BLUE? The colorful one from Nehi!

Years upon years ago, a mini-mart near where I lived used to sell a wonderfully blue concoction that I only knew as "Blue Nehi" which I always pronounced "Blue Knee-High." I don't remember much about the flavor (I was perhaps 7 years old when I last had it) but I remember absolutely loving it.

As time progressed, Blue Nehi stopped showing up in my area and before I knew it; I questioned whether or not I had made it up in my head or not. Convinced that was the case, I quietly accepted my ungraceful jump into senility.

Then, a couple months back, I was doing an article on the first soda to be sold in cans and that led me to the history of Royal Crown (RC) Cola. Turns out that before they were Royal Crown, they were known as Nehi and, in the late-1940s, one of their flavors was Nehi Blue Cream. After shaking the terrible image out of my head, it dawned on me that this was the magical "Blue Nehi" that I had given up on.

So no, I didn't go senile in my teens (apparently, I went senile when I was 20) and it very much existed. Though the company completely changed their name to their flagship product in the 1950s, the Nehi brand still pops up on uber-rare occasions.

So I now have another goal to reach for in life. First, I need to get my hands on Pepsi Clear and do a taste test (then promptly have my stomach pumped, I wanna kill two birds with one stone here.) Then I need to get my hands on some new Nehi Blue Cream and see if its flavor happens to jog my memory. It'd be nice to verify whether or not this was the same drink that I loved as a kid.

FACT! #63

In honor of my wife's return to school and the start of the new term for myself and many of my friends in the area; I figured this would be a very appropriate FACT! subject! Though I'd probably make the creators disappointed in my terrible, terrible grammatical skills... And mathematical skills... And eating skills... Hell, even gaming skills.

A whole generation of kids just had a severe blast from the past with that logo. First debuting in 1973 from David McCall; Schoolhouse Rock was a very popular and surprisingly long running educational series. The cartoons were usually just a single song in length, usually about 3 minutes long, and dealt with a wide variety of educational subjects. The series was part of the much coveted Saturday Morning line-up for ABC. The series managed to score some hits with some of the songs... Who grew up in the 70s/80s/90s can't hum "Conjunction Junction?"

The initial run of the series was between 1973 and 1985 with a handful of spin-off series: America Rocks (in honor of the bicentennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence), Grammar Rock, Science Rock and Computer Rock (with only a handful of shorts produced in the early-1980s.) A second series of shorts were released mainly from 1993 until 2002 with a few more new spin-offs.

Even after nearly 40 years, the series is still going strong. In 2009, the production team released a direct-to-video series named Earth Rock, with many songs written by the original band including Bob Dorough (who wrote the first Schoolhouse Rock song: Three Is A Magic Number.)

Welcome back to school, chitlins! Now I totally need to listen to "My Hero Zero."

FACT! #62

By the early 1980s, Atari's reign of dominance quickly began to yield as new competition entered the video game market. With the introduction of Mattel's Intellivsion (1979), the Atari 2600's technology began to look obsolete and a nearly knockout blow came in 1982 with the release of the vastly superior ColecoVision.

Atari already figured that the 2600 was going to become obsolete roughly around 1980 and in 1979 began to design a new system. Preliminary work on the successor, named at the time the Atari Video System X - Advanced Video Computer System, began and was based off of Atari's growing line of home computers, the Atari 400 and 800. The name was changed to the Atari 5200, though there are a few known copies of the Video System X that do exist.

In 1982, the Atari 5200 was released with 4 controller ports on it, whereas the vast majority of systems at the time had only 2. In 1983, the system was re-released with only 2 ports and was reconfigured so that Atari could release an Atari 2600 adapter allowing backwards compatibility.

Sadly, the 5200, albeit a much improved system, was doomed basically from the start. In 1983, Atari made massive blunders and a glut of terrible video game titles led to the video game market crash of 1983. At the time, video games were viewed as a passing fad and Atari discontinued production of the 5200 quietly in 1984.

A little over half of the games for the system sell for under $10, but a surprising percentage are starting to gain value due to the somewhat limited production of them and are going for $10 - $50 with one title regularly fetching over $100.

FACT! #61

Today, most people are wondering about the longevity of the penny/cent and why on earth we're still minting it as it has become such an apparently useless coin. But back in the day, pennies were easily the most commonly used coin and had so much value that, in 1792, the US mint authorized the production of a Half Cent.

The US Half Cent was minted from 1793 to 1857 with several interruptions in its production during the early and mid-19th century. The coins usually had "Half Cent" on the back with some stating "200 for a dollar." Most mintages of the half cent were under 500,000 with a few years seeing between 0 and 100,000.

