Monday, June 02, 2008

New Coke with a Bizarre Bit

We visited the new "World of Coca-Cola" in Atlanta this weekend. It's now next to Centenial Olympic Park and the Georgia Aquarium (which we also visited). We'd been to the old Coke World a few times since it opened and it was getting a bit dated, with the history only coming up into the 1990's. The exhibits have been updated but it's pretty similar and the free tasting is always a treat -- there's great international and cross-cultural comaraderie in trying 60+ flavors of soft drink. More fun than any wine tasting I've ever attended.

There is a new video that they show before you enter the exhibits and I found it more than a little bit bizarre. It's called "The Happiness Factory", and it's happy in some kind of a zen serial killer kind of way. It's animated with upbeat music but there are some disturbing images. For example: a number of animated snowmen are pushed into a meat grinder; a cheerleader with long eyelashes but no eyes sits down in a chair to be interviewed and then in a scene reminiscent of Sharon Stone in "Basic Instinct", low camera angle and such, she crosses and uncrosses her legs; also interviewed, but while hovering, is a chubby tandem rotor helicopter that looks a bit piggish with what are ostensibly six sling load tie points on its belly but that appear more like teats with nipple rings. Those are just a few that I remembered -- it's a montage of fringe characters and odd behaviors, all to produce a joyously frigid bottle of coke.

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