Skippy Vs. Hellman's
It's the Anti-Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.
It’s another Weekend Bonus Post, because I came upon a shocking blast from the past, and I need to talk about it.
The concoction extolled in this ad was one my grandmother used to make for me whenever I visited, perhaps because the Depression hit her particularly hard, and left Grandma with remarkably elastic definitions of words such as "edible," and extremely narrow definitions of words like "abomination." So let’s face the music and dance, shall we?
Yes, Skippy and Hellmann's together! "Tremendous" is certainly one word you could use to describe it, assuming what you're describing is the size of the liability issue involved, but others certainly come to mind and nearly to the lips, before I remember there are ladies present. Now this isn't exactly Grandma's lunchtime recipe (which she always called "the Special," raising my hopes that she'd been hybridizing a particularly potent breed of chronic rather than slapping together a shit sandwich). "The Special" was served on toasted Roman Meal bread, peanut butter spread on one slice, mayonnaise (Best Foods in this case, since we lived west of the Rockies, but it's all the same) on the other, with some freshly-washed iceberg lettuce added for a bit of crunch and water damage. But the marketeers responsible for this Superman v. Batman-style battle in your mouth operated on the theory that if the flavor profile of their product was hideous, it would seem less hideous if it was buried under a bunch of other, more hideous combinations:
Peanut butter and mayonnaise...a brand new flavor promise!
It doesn't strike me as a promise so much as a flavor threat, but let's see what they've got...
1. double crunch: For a sandwich that really swings,
Nowadays, of course, a sandwich that really swings is less concerned with tasting good, and more worried about hackers releasing its user profile from Ashley Madison.
...add crisp bacon and Fanning's Bread & Butter Pickles to your Hellmann's and Skippy.
And if that's not enough to bring about the End Times, just hold your Horses of the Apocalypse, because we haven't even gotten to the pineapple yet...
2. pineapple topper: Scrumptious for supper! Peanut butter and mayonnaise -- a welcome flavor contrast for fruits, like canned or fresh pineapple.
Okay, that doesn't "contrast" flavor, it just flat out contradicts it.
3. apple fandango: Deliciously daring!
I figured someone must have dared them to serve it.
Creamy-smooth Skippy and Hellmann's Real Mayonnaise with sliced apples and marmalade!
The exclamation point suggests the copywriter would like me to believe this will prove a treat for my tastebuds, a thrilling departure from the usual drab noonday fare, but it just sounds like the kind of sad little simulacrum of a Christmas dinner British POWs would cobble together from the dregs of their Red Cross packages.
4. crazy combo: Man-sized pleaser!
A guy passing out flyers once shouted those exact same words to me outside Show World on Eighth Avenue.
Hellmann's and Skippy with a trio of salami, onions, and sliced eggs!
It fails as a sandwich, but brilliantly succeeds as an ipecac.
Don't argue...just try it!
You know a product is bad when its slogan slips into verbal abuse.
5. funny face: Irresistible! Skippy-Hellmann's sandwich face, flavored with raisins and carrot features!
Not being an enraged chimpanzee, I'm seldom tempted to eat a face, but if it's flavored with desiccated grapes and root vegetables? Well, that's another story!
6. lunchbox special: Happy new lunchbox surprise for all the family! The basic combination is a real "natural" as is, or use as a base for your favorite fancy fixings!
Translation: We're out of ideas and can't even pretend this is food anymore, but the boss wants the presentation on his desk by five and we're this close to snapping a picture of peanut butter and mayonnaise garnished with pencil shavings and that smoldering lump of latakia cinders Jenkins just knocked out of his pipe. So figure it out for yourself, will ya?
I know foodie culture has gotten out of hand in recent years, but honestly, how was it even possible to be a food critic back then? I imagine every review just consisted of one word, like "Yuck" or "Don't."
New movie review on Monday.
My late mother - another child of the Depression - preferred peanut butter and Miracle Whip, which she liked better than mayo. She never added any extra ingredients, though.
"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. And they ate peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches.
And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, such as combing peanut butter and mayonnaise with bread.
And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them, and they have made abominations like "pineapple topper", "apple fandango" and "funny face", and considered them acceptable to serve to other people and their children."