Human Volcano – Wonder How Many Kids Tried This Mentos & Diet Coke Hoax?

While you may have never tried it, let’s be honest… you’ve thought about trying it… or making someone else try it. Drink as much Diet Coke as possible and then eat a few Mentos. It’s every 8th grader’s dream… either you spew a volcano of soda or you explode. Either way, it’s funny. Last night’s episode of Two and a Half Men just proves that one of the show’s writers is a science geek with a sense of humor.

Although I’m sure thousands of people (okay, 8th graders) have tried it, you just can’t turn your body into a human volcano with erupting geysers of diet soda. During the first year of my agreement with the company that makes Mentos (Perfetti Van Melle), there were rumors of a Brazilian boy who drank a bottle of soda and chased it with a roll of Mentos… and he exploded. I was asked by PVM to explain the science of why this can’t happen. This lead to the writers at snopes.com posting a great article on the Mentos and Diet Coke reaction with a reference to our site as part of the scientific rationale for why the rumor isn’t true.

But this hasn’t stopped a flurry of funny videos surfacing on Youtube. Super Burp has to be one of my favorites. Get ready… someone explodes.