Posts Tagged ‘mr. show’

Wait, which California city is the “adult Disneyland”?

July 5th, 2021
Solvang

Image used under a Creative Commons license

 

SFGate recently ran an article that compared the small town of Solvang in Santa Barbara County to Disneyland. Although the comparison was seemingly intended to be positive they took a lot of heat for this clearly questionable take.

Go ahead and read the article… and then think about it for a second.

If the criteria for an “adult Disneyland” is food, fake ye olde fashioned looking buildings, a tiki bar, and a couple of windmills then guess what? 

You don’t need to leave San Francisco to find this “adult Disneyland.” It’s been right here all along. Who knew?

The best part? I know people love paying outrageous ticket prices to visit Disneyland and the prices in and around San Francisco are just as wild. Yay!

While we may not have Space Mountain, you can get on a cable car and close your eyes. A fireworks show every night? You bet your ass! Here, light this and throw it quick or you might lose a finger.

Though the last animatronic figures probably left town when FAO Schwarz closed their Union Square store, you can find outdoor street performances in the same part of town. Just look for the Michael Jackson impersonator at 4th and Market (gets call from Disney) sorry, I’m being asked by corporate to retract that last part. Apparently there’s some sort of branding issue regarding Captain EO.

But in the “comparing Disneyland to San Francisco” department it turns out I’m kind of late to the party as Mr. Show with Bob (Odenkirk) and David (Cross) did this exact bit… back in 1996. 

 

 

Oh and by the way, if that Mr. Show sketch seems familiar it might be because I covered it here on this blog a decade ago.

… and history repeats itself. See you here again ten years from now with a new take on this same joke.

On “Mayochup”

April 14th, 2018


 

Today I spotted a funny Washington Post article titled Heinz promotes its new ‘mayochup’ and sparks an international controversy. The gist is this: Heinz sells a condiment that’s a mix of ketchup and mayonnaise in other parts of the world and is gauging interest in bringing it to the US. There’s a few things about this so-called controversy that seem, well… ridiculous.

First, the “international” part of this controversy is mostly within the United States. Heinz and its parent company Kraft Heinz are both based in the US, and at least in the article much of the outrage comes from US citizens (including Puerto Ricans.) Many claim to have invented this unique condiment, but let’s be honest — anyone who’s ever thought to put mayonnaise and ketchup on a hamburger bun basically had the same idea.

Second, if you add relish to this mix you have Thousand Island dressing. I don’t know for certain the ratio would be ideal if you made it with Mayochup, but it goes to show that again, mixing mayo and ketchup is hardly a new idea, let alone bottling and selling it to Americans.

Third, the very concept of putting two condiments in the same jar is silly enough to have made one of the most memorable fake advertisements in the criminally underrated 90’s sketch comedy series Mr. Show. In the sketch two companies compete to combine mustard and mayonnaise with the brands Mayostard and Mustardayonnaise, which only escalates to an absurd yet somehow logical conclusion. Here’s the clip below:


 

The best part? Unlike Heinz, Mr. Show’s sketch repeatedly points out the problems with this idea. Not only is the amount of time it saves negligible, but mayonnaise expires quickly. In other words, the real controversy shouldn’t be who came up with the idea first, but whether the true motivation of Heinz is to sell a product with very little purpose but to go bad before you’ve finished using it, forcing you to purchase more.

So argue all you like over this manufactured outrage, but please excuse the rest of us for rightfully laughing it off.

What if San Francisco were a theme park?

February 24th, 2011

Like any urban city, there’s plenty in San Francisco that not everyone is comfortable with. Just ask SF Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius, who hates on our fair city for reasons ranging from young whippersnappers sitting around to unpleasant odors.

But what would our city be like if we cleaned it up and made it into a theme park? Fortunately, Mr. Show answered that very question in this 1996 episode.

 

 

This segment is from Mr. Show episode 204, “If You’re Going to Write a Comedy Scene, You’re Going to Have Some Rat Feces in There.”