![]() ![]() ![]() The chief complaint, Drew Roberts recalled, was that the Zotz Brothers were making a “mockery of homecoming.” The Zotz Brothers responded that they were just trying to “have fun.” “Our take,” Roberts declared, “was that it was for the students. Initially, school officials and the homecoming committee frowned on their candidacy. The first hurdle was getting their names on the Homecoming ballot. During the days leading up to the election, the Zotz Brothers, clad in tuxedos and their usual Spider Man masks, rallied support for their homecoming bid. The Zotz Brothers launched a campaign to be Homecoming King. The Zotz mania reached its high point in February 1981 during Florida Tech’s Homecoming Week. “We were,” Roberts declared, “in business big time.” Andre Prost had sent a huge box containing 3840 Zotz Fizzes, along with Zotz T-shirts, Zotz stickers, and a small assortment of other candies. Roberts remembers that “at some point we wrote to Andre Prost (the candy manufacturer) and gave them our story and asked to be able to buy the candy at wholesale or cost.” A few days later a surprise arrived in the mail. Giving away candy and mystifying students and professors, however, proved costly. His surprise turned to wonder when he returned to his locked office and discovered a piece of Zotz candy on his desk and, here is the mystery, the Zotz Brothers had attended the class. Professor Ed Kalajian recalled his surprise in arriving in his ocean engineering classroom to find a piece of Zotz candy on the lectern. ![]() The Zotz Brothers talent at improvising fizzy encounters produced a cascade of quizzical looks and raised eyebrows. Their idea was to periodically appear on campus wearing Spider Man masks and hand out candy to students, faculty and staff.īy November 1980, Roberts, Raducha, and Reyna were well on their way to “Zotzifying” Countdown College. People get really wrapped up in the pressures, the grades.” The Zotz Brothers decided to “break the chain of depression.” Using the house they shared on Auburn Avenue as their base of operations, the Zotz Brothers formulated their plans. “At FIT there’s a lot of technical courses,” Raducha continued. Later Peter Raducha explained that the Zotz Brothers felt it their “mission from God” to make people laugh. Their mission was to bring a bit of whimsical fizz to Countdown College. The three honors students christened themselves the Zotz Brothers and swore an oath of loyalty declaring “all for one and Zotz for all”. By the end of the summer, Roberts and Raducha had drawn their roommate, Erick Reyna, into their plan. Drew Roberts and Peter Raducha were charmed. What made the hard candy unique was that each piece had a flavored fizzing center. One day Roberts’ younger brother, Sean, returned from the Seven-Eleven on Babcock Street with a package of Zotz Fizz Power Candy. Roberts and Raducha were hard at work on their summer marine field project. Three ocean engineering students, Drew Roberts, Peter Raducha, and Erick Reyna decided to add a bit of zaniness to FIT during their senior year. For the better part of a year, students making their way across campus would encounter three masked individuals handing out candy. They went on a campaign to prove you can take candy from strangers. ![]() In the early 1980s, three Florida Tech students set out to prove Mom and Dad, Gene Pitney, and Britney Spears wrong. In 1965, Gene Pitney, America’s wholesome response to the Beatles and Rolling Stones British invasion, recorded a hit tune entitled “ Don’t Take Candy from Strangers.” Forty years later a somewhat less than winsome Britney Spears picked up this refrain in her 2008 comeback album. ![]()
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