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I was in the Mr. Tire service center today getting my oil changed and I notice this in their little refreshments area: A soda fountain with Tab! I didn’t think such a thing existed, but there it was.
Unfortunately it was empty, so no fountain Tab for me, but an interesting find nonetheless.
The Art Theatre I work at here in Omaha (The Dundee Theatre www.dundeetheatre.com) recently switched from Pepsi to Coke and I pushed for us to sell TaB! I wanted bag-in-a-box TaB for the soda fountain, but apparently they don’t offer TaB for fountain soda in our area, but who cares, cans work just fine.
We’ve only just made the switch, we’ll see how well it sells once we open our next movie, I decided I’m going to push it on everyone who orders a Diet Coke.
Thanks for doing your part to promote our favorite drink!
Even though they call us stalkers here at ILoveTaB, we have to agree – Stock TaB!
As I prepare to crack open the last soda I brought back from Nevada this summer, I have to ask: Why is TaB so hard to find?
I still remember when TaB was hugely popular, you could even get it in 2-liter bottles and find it in Coke machines.
However, I guess when diet Coke really took a hold in the late eighties, people preferred it. I don’t know if people liked the way it tasted better, if they followed the brand they could trust, or if it had anything to do with the infamous saccharin studies.
In case you are unaware, those studies charged that saccharin caused cancer in laboratory animals. What they didn’t tell you was that the dose of saccharin they were administering to those rats would have killed anything. Kind of follows that old adage that too much of anything is bad.
I also seem to remember that when Nutra-Sweet burst onto the scene as a replacement for that evil saccharin, all the sodas jumped right away… with the exceptions of TaB and the diet Shasta sodas. I think the grocery/generic brands also took their time making the switch.
Looking at the side of the TaB can on my desk, they did eventually change their formula at some point, for it now has a mix of saccharin and aspartame.
All I know is it’s tasty. And, once that last can is gone, I won’t be getting any for a while.
So, does TaB have a fan following? Is it enough to get a midwest bottler to start distributing it again? Do former fans of TaB even remember it?
Clearly, TaB does have a following… because a few fans have a long standing website at iLoveTaB.com, which is your basic stalker site… only their stalking appearances of a canned beverage insted of some celebutante.
All I know is I’d love to find some regular supply of TaB. Perhaps I should ask my baby sister in Portland to bring me a six-pack next time she travels this way. She’ll probably think I’m crazy, but you never know ’til you ask!
“My name is Miss Pop Rocks, and I’m a Tab addict. I just wanted you to know that. And I wanted you to know that it’s safe to admit that you may be a Tab addict too.
Tab. Just saying the name makes me feel cuter. And thinner. Tab. That delicious manna from Heaven that keeps your waistline trim and comes in an adorable little pink can. Pink!
Of course, loving the totally 80s diet soda comes with its challenges. There are only a few Krogers near my house that carry it, and I have yet to find a restaurant in the Houston area that offers it. During the lunch break at my place of employment, I’m forced to listen to such comments as, “Oh my God, do they still make Tab?�, “Are you seriously drinking Tab?� and, from the younger set, “What’s Tab?� I was starting to feel alone, lost, and out of place.
Then I found http://www.ilovetab.com, a Web site devoted to the joy that is the Tab product. And suddenly all was right with the world again.
According to http://www.ilovetab.com, I am in the company of such celebs as Andy Warhol, Mary Louise Parker, Kellie Martin, Rachael Ray, Tori Spelling, and Houston’s own ZZ Top. In addition, I discovered that Tab has been name-checked and spotted in such films as “Fletch Lives,� “Airplane II,� and every one of the Austin Powers movies. In the novel “Less Than Zero,� by Bret Easton Ellis, there’s a mention of Tab in at least three places, and the drink also pops up in the recent Pulitzer Prize winning “Middlesex� by Jeffrey Eugenides (page 335 to be exact).
I was informed by my Tab friends that despite nasty urban myths to the contrary, Tab does not give you cancer! (Not that that would have stopped me from drinking it.) There are even links on the site that connect you to places that sell super cute Tab tees.
So to my fellow Tab lovers, never fear. The next time someone makes fun of you for drinking Tab, roll your eyes and remind them that you’re not alone. Remember, ZZ Top drinks Tab, too. ”
Sighting: … The little boy is sitting under a gurney playing with a piece of medical equipment, and Jodie Foster in a blue asian-style satin dress is talking to a nurse/doctor who is opening a can of TaB as she and Jodie are talking.
