9/5/13

Chef Boyardee Pizza - How DARE you.

Back in The Seventies, when watching a couple of cartoons before getting ready for school, it struck me that The Flintstones called pizza "pizza pie". I guess, when that show was produced (1960-1966) pizza was still a strange and exotic thing in America, so they called it by its full name... I guess. I never heard anybody in real life call it "pizza pie". The good people over at Chef Boyardee seemed to be, in 1970, about as familiar with proper pizza as Wilma Flintstone. They stop just short of using pizza's last name, but it was still a stranger to them.


"Pizza doesn't have to be a pie anymore." Correct, I suppose. It also doesn't have to be thicker than paper, have more than a spoonful of sauce smeared around it to a thickness of an Angstrom unit, or have more than a light dusting of dried parmesan sneezed onto it, which is in danger of being blown right off again by light breeze. But, at least it looks adorable, and your five year old will be delighted that it looks like a thing. They'll also believe it's pizza because mommy says so, just as they'll believe a dog is a fire truck if mommy says so.

But don't you dare show this pathetic stuff to a grownup and call it pizza. Pizza? I know pizza, sir. Pizza is a friend of mine, and this is not pizza.

It's ironic that, in this horror show of recommended pizza ingredients, anchovies are one of the more acceptable toppings on display, serving time as the cat's whiskers. But of course the pizza in this ad isn't meant to be eaten. It's meant to be delightful. Can you imagine ordering pizza in a restaurant and having this dropped on your table? "Yes, we're all very charmed. So charmed, in fact, that I may charmingly punch you in the nuts if you don't take this insulting mess away and bring us some less blasphemous pizza before I destroy you a lot."

That's better. Leave us.


Click for big.


4 comments:

Steve Miller said...

Didn't Mom tell us not to play with our food?

But where the hell did that deep-dish mess come from? Not Italy, I can tell you! Pizza is peasant food... a little bit of crust, a smear of sauce, throw on whatever leftovers are hanging around, and you've got something to keep the stomach from gnawing on the backbone.

Which doesn't mean I'd turn down Uno's. No, no, no.

PhilAreGo@gmail.com said...

True. peasant food. This Chef Boyardee thing is a truer "pizza" to the original thing. However, to go to the store and buy a kit to make this feeble stuff defies reason. Save a trip and $2.50. Just make toast. And don't go calling that pizza.

Anonymous said...

"So drop anything you want on top. Chinese bean sprouts. Broccoli spears. Pistachio nuts."

I think Chef Boy-ar-dee got into the wrong bag of mushrooms...

PhilAreGo@gmail.com said...

I know. I once went to a hoity-toity cafe' in Charlotte, North Carolina that served me a "pizza". Dough circle with chicken breast and a sprinkle of cheese. I ate it, only because I don't want to be the jerk that sends food back. Put whatever you want on round dough, but don't go calling it pizza!

[-Mgmt.]

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