Sunny D

Sunny Delight originated in Florida in 1963, but Procter & Gamble acquired it in 1989 and launched an aggressive marketing campaign throughout the 1990s. The brand's iconic commercial — where kids reject "the purple stuff" in the fridge in favor of Sunny D's superior alternative — became permanently embedded in a generation's collective memory. The neon-orange drink was positioned as fun, cool, and different, and it dominated the lunchbox era of the 90s, sitting prominently on fridge doors everywhere.

The brand's strangest chapter came in Britain, where Sunny D launched in the late '90s and briefly became a phenomenon — until 1999, when a four-year-old girl in Wales who drank 1.5 litres a day turned visibly yellow-orange from the beta-carotene used to color the drink. The story broke just as a Sunny D Christmas advert showed a snowman turning yellow after a sip, and UK sales halved within two years.

As the 2000s progressed and health consciousness rose, cultural scrutiny mounted over Sunny D's actual juice content (a small fraction, around 5% juice despite marketing suggesting otherwise). The health-focused 2000s moved on to more legitimate juice alternatives, and Sunny D faded from essential status, though it never fully disappeared. By the 2010s, nostalgia for the brand far outpaced actual consumption.