Orange is the new Awesome. Or maybe Awesome is the new orange. Also, be advised that purple is now Best Friends, and turquoise will henceforth be referred to as Happy Ever After. At least in certain day care centers.

The folks at Crayola, those easily amused gods of the crayon universe, are at it again, renaming the colors of some of their crayons. Only now the color names aren't even color names — they're called Bear Hug and Super Happy and Famous. It's like an Oprah show in a little cardboard box.

Joey Ivansco/Staff (ENLARGE)

Crayola has renamed 8 colors in their 50th Anniversary 64 ct. box of crayons as part of their 2008 Kid's Choice campaign. With weird names, such as, 'Famous,' Best Friends,' Awesome,' 'Giving Tree,' 'Fun in the Sun,' 'Super Happy,' 'Bear Hug' and Happy Ever After.'

Joey Ivansco/AJC (ENLARGE)

After a 20-minute coloring spree, the kids in Mrs. Leslie Villers 3rd grade class at Fernbank Elementary in DeKalb County turn in their drawings.

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The eight new emotionally colored hues have been added to Crayola's flagship, the box of 64 (with Built-In Sharpener!) to celebrate the box's 50th anniversary. It made its debut in 1958 on "Captain Kangaroo" — in black and white, of course. Those were the days when red was red and burnt sienna was burnt sienna, and a kid could pull a green crayon out of a box and not find out it was really called Giving Tree.

To test whether Crayola's new strategy was really in sync with its target audience, we took several 64-count boxes with the new colors to Leslie Villers' third-grade class at Fernbank Elementary School in DeKalb County. The resulting chaos yielded many keen insights into the wisdom, or risk, of this level of spectrum spoiling.

"This is gonna mix up little kids," said Ellie Collins, pulling a face the very definition of serious. "If a little kid is learning their colors and their parents hold up a crayon and say what color is this, they'll say Famous."

"I've already learned my colors," said Gillis Carroll. "And now it'll be harder to memorize the new ones. I don't think they should change it. There's all these adjustments."

But Sarah Downs, who sported a Little Miss Chatterbox T-shirt, was an instant fan. "I like these new names," she said. "They're very exciting. They're pizazz."

"Pizazz." The hubbub level in the class elevated at the introduction of this unusual word for a child, and there was a lingering echo effect as the third-graders all tried it on for size: pizazz, pizazz, pizazz. Like insects on a summer eve, having Fun in the Sun.

Yes, kids take their crayons seriously. Like adults don't? According to a Yale University study, the smell of a freshly cracked box of crayons is among the most recognizable scents to American adults.

"Why are they doing it now?" wondered Sydney DeFrancis.

Here's why, Sydney. Crayola's color names have waxed (sorry) and waned through the years. In the '80s and '90s, the company started experimenting with weirder names, some of them named by consumers, some by color experts. Asparagus, Purple Mountain's Majesty, Tickle Me Pink. Beaver, Manatee, Timber Wolf. You can't find a Green Blue or a Blue Gray anymore unless you're digging into a box that's almost 30 years old. (When colors are "retired," there is an actual Crayola Hall of Fame to honor them.)

Crayola came up with the new '08 colors by polling 20,000 kids online, said company spokesperson Stacy Gabrielle, asking them what they value and what makes them happy, then having them associate those feelings with colors.

"We saw that orange represented being active and being outside, playing a sport," said Gabrielle. "So that became Fun in the Sun."

But there is no color palette that is beyond tweaking and critiquing. Just ask a roomful of third graders.

Several in the class noted that Happy Ever After is blue, but blue is associated with sadness, as in "the blues."

"It should be bright red," said Sydney.

"Awesome could be orange, black, yellow, blue, purple gray, hot pink," said Will Johnson. "Lots of different stuff is awesome."

And Christopher Fleischman had his own ideas for new color names. "Gray should be, like, Shark," he volunteered. "Green could be Desert Storm. Or Camouflage."

"Grey should be called Machine Gun," added Will.

While some of the class characters with larger personalities dominated the impromptu focus group, quiet Peyton Edelson waited her turn patiently. Finally, she offered a single thought that seemed worthy of being the last word.

"I think," she said softly, "they're like a secret language."