Blasto

From Candypedia
Blasto
First appearanceCasting Call, page 2
March 24, 2010 (2010-03-24)
TypeSoft drink brand
Related charactersPaulo, Mike, David, Lucy

Blasto is a soft drink brand sold around Roseville, best known as Paulo’s soda of choice and the source of the prize contest he and Mike spend years trying to crack.

Description

Blasto is an orange soda, as the authors confirmed when a fan asked what Paulo was always drinking.[1] It comes in cans at the lunch table[2] and a large bottle at a house party.[3] Lucy also orders it by name at Burger-Tron.[4] The can is orange with a yellow starburst emblem,[5] while the earlier duotone chapters put a blocky “BLASTO SODA” wordmark across it instead.[2]

Opinions on the flavor are rather split. Mike hates the stuff,[6] while Paulo can put away a whole pile of cans in one lunch period[2] and counts it as his favorite soda, the one Rachel brings him when he’s laid up recovering in Total Recall.[7][1] David drinks it for breakfast,[8] and Lucy orders it unprompted with her Astro-Burger.[4]

What sets Blasto apart from an ordinary soda is its contests. Somewhere out there is a winning can worth $50,000 to whoever finds it, with a hundred mountain bikes given away as secondary prizes.[6] The contest comes back every year,[5] and a later edition raises the stakes to “$150,000 in a can”,[8] with the result printed inside, on the bottom of the empty.[9] Nobody in the comic has ever been shown winning it.

History

Paulo chugs another can of Blasto soda, the wordmark clear as empty cans pile up beside him.[10]

Blasto debuts in Casting Call, where Paulo works his way through a can at lunch beside a pile of empties.[2] He and Mike explain their arrangement to Sue. Mike can’t stand the drink, so he handles the buying, while Paulo handles the chugging, all in pursuit of the $50,000 winning can. Mike’s own motives are a little humbler, since what he actually wants is one of the mountain bikes. Sue is mostly amazed that the two of them are cooperating at all. “Who thought all it’d take for you two to get along was a soda competition?”[6]

The system carries on into Back and Forth, where the cans once again stack up in front of Paulo at lunch[11] and Mike points out that he could stop paying for the Blasto whenever he likes. Paulo isn’t worried. “You want the bike, I stomach the soda. You NEED me.”[12] In Call Waiting, Paulo pitches an escalation. If Mike sells his phone and sinks all the money into Blasto, Paulo can win the prize and Mike can move away to live with Sandy. Mike declines, and makes it clear he won’t be helping when the contest rolls around next year either.[5]

The gag returns in Table for One, by which point Blasto has launched a new contest with “$150,000 in a can”.[13] Paulo badgers Mike into fetching him a can, but David gets there first and greets Paulo by pressing his own can to Paulo’s cheek.[8] Paulo chugs it, and David peers into the empty to read the result off the bottom. They’ve won exactly one chance to “Please try again!”[9] Mike walks back in with a second, now-redundant can just in time for the disappointment.[14]

All that chugging leaves empties behind, and they get around. Paulo spears a punctured Blasto can during lunch cleanup duty in Feline Filibuster,[15] and the roadside litter in Clean Slate includes Blasto cans too, one of which gets thrown from a passing car straight into Jasmine’s face.[16]

At the New Year’s party in New Year’s Resolution, a distracted Mike pours Blasto from a large bottle right over the rim of Paulo’s cup.[3] In Rain Check, Lucy orders a medium Blasto alongside her Astro-Burger and fries at the Burger-Tron where Paulo now works.[4]

Trivia

Paulo holds his soda can in the hallway, its orange and yellow starburst design catching the light.[17]
  • Blasto is a holdover from Veronica’s childhood version of the comic. Her commentary on its first appearance admits, “I WAS LIKE SEVEN WHEN I MADE IT UP SO I HAVE A GOOD EXCUSE FOR THE NAME TO BE MILDLY EMBARRASSING.”[2]
  • The money for Paulo’s cans comes out of Mike’s allowance. Per the authors’ commentary, “Good ol’ Maishul has quite the allowance saved up.”[6]
  • According to a Tumblr answer from Veronica, the Blasto contest was originally a planted hint for “Confrontation 2”, a storyline conceived around 2006 and eventually scrapped, with some of the hints removed during the omnibus edit.[18]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 “What kind of cola does Paulo always drink?”. bittersweetcandybowl.tumblr.com. 2026-08-12.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Chapter 53: Casting Call, page 2
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter 119: New Year’s Resolution, page 4
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Chapter 122: Rain Check, page 8
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Chapter 62: Call Waiting, page 5
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Chapter 53: Casting Call, page 3
  7. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 42
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Chapter 92: Table for One, page 8
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Chapter 92: Table for One, page 9
  10. ↑ Chapter 53: Casting Call, page 2
  11. ↑ Chapter 54: Back and Forth, page 19
  12. ↑ Chapter 54: Back and Forth, page 29
  13. ↑ Chapter 92: Table for One, page 7
  14. ↑ Chapter 92: Table for One, page 10
  15. ↑ Chapter 60: Feline Filibuster, page 18
  16. ↑ Chapter 93: Clean Slate, page 5
  17. ↑ Chapter 62: Call Waiting, page 5
  18. ↑ “Will we see Alejandro again? Will there be a Confrontation 2?”. bittersweetcandybowl.tumblr.com. 2026-06-02.
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