Comments About Sprite Being "The Black Soda" & Comments About "Useta Hold Margarine" Containers (From A YouTube Discussion Thread For SNL's Black Jeopardy Starring Chadwick Boseman)

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part III of a four part series that showcases the April 7, 2018 "Black Jeopardy" sketch on the weekly national American televised series Saturday Night Live. Among others, this sketch starred Chadwick Boseman in his role as T'Challa from the blockbuster Black Panther movie.

Part III of this series presents selected comments from the discussion thread of the YouTube video of April 7, 2018 Saturday Night Live's "Black Jeopardy". These comments focus on two of the "prizes" announced for the "Black Jeopardy" contestants: Sprite (which was described as "the Black soda" and "Useta Hold Margarine" containers.

Information about "Sprite" soda is included in this post.

As of April 18, 2018 at 10:50 AM EST) there weren't many comments about the third prize: "well done steaks". I declined to sample these comments in this post because many were either matter of fact statements about preferring well done steaks, or socio-political and/or racist/stereotypical back & forth exchanges.

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2018/04/saturday-night-lives-black-jeopardy.html for Part I of this pancocojams series presents an excerpt from an online article about this "Black Jeopardy" skit and a video of this skit. My transcript of this skit is also included in this post. This transcript differs slightly from the sub-titles that appear in that embedded video.

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2018/04/tchalla-black-panther-karens-potato.html for Part II of this series. Part II presents selected comments from this video's discussion thread about "T'Challa & Karen's potato salad". The Addendum to that post presents the entire sub-thread (as of April 16, 2018) about "Black Cookout Rules & Regulation".

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-blackest-black-jeopardy-additional.html for Part IV of this series. That post presents additional selected comments about this April 7, 2018 "Black Jeopardy" sketch as well as comments comparing this sketch with other Black Jeopardy sketches and other sketches on the Saturday Night Live series.

Part IV also presents selected comments about whether or not the concept and content of Saturday Night Lives' "Black Jeopardy" is racist and/or stereotypical.

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The content of this post is presented for socio-cultural and entertainment purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Chadwick Boseman, Kenan Thompson, and all others who performed on that sketch and thanks to that sketch's writers. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publisher of this video on YouTube.

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SHOWCASE VIDEO: Black Jeopardy with Chadwick Boseman – SNL



Saturday Night Live, Published on Apr 7, 2018

Shanice (Leslie Jones), Rashad (Chris Redd) and T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) compete on Black Jeopardy, hosted by Darnell Hayes (Kenan Thompson).
-snip-
Statistics (as of April 18, 2018 11:11 AM EST):

8,981,416 total views

173K total likes

5.6K total dislikes

12,417 comments

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INFORMATION ABOUT SPRITE SODA
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprite_(drink)
"Sprite is a colourless, caffeine-free, lemon and lime-flavored soft drink created by The Coca-Cola Company. It was first developed in West Germany in 1959 as Fanta Klare Zitrone (“Clear Lemon Fanta”) and was introduced in the United States under the current brand name Sprite in 1961 as a competitor to 7 Up. Bottles of Sprite are usually a transparent green color with a green and yellow label whereas cans are colored silver, green, and blue and aluminum bottles are colored a solid lime green. Though often confused with lemonade, Sprite stands in separate class of carbonated soft drink, except in Australia and New Zealand, where it is lemonade.

[...]

By the 1980s, Sprite had developed a large following among teenagers. In response, Sprite began to cater to this demographic in their advertisements in 1987. "I Like the Sprite In You" was the brand's first long-running slogan, and many jingles were produced around it before its discontinuation in 1994.

In 1994, Sprite revamped their marketing logo, and slogan, as well....

