Otter Fodder

On a hot summer day, there is nothing like an ice cold Otter Pop to cool things down. Otter Pops--frozen fruit juice in plastic tubes--were originally created in 1970 to compete with a similar product called Fla-Vor-Ice. Not having cute otters with funny names on their packaging, the good people at Fla-Vor-Ice knew they were fighting a losing battle. They bought out the Otter Pop brand and discontinued Fla-Vor-Ice in 1996.

Otter Pops come in six colors, each color assigned a “personality”:

Blue-- Louie-Bloo Raspberry (blue raspberry)
Red-- Poncho Punch (Tropical Punch) (originally Rip Van Lemon until the mid-1970s)
Green-- Sir Isaac Lime (Lemon Lime)
Light Red-- Strawberry Short Kook (Strawberry)
Purple-- Alexander the Grape (Grape)
Orange-- Little Orphan Orange (Orange)

One major event in Otter Pop history is the Sir Isaac Lime protest of 1996. The parent company had made plans to replace Sir Isaac Lime with Scarlett O’Cherry. However, a group of fourth-graders from California mounted a signature-gathering campaign and picketed the company’s headquarters. An email campaign was also put into effect (one Stanford University professor accused the company of “otter-cide”). Company executives relented after meeting with the children; they wisely decided to retain the Sir Isaac Lime flavor.


Per the Otter Pop website, each otter personality is also a member of a band called the Otter PopStars. Each otter has his or her own fan site complete with photos and bios. For example, here is the skinny on Louie-Bloo Raspberry:

Instrument: Upright Bass

Louie is a Jazz poet whose book of verse The Sweet Raspberry of Yesterday and Other Poems has been translated into twelve languages including Beaver and Cockatiel. Originally from New Otterleans, Louie met the Otter PopStars when they were just a band of street musicians playing for clams and rocks outside "Café Le Bloo" - the spot where Louie does his best writing. Their music touched him so deeply that he put down his pen, grabbed his upright bass and immediately joined in the fun. A friend to nature and all its creatures, Louie can often be found cultivating his window box garden of purple snap dragons and bandaging up the bite marks on his fingers.

Favorite things:
-Watching the waves crashing upon the shore
-Estuaries
-A warm café ole in the morning

Pet Peeves
-Confrontation
-Oil spills
-People who don’t know what an estuary is

Info on the rest of the Otter PopStars can be found here.