The Juice Loosener

Doctor, are you sure it’s on? I can’t hear a thing. It’s whisper quiet! You got all that from one bag of oranges?! That’s right!

The pandemic. Remember that?! What was all that about?? It’s well documented that The Simpsons has predicted the future on many occasions; smart watches, numerous Super Bowl outcomes and famously Donald Trump becoming president* (though they missed out on the terrifyingly incomprehemsible second term). Well, all the way back in 1993, the episode ‘Marge in Chains‘ sees the residents of Springfield becoming infected with a flu-like virus from an Asian country. How? Well, that’s where the Juice Loosener comes in…

A shoddy product, promoted by an imbecile to an equally stupid audience, the Juice Loosener is shipped from the Japanese city of Osaka to the town, carrying the disease via a warehouse operative coughing into a box. As with a lot of the classic, early Simpsons episodes, this seemingly important orange juice-based plot point actually has very little to do with the main narrative. That being that the whole family is cut down with the plague except Marge, who ends up accidentally shoplifting some liquor due to exhaustion. Unlike Trump, she ends up going to prison but eventually gets let out due to the town rioting. Yes, really.

The logo is two fold, featuring the manufacturer at the top (complete with goatee beard-style emblem) and then the product name underneath. Those are based on a home appliance manufacturer and a garish and often controversial soft drink that turns you orange.

Unconfirmed as to whether that’s how demented old Donny T maintains his complexion.

*Coincidentally, this is the episode where Springfield unveil the statue of Jimmy ‘History’s Greatest Monster’ Carter, who died very recently to the time of writing. Not especially revered during his years in active politics (getting battered by Reagan in 1980), he is much more fondly remembered in present day.