Help share TaB with the world! ILoveTab.com has joined the Worldwide Lexicon Project, a new website that makes it easy for volunteers to translate websites and share them with the world.
If you speak another language, whether it’s Arabic or Urdu, help spead the word by volunteering to translate ILoveTab.com.
Paul wrote ILoveTaB.com with this great piece of TaB gossip!
“At one time or another I have had every TaB item and especially TaB soda cans [on eBay]. Over 125 different cans were in my collection from all over the world.
“Last month I had a request for TaB items for a new sitcom by Sarah Silverman which will be on [Comedy Central] next year. One entire show will be one a TaB addicted man (not Sarah) and was filmed July 31st, 2006. I dealt with the Set Director. I sent them a TaB clock, 10 TaB glasses, and some small TaB items.”
Thanks Paul!
Here are some pictures of the episode – love the TaB car!
Season 5, Episode 11: The Tan Aquatic with Steve Zissou
“Stewie was drinking TaB in the newest episode of Family Guy….It was after he was tanning in the backyard. It was hilarious…He brought it up very slowly to his mouth as he drank it….:
The Rolling Stones “She Was Hot” music video, 1984.
“There is a close-up of a can of TaB in the ORIGINAL music video, which was edited out before it was ever shown on MTV. I happen to have the uncut version, shown on a now-defunct independent music video channel (U-68 from NYC). I’m not sure, but I think it was cut from the video for legal reasons. But it was there at one time, I have proof!”
“One of the most famous sightings is Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer whose character is a hyped workaholic advertising exec and a big TAB drinker!”
In this shot as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character Ben Richards is being escorted down a hallway,there can be seen a cola machine behind Maria Conchito Alonzo’s character Amber Mendez.Cadre Cola is advertised as the brand on the machine(the main sponsor of Richard Dawson’s character Kilian’s TV station).As the camera pans down it shows that the buttons on the machine weren’t changed from its original Coke designation.Two buttons were coke but to my amazement,there was a TaB button on the machine.What a find!!!
I was watching a show on A&E today called Driving Force and I noticed something to my surprise. The show is about Drag racing legend John Force. There was a shot of his three daughters at his office, and two of them were drinking TaB. The show is based somewhere in California.
(“Devotees go far to keep tabs on diet pop,” The Columbus Dispatch, May 7, 2006 — by Ana Fisher)
Maybe you’re too young to remember Space Food Sticks and Shake-a Pudd’n.
That’s because those food fads, introduced around the summer of 1969, couldn’t attract the necessary long-term market share.
Consumerproduct companies don’t seem to mind. They just roll out the next crazy idea and hope it sticks long enough to make a profit to bankroll the next crazy idea. Click here to read more…
(“Dwindling supply has TaB fanatics searching everywhere for their cola,” Press of Atlantic City, May 7, 2006 — by Courtney McCann)
Lolly Yocum will travel to the ends of the earth in search of an endangered species: her beloved TaB soda.
The Lansdale, Pa., doll maker has a summer house in Little Egg Harbor Township, but she spends more time traveling the Garden State Parkway trolling for soft drinks than enjoying the summer sun.
“During the summer months, I go on TaB-buying journeys that take me from Manahawkin to Atlantic City looking for my beloved drink,â€� Yocum said. “No other drink can compare.â€� Click here to read more…
If you cannot find TaB at your local grocery store, your first step should be to ask your store for the contact information for your local Coca-Cola bottler/distributor. You can also use the Local Bottler Finder. Your bottler/distributor can tell if you they bottle TaB, and where you can find TaB in your area.
If TaB is made/distributed by your bottler/distributer, than any market that sells Coke products should be able to order some TaB for you. Usually smaller stores are more receptive. If your market is resistant, it may help to “pre-buy” a certain number of cases per month, so they don’t have to worry about the TaB not selling.
If TaB is not available in your area (check our list of TaB-less areas in the US), I strongly suggest writing letters to your local bottler/distributer and The Coca-Cola Company expressing your disatisfaction. Make sure to contact us – we can often get members of our newsletter to start a letter writing campaign! You can also:
An effervescent mock-umentary, Generation Tab explores Tab Cola’s turbulent history as a diet beverage. After nearly cornering the youth cola market in the mid-1980s, Tab Cola, Inc. fell flat during the 1990s, due to tired and sluggish management decisions made by its founder and CEO, Sydney Tabinthaul.
