Perhaps some of you American viewers of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" can explain the drink Yoo-Hoo to me since it is something that I have heard before on a sitcom, perhaps, but I can't seem to remember the exact one. It's been plugged as this zesty chocolate drink which actually doesn't have very much chocolate at all, according to some of the YouTube comments and the Wikipedia article on the drink. I don't think we ever had Yoo-Hoo ever come up to Toronto. From what I've read and seen in commercials like the one above, I get the feeling that it might be similar in impression at least to Georgia's extremely sweet Max Coffee which used to save me from the sultry summer heat of Tokyo although true coffee connoisseurs would probably prefer to bash their heads against a brick wall than take a sip of the stuff.
The reason that I'm even mentioning this drink here on KKP is that it's been given a shoutout in singer-songwriter Yukio Sasaki's（佐々木幸男）debut single from June 1977, "Kimi wa Kaze" (You Are The Wind). Yep, as Sasaki is crooning about how much he loves his girlfriend, his girlfriend apparently greatly loves her Yoo-Hoo. There are also a couple of mentions of other drinks in his lyrics: hot tea and cider (which I'm guessing is another Japanese favourite: Mitsuya Cider).
As for Sasaki's melody, it begins rather sadly with those tearful strings but after about 20 seconds, "Kimi wa Kaze" enters a gentle country swing that keeps on going to the end of its short three minutes and twenty-eight seconds. Still, it feels quite satisfying by the end...like a small bottle of Yoo-Hoo or Max Coffee.
According to the J-Wiki article for Sasaki, "Kimi wa Kaze" also served as the theme song for the TV music program "Cocky Pop"（コッキーポップ）. Plus, one more piece of trivia about Yoo-Hoo is that in the J-Wiki article for the drink, it started being sold from 1974 in Japan, mainly in Kanagawa Prefecture.
I used to get a Yoo Hoo when I would go to a local fish & chips place run by a real Englishman. I remember he was hard to understand because he was so soft-spoken, the deep-fryers would drown him out.
ReplyDelete"Kimi wa kaze" always brings to mind lazy summer days in the park with its off-the-cuff, easy-going feel. And I love that whistling solo in the middle eight!
Hello, Mike.
Delete"Kimi wa Kaze" is short and sweet...just like a Yoo Hoo!:) But since I've never had one, can you describe it to me? Is it so sweet to melt teeth by chance? Max Coffee certainly was in that category.
When I was a kid, there was a fish n' chips place just around the corner from my apartment. It was run by a couple of Greek fellows...very down-home, almost like that "Saturday Night Live" skit about a Greek restaurant with John Belushi as the owner (Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, Coke, Coke!).
Yoo Hoo is like bottled chocolate milk. It has that funny texture that lots of beverages with carageenan in them as a stabilizer have. The first time I had Kuang Chuan’s Barley Milk Tea, it reminded me of a Yoo Hoo, despite not containing any chocolate.
ReplyDeleteIt seems I can have a can of Max Coffee myself for the price of $4 a can. Plus shipping. I think I’ll wait until one of my friends visits Japan.
Hmmm...someday I'm gonna have to try some of that Yoo Hoo. As for that can of Max Coffee...definitely Max Price there.
DeleteYoo Hoo is very sweet and, like Mike said, has a slightly "off" texture. I preferred Chocolate Cow. I don't know which came first, but I think the availability was based on which region you were in. We could find Yoo Hoo, but up through 1992 or so, we were Chocolate Cow country. It was actually better than Yoo Hoo, with a better texture and not as sweet. Otherwise, they were very similar, both coming in glass bottles with yellow labels. Once Yoo Hoo took over, I stopped drinking imitation chocolate milk, which was probably a wise decision.
ReplyDeleteHi, Scott. Good to see you back on the blog. I think I'm getting an impression of what Yoo Hoo must taste like from you and Mike. There is a so-called "diet" drink called Calorie Mate which I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy since it must have thrown in too much carrageenan. It didn't just taste like an alien drink; it actually tasted like an alien! The biscuit form of Calorie Mate was far more palatable.
DeleteHere in Canada, when it came to chocolate milk, we had those Sealtest cartons of the stuff. I'm gonna have to pick you guys' brains on what Grape Ne-Hi was all about. I used to hear it all the time on "MASH" since Radar loved them.