The Trashford Files: Hi-C Ecto Cooler

30 years ago, four scientists saved the world. About three or four years after that, two beautiful future idiots tumbled out of their mothers: The Trash Boys. After the end of operation Enduring Bathroom, the elite Trash Boys unit was disbanded and its members were discharged back into the civilian population, free to pursue a life without eliminating the worst dregs of the fast food-industrial complex from the consumer landscape. The Trashford Files….were closed.

However, in the summer of 2016 the advent of a new Ghostbusters film and related food product necessitated the reinstatement of devout Ghostbustbros Max Robinson and Mike Pfeiffer on a final mission: Mix Hi-C Ecto Cooler© and booze.

gif-export

 

Control Group: Hi-C Ecto Cooler©

Max: The return of Ecto Cooler is a big deal. Obviously, many of us grew up on this particular brand of neon juice sludge. But this isn’t just any defunct Hi-C flavor. This is Ecto Fucking Cooler, the official drink of Slimer. GHOSTBUSTERS IS SUCH A GOOD MOVIE THAT THE GROSS MONSTER MASCOT GOT HIS OWN DRINK FOR THE BETTER PART OF A DECADE.

Mike: To me, Slimer has always remained the crude vulgarian who got stuffed into a science fiction shoe box. I never bought him as some sort of Quasi-Snarf to the Ghostbusters and as a child I relished the idea of drinking his fucking blood. Ecto Cooler’s back, baby. Fuck you, Slimer.

IMG_4597

Max: I’m not going to say I have an unsettling, profound emotional connection to this drink that I used to have with my lunch from grades K through 4 but I did buy two cases of it when it finally showed up on Amazon. I spent $22 on orange ghost drink. Only God can judge me. Let’s talk about the slime. Mike?

Mike: There’s a storied tradition of making a regular fruit flavor special just by changing the color. A blue raspberry? Any Operation Paperclip-ass scientist who manages that affront to God should be put in Guantanamo Bay. But nonetheless, what’s the most coveted playground flavor choice? Blue raspberry. By the same token, Ecto Cooler is essentially an orange-flavored high fructose corn syrup drink that has been colored green. This is not exactly a trick from a lost book of the Bible. But goddammit it’s tangy and smooth and it’s an unnatural color and you give me a sip of your juice box or I’ll pants you on the goddamn slide.

Max: Ecto-Cooler (2016) is, amazingly, identical to how it tasted those years ago. Maybe because it was being consumed in juice box form, but I never really appreciated how GREEN it is. This stuff looks like glo-stick liquid. It’s beautiful, really. Pure Ecto Cooler untainted by The Devil’s Taint that is liquor is a Good and Fine thing. I should also mention that as we sample the Ecto Cooler, Mike and I are watching the music video for Ray Parker Jr.’s Ghostbusters theme on a loop as an added mental stimulus. 

Mike: We’re adult men in 2016, baby, and you know what that means. Time to do the same things we did when we were ten, but now we’re drunk and hardened against authentic joy. Let’s dive in headfirst, Keymaster.

Experiment One: New Amsterdam Vodka

IMG_3203

Mike: Hang on! I have a name for this! Orange flavored Hi-C Ecto Cooler© and Vodka? It’s a Boodriver! God damn. Yes. Got it in one.

Max: Mike’s sub-Uzumeri pun work aside, this is pretty good. I wish we’d had some of Dan Aykroyd’s Crystal Head vodka on hand to really do this right, but New Amsterdam does in a pinch. You can pretty much mix vodka with anything and that includes juice made from 10% ghost concentrate.

Mike: I tried to mix vodka with Arnold Palmer on like my 20th birthday and my dad slapped it out of my hand and said “YOU HAVE TO STAY PURE,” then poured me a fresh shot with a spiral-cut lemon skin so there may be dissent on the utility of vodka. Personally, in drinking the Boodriver I felt more in touch with the story of the video for Ray Parker Jr.’s “Ghostbusters,” which is that Ray Parker Jr. is Freddy Krueger and he psychologically tortures a woman with the help of Senator Al Franken.

Max: This music video is really sort of troubling in the way that Hausu is unsettling. This unnamed woman walks into a haunted house under a highway on the outskirts of Manhattan? The living room is all neon? Ray Parker Jr. is himself a ghost?

I give the ….ugh Boodriver 3.5 out of a possible 4 Slimers.

Mike: 2.5 Slimers from me. [stares into the middle distance] I have to stay pure.

Max: Okay.

Vodka

Experiment Two: Black Velvet Toasted Caramel Flavored Whiskey

IMG_3208

Max: Oh wow that is terrible.

Mike: Wow yeah. It tastes like two different hobos spit in my mouth. I was hoping they’d have like a marshmallow flavored vodka at the liquor store so we could do a cute Stay-Puft thing but i’m basically a dumb ape and thought caramel would suffice. I was crazy wrong.

Max: I remember when we used to drink Marshmallow Whiskey at Camp Lokanda. Flavored whiskey in general is terrible and the caramel flavor here strongarms all the flavor out of the cocktail. Meanwhile, the spectre of Ray Parker continues to harass this poor woman while a gallery of comedians jeer and sneer. Is the implication here that Gozer has chosen the form of Ray Parker Jr.?

video-ray-parker-ghostbusters-music-video-without-music

Mike: Ray Parker Jr. is wearing a sort of fascist-looking Ghostbusters Youth outfit in this video that’s more street-wearable but not quite as cool as the jumpsuits that the rest of the Ghostbusters wear while taking their friend Ray Parker Jr. to get accosted by Elmo in Times Square after the lady he’s harassing calls the cops. Also this tastes unacceptable.