The brand's slogan was changed to; "Obey Your Thirst", and jingles containing it became urban-oriented, featuring a hip-hop theme. One of the first lyrics for the new slogan were: "never forget yourself 'cause first things first, grab a cold, cold can, and obey your thirst.” Under the new slogan, Sprite tapped into hip-hop culture by leveraging up and coming, as well as underground rap artists including; LL Cool J, A Tribe Called Quest, KRS-One, Missy Elliott, Grand Puba, Common, Fat Joe, Nas and others in television commercials. Sprite expanded its urban connections in the late 1990s by featuring both amateur and accomplished basketball players in their advertisements. To this day, NBA players and hip-hop artists such as LeBron James and Lil Yachty frequently appear in Sprite adverts.[1]

In the 1990s, one of Sprite's longest-running ad campaigns was "Grant Hill Drinks Sprite" (overlapping its "Obey Your Thirst" campaign), in which the well-liked basketball player's abilities, and Sprite's importance in giving him his abilities, were humorously exaggerated.[2][3]"....
-snip-
Click https://www.dawn.com/news/1329368 for a 2017 article entitled "Cola wars: A social and political history" by Nadeem F. Parachaup. That article presents information about Coca Cola's and Pepsi Cola's marketing tactics, including how those companies have specifically marketed to Black Americans.

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SELECTED COMMENTS FROM THIS VIDEO'S DISCUSSION THREAD: WHY SPRITE IS CONSIDERED "THE BLACK SODA"
All of these comments were published from April 7-April 18, 2018. Numbers were added for referencing purposes only.

1. 313drepeso313
"Sprite... How did we become the black soda? We don't know!!! 🤣🤣🤣
-snip-
This is what the Black Jeopardy announcer read when he was describing one of the "prizes" that that fictional game show contestants would receive.

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REPLY
2. Mont 3000
"313drepeso313 haaaa time to make that lean
-snip-
Information about the drug called "lean" is found at the end of this section.

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3. Drty Porcelain
"Sprite advertised with Kurtis blow back in the 80's and other various rappers in the 90's"

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4. 313drepeso313
"Mont 3000 right... 😅😅😅"

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5. Ryan Tristani
"I mean, they are sponsors of LeBron James and Lil Yachty...

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6. LyfSukz
"Cuz Grant Hill drank Sprite"

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7. Jeriat Gillum
"Because of the 90s"

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8. Erik P.T.
"Because contract money thank Coca Cola."

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9. Danielle Crawley
"Drty Porcelain that's exactly right. Hence why they are the black soda. And we alright with that"

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10. Anh Nguyen
"Kobe topped it all off."

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11. Haley Banion
"Don't analyze it. Just enjoy."

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12. Darkside Hero
"I remember back in 90s all of the sprite advertising being directed at urban youths."

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13. Haley Gilbert
"I've never heard someone say, until today, that Sprite is black people's soda. I've heard grape soda, I've heard watermelon but never Sprite. Why do people think it's okay to say sh&t* that literally makes no sense...Tons of white people drink Sprite! It's not black people drink in my opinion..."
-snip-
*This word was fully spelled out in that comment in this discussion thread.

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14. Neko 1800
"It’s because people use sprite for drugs that’s why look up “dirty sprite” you might get answers"

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15. Haley Gilbert
"but white people do drugs too???"

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16. Neko 1800
"Yea and probably the most but facts that’s how it happened"

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17. Freddie McRae
"Haley Gilbert -It's referring to advertising. Sprite, McDonald's & Ford tend to go heavy on Black actors in commercials. Just watch an NBA game. At least one of those three will be in every commercial break.

It was pretty funny. I didn't think of Sprite as a Black thing until this joke. But I do love Sprite!"

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18. John Watson
"Hell yeah even AZ... sprite went deep into the hip hop roster back in the day."

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19. John Watson
"Haley Banion for some people analytics is enjoyable."

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20. John Watson
"Haley Gilbert has to do with sprites hip hop campaign. Orange soda wasn't sponsoring And-One games. But sprite sponsored the games... the dj... half the guest hip hop artists etc. It's a product of marketing"

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21. John Watson
"Neko 1800 sprite advertised to black people before the trend of doping with sprite. Plus black people aren't the only ones sipping syrup."

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22. TheCommentFactory
"Drake also did a Sprite commercial when he was coming up."

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23. Freddie McRae
"Haley Gilbert -It's referring to advertising. Sprite, McDonald's & Ford tend to go heavy on Black actors in commercials. Just watch an NBA game. At least one of those three will be in every commercial break.