Now more than a decade later, Tab is making a well-deserved comeback. Eighties-minded “x-treme sports fanaticâ€� Skip Rufiker has recently been enlisted to revamp the company’s image. “I like to live my life like a Tab kind of guy,â€� quips Rufiker, a skateboard in one hand and an ice-cold six pack of “brown goldâ€� in the other. Watch as we explore this fascinating company and its plans for “shaking upâ€� the worldwide cola market.
Written and directed by Ben Whitman in the Spring of 2003, the film stars Nick Crocker as Skip Rufiker and Ben Whitman as the ineffible Sydney Tabinthaul.
Click the arrow icon below to start watching the movie
In the February 20th, 2006 issue of OK! magazine (please do not ask me why I read this), there is a blurb about TaB Energy and the launch party…
“Keeping TaBs….On the energy-soda explosion…
TaB, the old-school soft drink, got a new-century makeover. No longer just a sweet soda, this drink is now a pink energy elixir — yes pink, even served in little pink cans. To celebrate the launch of TaB’s new aimed-at-women, “we-only-kept-the-name-the-same” drink, celebs such as Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas, Lindsey Lohan, Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Kimberly Stewart came out and sipped the beverage at Drive In Studios in NYC. …”
It is so obvious this article used ILoveTaB.com as a source, why weren’t we mentioned?
(“TaB Scare,” The New Yorker, January 1, 2006 – by Ben McGrath> BEVERAGE NEWS
As if the mainstream media were no beleaguered enough, now comes word that th Coca-Cola Company is about to release a ne drink called Tab Energy. The plan is to capitalize on the popularity of the Red Bull genre while trading on the retro cachet of Tab with those iconic pink cans—a plan that coul threaten the sanctity of one of journalism’ secret, and most self-conscious, power cliques the cult of Tab lovers, who have persisted in drinking the pioneering diet soda, despite it virtual disappearance from the market.
Television series. In the season one “Signed, Steeled & Delivered”, there is a scene where Laura Holt (Stephanie Zimbalist) is being chased by thugs in a grocery store, so she stops by the soda aisle and you see authentic 2-liter TaB’s circa 1982 for like ten seconds. A few episodes later, in “Etched In Steele”, Laura and Remington plan an all-nighter listening to tapes to find out hints to track a killer, and when she wakes up, you see empty TaB cans. Both of these episodes are now on DVD.
Television series. Episode “The Weepy-Voiced Killer.” A woman reports her attack by and escape from a criminal. The attacker gets her in his car and was attempting to rape her when she spied a bottle on the floor of the car – a TaB bottle – and fended the attacker off, escaping unharmed. TaB to the rescue!!
pg. 53
“…In the kitchen, Trent’s mother is smoking a cigarette and finishing a Tab before she goes off to some fashion show in Century City…”
pg. 60
“…One day we took the convertible and drove to a secluded part of the beach. We ate caviar and Blair had chopped up some onions and eggs and cheese, and we brought fruit and these cinnamon cookies Blair was really into, and a six-pack of Tab, because that and the champagne were all Blair would drink…”
pg. 108
“…The fat girl has a lot of makeup on and she’s sipping a Tab with a straw and wearing purple Calvin Klein jeans and matching cowboy boots. The bartender isn’t listening to her and I have this image of her, sitting alone in a room somewhere in the city, waiting for the phone to ring. The fat girl orders another Tab…”
You can see a TaB carton when Robert Blake dumps out a trash can full of empty bottles and cartons and yells “Pay dirt!”
This movie is set in 1959, which is before TaB was on the market (TaB came out in 1963)! So this is not only a great TaB sighting, but a good movie goof.
(“Fans have a soft spot for old soft drink–A Soda with a Following,” Pressconnects.com, September 19, 2005, — by Elizabeth Cohen)
Sometimes Broome County runs dry. When it does, Tammy Kocak scrambles. “Recently we drove to Scranton, to check out the Wegmans there,” said the Binghamton office administrator, 43, speaking of one recent shortage. “If I locate a place that has some stock, I’m tempted to buy it all up.”
Tammy Kocak of Binghamton works as an assistant to Broome County Executive Barbara Fiala. Kocak admits to drinking two cases of TaB a week.
