OK, we thought this was funnier a month ago when Newt was still a feasibly viable GOP candidate. But having grown up in Atlanta, we have a special appreciation for Newt’s charms, most notably that his name sounds like a McDonaldland character. We were duly inspired to consider other, more electable names for Newt Gingrich:
Sometimes moderately funny things become impossibly hilarious to me. So is the case with Ab Lincoln, an errant typographical moniker assigned to our 16th president by a colleague in a recent email. The author intended to inspire and energize the corporate troops with a quote from Abe Lincoln, but the clumsy motivational metaphor fell flat, in no small part because he attributed the day’s wisdom to “Ab” Lincoln.
Typos are funny in a way similar to videos of people obliviously stumbling into fountains at the mall while texting. It’s the kind of unintentional, non-malicious, disproportionately embarrassing act that we quietly laugh at when others do it and simmer in frustrated shame when we do it ourselves.
And Abe Lincoln is our most consistently comedic historical figure (although I rally for Rasputin). Saturday Night Live recognized this years ago when Abe Lincoln showed up to call Tom Hanks “an incredible pussy” during the opening monologue. And Conan O’Brien (who likely wrote the Hanks skit back in his SNL days) has long appreciated the comedy versatility of Abe.
So, yes, “Ab” Lincoln made me laugh. It conjured images of Honest Ab, with a glistening washboard torso usually only seen in magazine shoots of Twilight stars and favorable imaginations of a super-lightweight division boxing champion Jesus Christ. And what would a ripped cabin builder and super-motivational orator do? Open Ab Lincoln’s Fitness Emporium, that’s what! Fortunately, I work with a talented designer who helped realize this vision.
As we observed tonight’s three-hour time-release Ambien awards show:
Golden Corral apparently has bought a 2012-GOP-presidential-candidate-sized block of television airtime to advertise its new Chocolate Wonderfall, a provocatively unsanitary bubbling cascade of gooey brown bacteria. The idea: Patrons submerge berries, cookies and other confections on sticks in the flowing chocolate, and then, apparently, consume them. (Fondon’t! Fondon’t!)
The commercials seem to run incessantly now, especially on the cable news channels:
There exists no doubt that this chocolate waterfall will trigger a much more violent chocolate waterfall later. Can you conceive of a more disgusting buffet line concept than this geyser of gastrointestinal distress? A churning wellspring of warm, sticky dessert syrup continuously attracting and recycling torrents of sneeze juice, dust and child germs?
And you can measure in fractions the seconds between the moment a five-year old lays her eyes on this chocolate play land and the moment that she sticks her doll’s head into that sugar lava. Don’t just take our word for it; here’s the top comment on the YouTube post of the first commercial, which made us laugh until we cried when reading it aloud:
“So I went to a golden corral today, and I tried this out. Right as I dipped my marshmallow into it, some little kid reached over the little metal railing and just stuck his whole hand into it…”
And the Golden Corral reply to the comment offers scant solace:
“We strive to provide the best possible customer experience for all of our guest [sic]. However, with something as popular as this it is difficult to catch everything.”
Gaaahh! I just took a shower after reading that. This from a restaurant with a history of serving up the all-you-can-e coli buffet. And don’t forget the salmonella special right here in Georgia a few years back.
You’d think that such a track record would inspire tremendous caution with food safety and public health. Or maybe Golden Corral just realizes that the American buffet-going public has a short collective memory and an unrelenting lust for novelty, chocolate sauce and type-2 diabetes. Bacteria be damned! These patrons in a follow-up commercial certainly seem excited:
I hope that guy’s cowboy hat can catch some barf.
Finally, in an important aside, our good friend Tim O’Shea of Talking With Tim pointed out on Facebook that there is an inevitable advertising tie-in for the band Oasis. What better reason for them to reunite than to promote the Golden Corral Chocolate Wonderfall? After all, both the band and the Chocolate Wonderfall recycle things that were once good (Beatles songs, chocolate) and turn them into horrible abominations that send us running for the toilet. We close with some lyrics from the Oasis hit “Wonderwall,” reworked for Golden Corral:
Today is gonna be a day that you’re probably gonna spew
By now, you surely feel foul
From the chunks you inevitably blew
I can’t conceive how anybody
Eats that chocolate goo that’s trickling down
Yet maybe, after eating steak and gravy
You’ll heed the call, of Chocolate Wonderfall
I must admit, we were kinda bummed to see Henry Winkler recently debut as the celebrity spokesperson for One Reverse Mortgage. First of all, when did the Fonz age into the role of Comforting Familiar Trustworthy Senior? Isn’t that the territory of folksy oat peddler and diligent diabeetus warrior Wilford Brimley? Or the surprisingly inept and possibly inebriated teleprompter reader Tommy Lee Jones? I mean, the fucking Fonz improbably mastered Russian dance, sent bullies scurrying in a whimpering panic by busting doors off their hinges, mixed toughness with wisdom to defuse a violent situation with a karate-crazed Tom Hanks (!), and ended racial segregation.
So forgive us if we can’t help but feel that shilling for reverse mortgages is beneath Winkler’s station, better suited for Hart t0 Hart actor and marital yacht assassin Robert Wagner. (Insert tasteless Natalie Driftwood joke here.)
We’ve decided to celebrate some of Winkler’s finest work, as lawyer Barry Zuckerkorn on Arrested Development. Here, in one of our favorite scenes of all time, Winkler lampoons overt TV product placements, punctuating the point by jumping the shark for the second time in his career:
And the original, as Fonzie, which launched a passionate cultural fixation on pinpointing the moment good things start to suck:
And finally, one last sublime Zuckerkorn moment. Those are balls:
Rarely is a truck in a tree the second most fascinating thing in a photograph. (Thanks BuzzFeed.)
Hey, can I get a ride?
“Thish ish a delischus reschippee, what’sh your scheeckrit?”
“I’ll have the hassch brownshh schattered, schmotherrd and covehrrd.”
“I’d like to schorrt schell this schtock.”
“I wonsh won a Oshker for a role in whicsh I didn’t even schpeak a worrd.”
“Yessh offisher I will schubmit to a schobriety tesht.”
“Thingsh Holly Huntrr schoud not schayy.”
Q: There seems to be some sort of bustle in my hedgerow. What should I do?
A: Foremost, do not be alarmed!
Q: Is it OK to wear linen after Labor Day?
A: Oh yeah. Ah yeah. Ah, ah, ah! It’s perfectly OK in warm climates!
Q: Does anybody remember laughter?
A: Yes. Phyllis Diller, Dick Cavett and Alan Greenspan. Thanks for asking!
Q: Where was the soul of a woman created?
A: That’s a terrific question! Below.
Q: Hey, Robert, what do women need?
A: It. And in most cases, way down inside.
Q: Hey, Robert, what are your theories about big-legged women?
A: I don’t know for certain, but sources tell me they’re soulless.
How cynical am I for thinking this is a brilliantly executed marketing campaign by K-Mart? Google “K-Mart layaway” (without quotes) and you’ll see 650 news links, national and local, all associating this feel-good holiday story with K-Mart. Why would these anonymous Christmas layaway angels not also drop by Wal-Mart or Marshall’s or Best Buy? (To be fair, these reporters at least checked with Wal-Mart, which said it had seen some cases of anonymous charity. But the overwhelming and extremely valuable positive press coverage focuses on K-Mart.)
I am officially calling a special Scrooge Edition Bullshit. Please Santa prove this cynic wrong.
