{"id":6372,"date":"2023-10-18T10:59:37","date_gmt":"2023-10-18T15:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/?p=6372"},"modified":"2023-10-15T18:24:24","modified_gmt":"2023-10-15T23:24:24","slug":"summer-internship-spotlight-i-worked-for-a-guy-who-played-the-kool-aid-man-in-commercials-20-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/18\/summer-internship-spotlight-i-worked-for-a-guy-who-played-the-kool-aid-man-in-commercials-20-years-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer Internship Spotlight: \u201cI Worked for A Guy Who Played the Kool-Aid Man in Commercials 20 Years Ago\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summer internships are always a hot topic on campus. With the summer coming to an end and the school year just beginning, the <\/span>Dealer<\/span><\/i> felt there was no better time to sit down with some of UChicago\u2019s best and brightest and have them tell us all about their summer internship adventures. Today we spoke with third-year Dylan Glass, who had a particularly interesting summer working with Chaz McBrownton,\u00a0 erstwhile performer of the iconic \u201cKool-Aid Man.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Glass found McBrownton on Craigslist, where he had posted an ad that read \u201cHELP ME HELP ME PLEASE. I am a famous TV star.\u201d Glass, who was reportedly \u201cgetting desperate\u201d in the search for a prestigious summer gig, found the ad intriguing. When he called, he was hired immediately during the initial phone interview. \u201cI thought he would at least ask me questions or something,\u201d said Glass, \u201cBut he just said, \u2018Oh thank God someone finally saw that ad,\u2019 and gave me his home address.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At McBrownton\u2019s residence, which was apparently a sizable \u201cMcMansion\u201d located in West Los Angeles, Glass\u2019s duties included tidying up the house, pouring Kool-Aid in the pool, and being his partner at ping-pong. \u201cHe kept getting mad at me because I kinda sucked. I wasn\u2019t a great partner,\u201d said Glass, \u201cBut this dude has played ping-pong against a wall for four hours every day for the last twenty years, so I don\u2019t really know what he expected.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Glass reported that every Wednesday night, McBrownton would have the \u201cJuice Boys\u201d over, friends who were also former beverage commercial stars. During such gatherings, he would order Glass to bring them beers, which they would chug before pelting cars with the empty cans from the roof of McBrownton\u2019s residence. \u201cHe would always ask me to bring him 30 PBRs \u2018extra crisp,\u2019 which I\u2019m pretty sure didn\u2019t actually mean anything,\u201d said Glass. \u201cHe made me shake up two thirds of them and he\u2019d give those ones to his friends so they would be sprayed by beer when they opened them. They fell for it every single time. This happened every week.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When asked about his thoughts on the internship now that the summer has come to a close, Glass stated, \u201cThe job was okay, the dude was okay, but the pay was friggin\u2019 great.\u201d Glass reported that he was paid a startling salary of $3,000 a day. \u201cInitially, I had no idea how he had that much money, but he said later that the Kool-Aid company just kept throwing millions of dollars at him, thinking he had some special talent for playing that goddamn pitcher of juice. He said that when they realized the commercial campaign\u2019s success was just because of the giant suit, they fired him and started paying teenagers they found loitering outside TJ Maxx minimum wage.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a good job, but I probably wouldn\u2019t come back next summer,\u201d said Glass, \u201cThe worst part was having to repeat the mantra, \u2018You\u2019re still famous. Everybody knows who you are. The public loves you,\u2019 to him first thing every morning. Just too weird.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Glass found McBrownton on Craigslist, where he had posted an ad that read \u201cHELP ME HELP ME PLEASE. I am a famous TV star.\u201d Glass, who was reportedly \u201cgetting desperate\u201d in the search for a prestigious summer gig, found the ad intriguing. When he called, he was hired immediately during the initial phone interview. \u201cI thought he would at least ask me questions or something,\u201d said Glass, \u201cBut he just said, \u2018Oh thank God someone finally saw that ad,\u2019 and gave me his home address.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2080,"featured_media":6373,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6372"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2080"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6374,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6372\/revisions\/6374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}