto Cooler was designed to look like Slimer's various bodily secretions, that just made it inherently more delicious. Got leftover, malformed candy bits? Call them Brach's Rocks and give them a dinosaur mascot and no one will question it. It was a less cynical time.

Ecto Cooler's place in the pantheon of Lost Awesomeness is deeply respected, and the loss of the product to consumers has even prompted amateur Ghostbusters to come up with their own formula for the drink. Here's to hoping that Hi-C is actually bringing the ghost juice back to shelves and we can stop drinking the bootleg bathtub goop. And none of that "limited time" stuff. Bring it back for good.

Some accuse 30-somethings of being a generation stuck in the past, and the Internet fervor over Ecto Cooler might be seen as evidence of this, but nostalgia doesn't automatically preclude the ability to move forward. The road to happiness still lies forward, but the path is made up of bits of the past. Green, slimy, sugary bits.

[Source : AltPress]