Bottom line : The Unreal Thing

Flavor them weird. The Brothers of Invention would consider it a compliment.

Weird is what worked a few years back when Steve Corri and Joe Haydostian broke into the soft drink market with products whose labels featured skulls and crossbones, obscenities and phrases like “May cause clawing and gnawing,” “We want you for life” and “May cause special effects.” They adopted the noms de pop Joe Bones and Bone Jones, as well as the Skeleteens and the Brothers of Invention.

A million-and-a-half bottles later, their sodas--Love Potion No. 69, Brain Wash, Black Lemonade and Mental Trick--are hits at coffeehouses, bookstores and clothing shops in 45 states. Among the ingredients: mad dog weed, skullcap, capsicum, yohimbe, ma hung, dong quai and jalape 7/8o.

The L.A. entrepreneurs, who look like and are failed rock musicians, have hit snags on the road to iconoclasm. They had trouble finding manufacturers willing to print skulls and the words: “Hey, it’s glass! Don’t drop this s***!” Parents decried the brews, saying they promoted antisocial behavior. One San Diego mother complained that Brain Wash gave her son a buzz and dyed his teeth and gums Windex blue--one of the special effects the brothers warned about on the label. The FDA investigated. Laboratory analyses found no hazards.

The pair, who met in high school, first took the plunge into sugar-product peddling in 1988, when, they claim, they invented sour gum balls (Rodney Sour’s Mug Puckers) and sired a craze that other, more savvy marketers cashed in on, elbowing them out.

Next came the drinks, and by 1991, kids were guzzling cases of their line of wacky sour sodas. “These sodas crack the monotony in people’s lives,” says Corri. “Sometimes you have to go out there and be defiant.” Just imagine drinking their newest product at, say, the family reunion: It’s called Fuk ola cola.

And next year, the demented duo will branch out beyond soft drinks and into cereal. Get ready for black corn flakes, perfect, they say, “for another L.A. morning.”