“Choco Coffee Beans” were first sold in 1996 as a combination paint stripper/fertilizer product. In early 1997, they were rebranded and placed on grocery shelves, backed by a memorable ad campaign including a catchy jingle, a supplemental recipe program, and the big-eared, wide-eyed spokesboy himself, Edwin “Eddie” Schneider, who would extoll the virtues of the product in commercials and on the local UHF-63 TV program “It Cooks”, sponsored by the Choco Coffee Beans company. Viewers were advised to wear welding masks and lead-shielded vests while preparing each Choco Coffee Beans-themed recipe.
After several on-air explosions and candid episodes in which Eddie would pause in the middle of his activities to address an invisible audience in his own home with unsolicited sales pitches, FDA investigations were launched into the business practices and nutritional content of the Choco Coffee Beans brand.
Investigators soon learned that Choco Coffee Beans contained six times the recommended safe limit of caffeine per day in a single bean. They also discovered a laundry list of side-effects including dilated pupils, acute ADHD, “enormous mouth syndrome”, rare cases of spontaneous combustion (accompanied by the remains somehow developing rocket boosters and shooting off in all directions), and something they only referred to in grave whispers called “the Chocolate Blob Monster incident”.
The product was recalled from shelves in early 2001 after four solid years of record-breaking sales and unbridled carnage.