It was pretty funny. I didn't think of Sprite as a Black thing until this joke. But I do love Sprite!"

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24. Anastasia Beaverhausen
"Also remember those Grant Hill and Penny Hardaway commercials"

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25. bklyncrook
"And, Sprite Slam Dunk contest, their marketing team mos def had a focus group on demographics."

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26. Azizi Powell
"I hadn't heard of Sprite referred to as a "Black people's soda" until this Black Jeopardy sketch. But here's another connection between Sprite and Black (African American) culture: Sprite has sponsored "step show" competitions since at least 2009. Here's a quote dated 2009: "Sprite Step Off is the largest step competition in history. 30 events, in over 20 cities across the country. A nationally televised event with $1.5 million in prizes." https://thefwa.com/cases/sprite-step-off

The competing groups usually represent historically Black (university based) Greek letter sororities or fraternities.
-snip-
"Across the country" here refers to the United States.

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27. Azizi Powell
"Also, Sprite sponsors sports competitions in at least one African nation:

"2018 Sprite Ball start date mere hours away
This year’s Sprite Ball Championship is tantalizingly close to commencement as the clock ticks down to the start of the much anticipated competition.

Ghana’s biggest high school basketball competition is scheduled to tip off on Thursday January 4 and end on Saturday January 6 at the El Wak Stadium in Ghana’s capital, Accra.

The renowned competition has been the bedrock of talents in the West African nation since its inception in 2007 with a host of players graduating from the program." https://www.basketballghana.com/2018/01/03/2018-sprite-ball-start-date-mere-hours-away/

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28. Austin Sobande
" “Sprite how did we become the black soda?”😂💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀"

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29. Joshua Solomon
"Probably the same way Manischewitz became the black wine: it doesn't make sense."

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30. oRuTRa45
"Hip-Hop marketing in the '90s. Kid 'N Play had a Sprite commercial. A Tribe Called Quest had one. Then they did the Obey Your Thirst freestyle session commercials. Pete Rock & CL Smooth had one, Grand Poobah had one."

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31. Juan Lopez
"Austin Sobande cuz thats what they use to make lean"

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32. Josh Ruiz
"Jordan did it. Lean wasnt even "mainstream" till DJ Screw. Of course it was being done before that."

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33. kapparhotau181
"I never heard of Sprite being the black soda but growing up in the 80s & 90s it was grape or red soda, unnamed brand, that was always at the backyard bbq in the hood 😂😂😂"
-snip-
Here's some information about the drug called "lean":
From https://www.ashleytreatment.org/what-is-lean/
"What Is Lean? It's a Drug That's Sweeping the Nation. Lean is the name of a recreational drug that grew to fame in Houston, Texas. Since then, it’s become available nearly everywhere in the United States. Like many street drugs, Lean has a number of names, including Purple Drank, Sizzurp, and Purple Tonic.

People combine prescription cough syrup with soda to make this drug. Prescription cough syrup contains codeine, which is an addictive opiate. People use soda or other flavor enhancers such as Jolly Ranchers to cover up the taste of the cough syrup.

The cough syrup typically turns the concoction purple, which is where the name Purple Drank comes from. Sprite is a common soda that people put in Lean. However, they can use any soda that they wish.

What Are the Dangers of Lean?
Thanks to the codeine that’s in the cough syrup, Lean is extremely addictive. This addictive ingredient is also the same drug that makes people feel high when they drink Lean. However, codeine isn’t the only dangerous ingredient in Lean. Many prescription cough syrups also contain promethazine.

Promethazine reduces congestion from allergies and colds. In small amounts, it works fine. When people take it in large amounts, however, this drug has a number of dangerous side effects, including:

Seizures
Hallucinations
Wheezing
Night terrors
Confusion

The combination of codeine and promethazine is the reason why so many people die after drinking Lean. In fact, famous celebrities such as Lil’ Wayne have gone to the hospital after drinking too much. With the possibility of death and how addictive Lean is, it’s easy to see the dangers of this drug.”...