“You can see a billboard for TaB and think: Nancy Regan drinks TaB , Gloria Vanderbilt drinks TaB . Jackie Onassis drinks TaB , and just think, you can drink TaB too. TaB is TaB and no matter how rich you are, you can’t get a better one than the homeless woman on the corner is drinking. All the TaBs are the same. And all the TaBs are good. Nancy Regan knows it, Gloria Vanderbilt knows it, Jackie Onassis knows it, Katharine Hepburn knows it, the baglady knows it, and you know it.”
Sean Wilsey’s mother, Pat Montandon, is a well known author & celebrity/socialist/activist.
pg. 2
“…Mom wrote books, and a column for the San Francsico Examiner. I came to see her first thing when I got home from school. My mom the author! I thought. When she saw me she smiled, waved, and mouthed the word “TaB.” I reversed the maneuver 99.9 percent of my gender performed upon seeing her and went away, removed a cut crystal goblet, set it down on the Formica counter with both hands–Bng–and filled it with ice-maker ice. Then I took a TaB from the bar’s minirefridgerator, poured, and carried it back down the long hall. The ice clinked as I walked. The clinks were like music, like hapiness; I jostled the TaB for joy, made it sizzle up out of the goblet at me like a miniature stadium full of applause.”
ILoveTaB was mentioned in a NY local paper PressConnects.com the week of September 18, 2005.
“TaB drinkers would rather people not know. ‘I don’t want to spread it around that you can still get it or where I am getting it, because I don’t need any more competition for the few cases around for sale,’ said Kathi Cook of Binghamton, who has been drinking TaB since she was 15. ‘The other day I ran into someone else — another TaB drinker — at the market. We talked a little bit and then agreed to split the eight six-packs on sale.’
Steve Martin plays the protagonist, “Navin Johnson,” who’s been raised by an African American family. Early in the movie, Mama fixes Navin his favorite meal for his birthday: turkey on white wrapped in plastic and a TAB – The movie recounts Navin’s rise to fame and subsequent ruination.
Without a Trace, 1983. “Stockard Channing’s [character] tells Kate Nelligan’s [character] to get on with her life after her son’s disappearance. She does this right after pulling a TaB (in the glass bottle with the Styrofoam cozy wrapping!!!) out of the fridge!”
Girls Just Want to Have Fun, 1985. Helen Hunt’s character to Sarah Jessica Parker’s character “Velcro: Next to TaB and the Walkman, it’s the coolest invention of the 20th century…”
Desperately Seeking Susan, 1985. There is a scene where they are in a bar and order drinks, and one of them orders a Rum and TaB. TaB is also seen in the opening beauty parlor sequence, and a six-pack is seen later in the fridge
One of the characters proclaims that TaB, mixed with various other items (including raw eggs) is the best hangover-cure ever invented, and proceeds to fix one up for the other character in a blender.
Television series. Homer Simpson thinks the “tab” key on the keyboard is a TaB dispenser (if only!).
Also:
“Simpsons, the episode when Homer decided to go out on disability and gained a ton of weight; I think he’s drinking Tab while working from home in his moo-moo.
Simpsons, when Bart is late to sign up for PE and gets in Ballet class, great shot of a Tab can.”
Joel: Well, it was a lot simpler time back then, you know, like, I’ll give you an example. Like, it wasn’t uncommon for your mom to come and serve you a great big char-broiled steak while she smoked and drank a TaB and made your dad another Manhattan for the road, and that was just breakfast!
Television series, 1998-2004. Season 5, Episode 8. At Samantha’s party in the Hamptons, an uninvited guest opens the refrigerator and says “There’s no TaB in here!?”
-In January 2006, they did a segment about diet drinks and aspartame. The display of soft drinks included a can of TaB, prominently displayed. (Thanks Lydia)
“Tori Spelling once sent the waiter from L’Orangerie [a West Hollywood, CA restaurant] to a local convienience store because the famed restaurant didn’t have her favorite diet soda. “She wanted a TaB with her dinner,” says an insider, “and she got it.” In Touch, June 27, 2005, p38.
Meg says “Not too sweet, a little peppery–it has a zing no other diet drink has! Also, it is only partly sweetened with aspartame, which sometimes gives me a headache, so I can drink more of it than Diet Coke.”
Musicians/rock group. ZZ Top requested TaB in the dressing rooms prior to shows. (The Smoking Gun: A Dossier of Secret, Surprising, and Salacious Documents, D. William/Green Bastone)