Due to the limited minting of the half cent, most varieties go for no less than $50 regardless of condition. Some rarer ones go for $200 - $500. The rarest varieties do go for premium prices well into the thousands and tens of thousands of dollars; including mint and near-mint conditioned coins.

FACT! #60

If asked what the first digital audio recording format was, most people would receive one of three responses: The Compact Disc, MP3s or Cassettes. Those three responses are all incorrect. In 1976 a new audio format named SoundStream and the company of the same name, debuted.

The technology they used allowed them to convert analog recordings into digital and thus improving the quality of the recordings. The company quickly began working with major companies including Warner Bros., RCA and CBS to record various works of music under all of those labels.

Though initially successful, SoundStream was eventually overtaken by the growing popularity of the CD. A brief format war began between the two after the CD was released in 1982; but by 1985, SoundStream went the way of the Dodo and succumbed to the inevitable and the CD soon became the most popular format for over a decade.

FACT! #59

In 2006, Coca-Cola released a seemingly unholy concoction named Coca-Cola Blak: a Coke/coffee drink. Originally debuting in France, the drink was brought over to the United States and Canada in the same year. In 2007, Coca-Cola announced that they would discontinue the drink in the US once the original concentrate ran out and by 2008, the drink was discontinued everywhere.

Though the Canadian and French version of this drink was sweetened simply by sugar; the American version was sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, aspartame (aka, NutraSweet) and acesulfame potassium. This combination caused the American version to be significantly sweeter tasting than the other versions (acesulfame potassium is approximately 180 times sweeter than table sugar. Aspartame is approximately 200 times sweeter than table sugar.)

Though I can't vouch for the non-US versions of the drink, I will go down on the record as saying it was horrible. Admittedly, I'm not a fan of coffee, but even people I know who love coffee thought that Coca-Cola Blak was a terrible abomination of a drink.

FACT! #58

Back in 1979, programmer David Crane had figured out how to make a semi-realistic sprite of a little man. In 1982, he wanted to figure out how to use that little running man in a video game and the idea that followed was the basis for Pitfall!

Pitfall! went on to become an early smash hit in the history of video games, selling over 4 million copies and was the second best selling game on the Atari 2600 system. The game was ported to the Intellivsion, Colecovision and a number of home computers in the 1980s as well.

The game was well known for pushing the boundaries of the Atari 2600's hardware and is also known for the special tricks that went into its programming to make sure that the game could fit the system's 4k memory.

Pitfall! had a number of sequels over the years and has gone on to have lasting popularity. One of the more notable sequels was 1998's "Pitfall 3D: Beyond the Jungle" that had Army of Darkness star Bruce Campbell as the voice of the game's protagonist, Pitfall Harry.

FACT! #57

First produced in the early years of the 20th Century, Iridill Glass (more commonly known as Carnival Glass) was a very popular and affordable type of glass work. Inspired by the lavish works from Tiffany and other producers, Iridill was expected to be the next big thing and fetch premium prices.

This was not to be the case and soon Iridill Glass began to sell at steep discounts; enough so that carnivals began buying up many pieces and offering them as prizes to their games. Through that venue, many households got their first pieces of the glass and that is where the popular name comes from. To give the glass its famous sheen was from the application of metallic salts when the glass was still virtually molten.

Unfortunately, many makers went out of their way to copy their competitor's designs and most Carnival Glass lacked maker's marks which make identifying where individual pieces come from nearly impossible.

Today Carnival Glass has a very active collector's market both online and off. Prices for smaller pieces range from the single digits to hundreds of dollars; with larger pieces passing the $500 market and some climbing into the $1,000 range.

FACT! #56

Though Nintendo's first foray into the video game world was licensing the Magnavox Odyssey for distribution in Japan; the first system that they designed was not the legendary Famicom... It was the Nintendo Color TV Game 6.

Released in 1977, this system was similar to the Odyssey in that it was a dedicated system. The system had six games, all variations of table tennis/PONG that were programmed directly into it. The Color TV Game 6 didn't have the ability to swap out cartridges even though the Fairchild Channel F was released the previous year proved that the technology was there. The system was the first in a line of Color TV Games and was minimally successful. There were 5 systems released for the series between 1977 and 1980.

As the series was released only in Japan, the consoles do fetch a bit of money online now; sitting anywhere in the $75 - $150 range. The rare white systems could easily see $100 - $250 and perhaps more if there were enough interested buyers.

FACT! #55

When it comes to outlandish, cartoony violence in the funny pages... Nothing can really hold much of a candle to Fearless Fosdick. Fearless Fosdick was a Dick Tracy parody that debuted in the Lil' Abner comic strip starting in 1941, which was drawn and written by Al Capp (b. 1909 - d. 1979.) The main character, Abner Yokum, happened to idolize Fosdick, to the point that he would emulate his hero even in jeopardizing ways.

