Have you seen the new Dr. Pepper commercials?? The ones touting the fact that it has 23 flavors. YES, 23 flavors. And, apparently, because it has 23 FLAVORS, you should drink it. It'll make you happy. It'll make life better. In fact, if we are to believe the commercials, just drinking it is liable to make you obsessed with a certain number - yup, you guessed it 23.
Is anyone else confused by this campaign? They don't tell us WHAT the flavors are, just that there are 23 of them. In fact, you can't know what those flavors are ... it’s a freakin secret. On the Dr Pepper website (yes, I have no life), in response to the question ... "what is the flavor of Dr Pepper supposed to be" the response is "Dr Pepper is a unique blend of 23 flavors. The formula for Dr Pepper is proprietary information," which means, in layman's terms, "mind your own freakin business." But, for some reason, the ad campaign gods decided that the public will buy this product, simply by knowing it has 23 flavors. Despite the fact that we don't know what the hell those flavors are.
I've had Dr Pepper, even had it when it still contained punctuation, and it’s a lovely drink. Not quite cola, not quite the un-cola, but something different. I might even venture to say it’s unique. I enjoy its overall flavor. I'm not much of a soda drinker - unless it’s accompanied by a fair dose of bourbon - but if I had to drink soda, I could do worse then the good Doctor. I certainly don't enjoy it because its distinct flavor is created by some alleged cornucopia of flavors to be named later. Truth be told, the fact that it took 23 mysterious flavors to create Dr Pepper is a little disconcerting. 23 is a big number. That's a lot of flavors. Don't you think there is a great possibility of some questionable flavors being a part of that mix?
I have no information to support this, I'm just guessing, I'm pontificating perhaps, this has no basis in fact (so don't sue me), but don't you wonder if maybe, in addition to some commonish soda type ingredients like cherry, vanilla, apple, chocolate, lemon, and lime, there may be some unwelcome flavors such as: liver; potting soil; snozzberries; jimmy's dirty socks; sour grapes; raw squid; the taste of regret? And do you wanna drink that? I don't. But if putting some traditionally nasty flavors together with "more traditional" flavors creates something good .. maybe that's ok. I don't know about that.
But I do know that more is not necessarily better. Not all the time. I'm a big fan of lots of mores ... more money, more power, more sex, more of anything? More of everything. And in the right circumstance Michael Moore and in the proper vehicle, Mandy Moore. But in this case I find it puzzling. Its like they are saying ... "Why by Coke or Pepsi with their handful of flavors when you can have Dr. Pepper ... we have 23 FLAVORS, 23." Can't they just say "hey man, our shit tastes good, its different, its original, drink it, or don't, go screw yourself." But no, they are trying to appeal to the "it has more, it must be better" school of thought. That doesn't always work.
I was gonna conclude this rant by discussing how going the "bigger is better" route usually ends with something largely unsatisfying .... the cinematic fiasco CLEOPATRA is an example, Walter Hudson another, the HUMMER. I would consider that sometimes "less is more" but we all know that, and then someone would likely respond, "well of course you'd say that, your IRISH." And then I would wrap the whole thing up with a witty and clever sentence that leaves the reader totally satisfied. But I'm tired. If you want satisfaction, buy a Snickers. And while your eating it, enjoying its chewy, peanuty, caramel, chocolate experience, you can read about the flavors your pallet is not yet sophisticated enough to identify, by reading the ingredients on the wrapper. There may not be 23, but damn it, you'll know what they freakin are.
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