Actor David Naughton (An American Werewolf in London) made several famous commercials for Dr. Pepper in the late 70s and early 80s. Yesterday he was back, heading a flash mob that invaded the NYSE and sang the song for the soda's 125th anniversary. Here's the video. After the jump, a couple of the original ads.

I was never a Pepper, but the song is tattooed on my mind.

There's a lot of talk about healthcare these days (duh), and one of the ideas that is being proposed (or at least the idea of it being proposed is out there) is the taxing of soda. I drink a ton of diet soda, but it seems to me that some people think doing this means the end of the Earth. Stephen Colbert isn't going to stand for any new soda tax. (Video also here.)

This isn't something I would particularly care about, but consumers in England can buy special Ugly Betty Diet Coke bottles. The bottles are pink and come with stickers so you can decorate the bottle any which way you want. Not sure if it will also be available in the U.S. at some point. Coke seems to be doing a lot of stuff with Ugly Betty over there.

I would like to see a Mad Men-inspired Diet Coke bottle. I'd buy around 10 six-packs of those.

[via TV Tattle]

Pepsi has teamed up with Hulu to place ads for their new Pepsi Throwback (Pepsi made with real sugar) into several old shows, including The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Battlestar Galactica. Each short spot features the Pepsi can talking to something from the 70s: a disco ball, roller skates, a fondue pot, a Polaroid camera. There are no spots with the can talking to Nixon or Dorothy Hamill's hairdo, however.

What the ads can't answer is why the heck I can't find any of this stuff in any of the stores in my area.

When I was a kid, maybe around 10 or 11 years old, a friend and I brought some "near beer" with us during a trip to the Museum of Science in Boston. We were so proud of that feat, even if the drink itself was rather lame.

I thought of that after watching this video clip (after the jump) from Kid Nation, which premiere's tonight at 8 on CBS. I don't know if this is from tonight's episode or a later one, but it shows the kids all gathering at the town saloon and sucking down drinks after a hard week's work. Now, I'm assuming that it's just soda and not alcohol they happened to find in the town, but let me ask all of the kids who are reading this: is it cool nowadays to gulp down down soda like this and pretend you're "getting drunk?" Eleven year-olds getting sloshed and learning how to hang out at some cheap bar - it's so adorable! It's like Charles Bukowski - The Early Years.

And for the record, when I was a kid, we called it "tonic," not soda.