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SELECTED COMMENTS FROM THIS VIDEO'S DISCUSSION THREAD: "USETA HOLD MARGARINE"
All of these comments were published from April 7-April 18, 2018. Numbers were added for referencing purposes only.

1. AnimalsAndReports
"Uesta hold margarine
LOL!!!"

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2. LOVE OF PLANTS 🌻
" ‘Use to hold margarine’. The poor man’s Tupperware."

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3. DMS Dana
"Put whatever you want in there!"

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4. James Moore
"All my containers used to contain something else"

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5. Zachary Grigley
"I'm white and I have poor man's tupperware too."

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6. Cod Kue
"we asian, my mom does it too much"

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7. Lori Hanna
"Yes, we have a set too! But I am afraid they don't match 😭"

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8. MrTpeppers
"Just to add: I am white, and also have Mexican, black and Native Americans in my immediate and extended family and we ALL do this with containers and take out containers. I think it’s a universal thing to do."

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9. Ella Ella
"MrTpeppers That’s what makes the segment relatable! 😉"

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10. tomitstube
"awe hell yeah, be careful with it in the microwave tho."

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11. Brianna Bush
"It's called recycling"

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12. Shena K
"Asian households do that too. There's a gallon ice cream container with salad in it in the fridge right now"

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13. Gannon DeShong
"My white momma still does this"

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14. allyoop Dan
"Hell yeah. My grandma keeps her dentures in margarine tubs!!"

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15. Selendria Muganogo
"LOVE OF PLANTS 🌻 mine currently hold last nights left over lolol

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16. Madcap Glass
"Most "black" jokes are really just poor jokes, I'm white and I relate to all these jokes growing up poor."

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17. D C'mon
"LOVE OF PLANTS 🌻 You are on point! True to life! Wash & reuse! Lol

REPLY
18. Dynamo001
"I remember using Cool Whip containers for storage, where I grew up. They were collected after Thanksgiving and Christmas and used for leftovers.

I used to use the smaller ones for a cereal bowl, lol!"

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19. Ari Raphiel
"I've got four and each have something different but you gotta open each one cause they all look the same 😂"

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20. Adrian Dezendegui
"How is that a Black thing I'm Hispanic and I use used plastic containers"

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21. Dee Raver
"My Scotch Irish 99 year old grandma might be secretly Black. All Family dinner leftovers are packaged in old margarine tubs."

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22. Leslie Sauceman
"Dee Raver ours too! Is she from the south?"

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23. Mrs. Adriann
"I'm so mad at how true this is! LOL and had the nerve to have mixed looking rice in it too! Judging by all the comments this may not just be a black thang but a ghetto thang! haha

BTW Johnny's name (the announcer) should be Kareem or Jamal, or both! haha"

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24. Dee Raver
"Leslie Sauceman, no, a rural central Illinois Great Depression Era farm girl. She told me once that she had never seen a Black person until she was a teenager, and a family moved near her town."

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25. A Rose From Concrete
"Judging from all of these comments, having Uesta hold margarine bowls is just a normal human thing. 🤔🤔🤔"

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26. Will E.
"That Margarine joke is so true."

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27. headedsomewhere
"yeah, cause I got some greens in one right now ;0 lol"

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28. janimom
"My mom is whiter than white but she's the queen of uesta hold margarine, uesta hold potato salad and uesta hold cool whip."

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29. CupcakKe Kreations
"janimom same"

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30. Jesus Zepeda
"Mexicans do it too, my mom kept pickled jalapeños and carrots in those things"

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31. Manistheonly1 85
"Cereal any kind to the top of the Margarine bowl don't forget the pickle and jelly jars Kool Aid everyone wasn't privileged growing up but we made it happen and made a life don't let nothing stop you"

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32. ChiChi Monroe
"I know it's literally a day later, but I can not get over the useta hold margarine. I was saying that all day at work and cracking up and nobody had no idea what I was talking about."

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33. Ian Smart
"Its so crazy how real that is. I'm from Mississippi and I got family that does exactly that!"

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34. Kiana Brown
"I do that all the time"

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35. Mr. Wood
"ChiChi Monroe only black person at your job?"

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This concludes Part III of this five part pancocojams series.

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