Max: I’m like angry that this wastes even a partial can of my beloved Ecto-Cooler, and I will be contacting Satan to drag Mike back to his home in Hell. Half a Slimer out of 4.

Mike: My sect of Satanism believes in Tran-slime-stantiation and all liquid becomes Slimer’s blood when I purify it in my body, actually? Checkmate, atheists. This was basically split-open-Hefty-bag water though. I give it one slovenly, diabetic Alive Slimer out of 4.

Whiskey

Experiment Three: Bacardi Tangerine Flavored Rum

IMG_4601

Max: Mike choosing orange flavored rum as a mixer for a drink that is already orange flavored was a bold gambit. This is totally palatable, if kinda leaving me with a vaguely Flintstones Chewable Vitamin-like aftertaste. So does the woman in this music video live in this haunted house? Is she breaking into Ghost Ray Parker’s Hoboken Mansion? This music video raises more questions than it answers.

Mike: Her tentative First Date body language suggests to me an OKCupid encounter where she didn’t realize that all of Ray Parker Jr.’s photos were taken at the Overlook Hotel in 1928, but then later she slips into a lacy romper before Ray rises from under the stairs in a cloud of smoke and menaces her like the Ghost of TechCrunch Future. This bev is smooth, though. One of my first experiences with drinking was my sister putting rum in orange crystal light and me stealing a sip not knowing what it was (age 19) so it was a lot of layers of nostalgia.

Max: I want to stress that all the props in this video are neon. Neon couch. Neon phone. Neon windows. It’s like the house is a ghost. Mike, who is your favorite celebrity cameo in this? My favorite is Peter Falk and my LEAST favorite is Eventual Senator Al Franken. “Ghostbusters!” – Columbo.

tumblr_inline_nwu5tg3IPr1sypkn8_500

Mike: Al Franken? The ACTOR? Who’s the Speaker of the House, Tim Allen? It’s a real motley crew because it’s clearly whoever had twenty minutes and would pick up the phone for the Ghostbusters/Ray Parker Jr. so the grab-bag of ’80s comedy people and musicians is truly odd. I’m gonna say Ollie Brown, who wrote the theme to the genre-defining breakdance film Breakin’. Irene Cara is in this too, and she won the academy award in ’84 for co-writing Flashdance. Ray Parker Jr. was in the Illuminati of Movie Title Hit Single Writers.

Max: I give this drink 2.5 Slimers out of a potential 4 Slimers. Hey what’s up with the cameo lady who says “Ghostbusters” in like a very quiet voice? It’s the most upsetting part of this whole music video. Why is she doing this to us?

Mike: Bill Murray got her horny and flustered with some ad-libs about his orange peel face, like every woman on set with him from Meatballs to about Groundhog Day. It’s a 2.5 Slimers out of 4 Slimers from me as well.

Rum

Experiment Four: Jose Cuervo Tequila

IMG_4603

Max: IT’S LIKE VINZ CLORTHO’S MAKING A MARGARITA IN MY MOUTH AND ALL THE SHUBS AND ZUULS ARE INVITED.

Mike: At this point Max and I are pretty lit up and we’re yelling Rick Ross lyrics at the advertisement for a video game so maybe this scale is weirdly weighted, but yeah this kicks ass. I also think this video represents the best looking that Dan Aykroyd has ever been, non-Trading Places division.

Max: Oh absolutely. “GhostBUSTers” – Norm from CHEERS. Can we talk about how Bill Murray doing shitty breakdance moves is the best thing in the world? I love Ghostbusters so much.

Mike: The Ghostbusters dress like and essentially function as janitors. They wear jumpsuits with their names on them and have big backpacks and if there’s too much goop in your oops they’re there to help. They’re not the oiled spartans of Top Gun, or even the horny but racist teens of Weird Science. They’re a simple working man’s outfit. By the way, we haven’t said anything so far about the new Ghostbusters movie, but Max and I are definitively for it. Their receptionist is a dumb hunk who has to ride a dirt bike because there’s no room for him in the car.

Max: Ghostbusters conceptually is such a universal premise that you can pretty much do it with anyone, so, like, there’s zero reason not to do a new one about weirdo schlubs who are also women. If FOR NOTHING ELSE it’s worth it just to watch the literal dregs of the internet freak out about this like ants covered in battery acid. But we’re digressing. Do you think Ray Parker Jr. is haunting this house or the woman in the music video specifically?

Mike: Ray Parker Jr. still lives in a dilapidated version of the neon house like the weird miser from The Lorax, stopping Fall Out Boy and Missy Elliott as they pause to throw a coin in his well or whatever. Personally I’ve always liked the idea that when you live in New York and you have ghosts you have to call your super (Jon Polito) and he has to call the Ghostbusters, like it’s bed bugs. That makes about five hundred words in a row that make zero sense from me, so I’m going to wrap this up and say: 3.5 out of 4 Slimers. I’m going to sneak this into our screening of the new movie.

Max: 3 slimers and a sassy Ms. Slimer from me. (She’s canon don’t argue with me you absolute fuckers). In conclusion, there’s like wayyyyy too much Chevy Chase in this video. Ghostbusters rules, Trash Boys out. 

Tequila

Post By Deadshirt Staff (691 Posts)

Deadshirt's writing staff is dedicated to bringing you thoughtful and entertaining media commentary. We're mostly indentured, which means we can pass the savings on to you!

Connect