A lot has changed in 37 years.
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You just have to look back at the famous 1979 Coca-Cola commercial featuring Pittsburgh Steelers legend “Mean” Joe Greene and the little kid who offered him a Coke to drink, which gained iconic status after it aired during Super Bowl XIV in 1980.
That being said, Tommy Okon isn’t a small kid any more, and Greene has long been retired, but the pair have reunited one more time ahead of Super Bowl 50, CBS News reports.
In a special segment set to air during the show Super Bowl’s Greatest Commercials 2016 on CBS, the two men can be seen discussing the importance of the “Hey kid, catch!” ad and what it meant at the time.
“I think the people that created it wrote a great commercial that really tells a story. … That commercial’s kind of what Joe is: tough football player who’s a nice guy,” Okon said in the segment.
Greene, for his part, remembered the 18 bottles of Coke he had to drink to get the commercial right. “I didn’t know any better. I chugged the doggone thing over and over and over,” the legend said, People magazine reports.
Greene, the magazine reports, even got sentimental when he and Okon re-enacted the iconic commercial in the new segment. “Still special after all these years,” he said, tearing up.
“Not so mean,” Okon quipped. “Not so mean, this guy.”
Super Bowl’s Greatest Commercials 2016 is set to air on CBS on Feb. 2 at 8 p.m. EST.
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