“There Ain’t Nothin’ Different”: When Dystopian Sci-Fi Ruled the Cola Wars

By K.E. Roberts / June 2, 2026 A starship sets down hard on a dirt planet, scattering space tumbleweeds. Multiple pockmarked moons in the spirit of Méliès fill the black sky. A Space Cowboy hops out of the ship, perches on a piece of the engine, and glares, wind howling, at a futuristic frontier town in the distance. This is not the setup for a bad ‘80s sci-fi series. It is instead the beginning of a 90-second, $750,000 commercial for Dr. Pepper, one of the earliest TV campaigns of the escalating Cola Wars, and the first spot to use a fully formed science fiction theme to sell soda pop. The Space Cowboy (The Edge of Night’s Ernie Pysher) pushes open the saloon doors and is met by flashing lasers and a colorful collection of aliens à la the Cantina in 1977’s Star Wars. The creative borrowing doesn’t stop there: the futuristic jukebox soundtrack is an obvious rip of Vangelis’s “Blade Runner (End Titles),” and the shot of the dancers writhing on their circular podiums is lifted from the…