BHWW - 2018-01-18
The generic foodstuffs in Repo Man, sold at the Pik ’n Pay were actually mostly real, corporate sponsor Ralphs, a California grocery chain donated a lot of their generic products that were past the sell by date. The containers simply labeled "Drink", "Food" and "Butyl Nitrate" were props but everything else was real, including the beer in the cans with the blue stripe, Ralphs was the first to introduce them in a slightly fancier package then what became the standard look for the short-lived generic groceries trend, with the stark, white box with the contents listed in bold, black letters and an exaggeratedly large bar code. Remember those? Nobody was sure exactly who manufactured these generic products - I remember a whole aisle at some groceries devoted to nothing but generics, all in black and white. Other chains didn't carry them, not wanting to have to compete in-store with their own house brands.
There were people who speculated that they were made by major companies that wanted to compete in a low end market, save a few coins on packaging, there were even a few that thought that there was a commie plot to get us to acclimate eventually to buying everything under a utilitarian single brand. These generic products became something of a cultural icon of the time. Record covers, T-shirts, artwork, just about anything including stand up comedians took advantage of the theme.
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