In 1952, Fearless Fosdick became engaged to his long time girlfriend. Abner, taking many cues from his hero, proposed to his long time beau, Daisy Mae. The next day, it was revealed that Fosdick's engagement was only part of a dream, whereas Abner's engagement was stone cold real. The couple ultimately got married.

Fosdick was also famous for his zany cast of antagonists (similar to the oddball characters in Dick Tracy) and for basically being the equivalent of the Black Knight from Monty Python and The Holy Grail. Many times, Fosdick would have numerous gaping holes blown into him from the gunfights that he found himself in, but was surprisingly well, claiming that the holes were "mere flesh wounds."

When the Lil' Abner strip came to an end in 1977, so did Fearless Fosdick. But not before having gone beyond a comic strip within a comic strip. Fearless Fosdick had a brief television show in the 1950s and had many editors hoping to land a Fearless Fosdick strip.

Though he never publicly objected to it, nor did he try to stop the production of it; Chester Gould, the creator of Dick Tracy, was believed not to have been a huge fan of Fearless Fosdick as it was a massive parody of himself and the strip that put him on the map.

Fact! #54

In 1932, Charles Doolin borrowed $100 from his mother to purchase a corn chip recipe. That same year, he started the Frito Company in his mother's kitchen with the first employees being his mother, brother and himself. They had the capability to produce up to 10 pounds of the Frito Corn Chips a day and sold them in nickel bags, usually seeing $2 a day in profit from the sales.

The next year, the production increased 10-fold and soon enough, the company was generating enough money to move from the kitchen in San Antonio, Texas to Dallas. After the opening of a western division in 1941, the company expanded to 6 franchise operations in 1945. By 1951, the chips were sold in all 48 states.

FACT! #53

While the idea would seem absurd to us nowadays; there did exist a 2 Cent coin. This coin was minted in 1864, following the passage of the Coinage Act and ceased production in 1873. The coins weren't incredibly popular as the 1 Cent piece/Penny became more and more available, lowering the need for the coin.

Nowadays they're uncommon. Even in poor conditions, the 2 Cent piece goes for $15 - $25 and in better conditions can easily fetch $25 - $200. The rarer coins can fetch from $100 in poor conditions to $1,500+ in mint conditions.

My wife actually owns one of these and it's a pretty neat coin, in my opinion. The design reminds me of the Shield Nickel that was produced at the same time.

FACT! #52

While most people think that the Sega Genesis was Sega's first console, fewer know that the Master System predated the Genesis. But both were pre-dated by the SG-1000 Computer Video Game trumps even the Master System.

Released in 1983 in Japan, Australia and New Zealand the system was famous for having virtually pirated version of a few Atari titles. The hardware was also close enough to that of the Colecovision that a third party developed a system that could play both the SG-1000 and Colecovision games. The system never made it to America or Europe and was not terribly popular in the countries it was released. The system did lay the groundwork for the far more popular Master System and, eventually, the Genesis. 

Nowadays you can find the system going for $50 - $150 for the most part and the games released for it going for variable prices.

FACT! #51

A beautiful young woman in need of saving. A dashing young man to save the fair maiden. A slimy man with a top hat, mustache and tuxedo. The three characters I just mentioned could be from any of the highly popular melodramas from the late-19th Century into the early-20th. It could, also, be from any number of comical spoofs of such media.

Though, perhaps, the most famous cartoon melodrama parody would be Dudley Do-Right; the first known cartoon spoof of those dramas was Hairbreadth Harry. This comic strip, produced for the Philadelphia Press, followed the adventures of a young boy named Harry. Unlike many toon kids, Harry ultimately did begin to grow up after meeting Belinda, who was already an adult but staved off aging further, later in 1907. The cast was rounded out with Relentless Rudolph, the main villain, whose evil plans were thwarted time and time again by Harry.

The strip was created and drawn by Charles W. Kahles (b. 1878 - d. 1931) who would continue working on the strip until his death. Though popular at its inception, by the late-1930s, the melodramas that the strip was based on were a thing of the past and in 1940, the strip ultimately folded.

Though the strip has been gone for over 70 years, its legacy still continues. It helped prove that the melodrama parody was a popular and potentially lasting source of laughs and that same well would be tapped in to time and time again anytime a fair maiden is in distress and a hero comes by to save her from the clutches of a ruthless villain (all done in an over-the-top acting way... sort of like modern day soap operas), you can thank Hairbreadth Harry for that. Also, as with many other comic strips, Hairbreadth Harry has entered our lexicon and, while seldom used, can still be heard today.

Then again, considering the popularity of Dudley Do-Right, it's far more likely he's the inspiration for that now. All I know is this: If I have to be a villain to get a wicked handlebar/curled mustache... I'd do it. Especially if it comes with a top hat.