Holy cow! This crap was still being made‽ (Been a while since I’ve used an interrobang.) I figured it had faded away by the Aughts with the dominance of Diet Coke and Coke Zero. Then again, how often do you see King Vitamin or Quisp in the cereal isle at the grocery store? Yeah, gonna’ make you look!
It was definitely a revolutionary idea in 1960, diet soda back when people didn’t drink the amount of soft drinks they do today. As if people were that worried then.
Growing up in the Seventies, I remembered all the commercials with the slogan, “A beautiful drink for beautiful people,” often accompanied with women in swimsuits. I had no idea what diet necessarily meant. So one evening at Ponderosa, I asked for a Tab as my choice of drink just see what the fuss was about. BLECCCCCHHH! It tasted like furniture polish, had I known and survived to find out this type of poison. My parents responded, what the hell did you think it was going to taste like stupid? I had to endure it because this before the days of unlimited refills via HFC.
By the Eighties, Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, Diet 7-Up, etc. made their inroads and I’d say they’re pretty common choices. Being somewhat overweight and addicted to the caffeine fuel they provide, I’ve managed to endure their horrible, horrible taste and Tab paved the way (or weigh?) for those obsessed pioneers I grew up watching.
Good riddance to Tab, not a victim of the Pandemic, just tougher taste buds.