Like Whatever
Join Heather and Nicole as we discuss all things Gen-X with personal nostalgia, current events, and an advocacy for the rights of all humans. From music to movies to television and so much more, revisit the generational trauma we all experienced as we talk about it all. Take a break from today and travel back to the long hot summer days of the 80s and 90s. Come on slackers, fuck around and find out with us!
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Remember the eerie Parkey butter dish whispering "butter" to lonely homemakers? The Kool-Aid Man violently crashing through walls? Or that problematic Calgon "Ancient Chinese Secret" commercial that has lived rent-free in our brains for decades? These aren't just random memories—they're powerful marketing campaigns that embedded themselves permanently in the collective Gen X consciousness.
In this nostalgia-packed episode, we explore the surprising staying power of commercial jingles and TV ads from our youth. From McDonald's impossibly catchy menu songs to the Life cereal kid who supposedly died mixing Pop Rocks and Coke (spoiler: he didn't!), these marketing moments didn't just sell products—they became part of our cultural DNA.
We dive deep into food mascots that bizarrely came to life, cereal preferences that still influence our shopping habits, and fast-food restaurants that have changed as dramatically as we have since childhood. The conversation takes unexpected turns through our personal relationships with American cheese slices, the complex hierarchy of restaurant staff during the Door Dash era, and why McDonald's slidey-things need to make a comeback immediately.
What makes these decades-old jingles stick when we can't remember where we put our keys five minutes ago? Why did we desperately want Mrs. Butterworth to talk to us? And how did the Oscar Mayer song permanently teach an entire generation to spell "bologna"? Join us for this hilarious trip down memory lane that proves advertising works in mysterious and permanent ways.
Have a favorite commercial jingle still stuck in your head? Share it with us on social media @LikeWhateverPod or email us at LikeWhateverPod@gmail.com!
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Episode Introduction and Plan
Speaker 2We're never done as ever laughing and sharing our stories. Clever, we'll take you back. It's like whatever.
Speaker 1Welcome to Like Whatever, a podcast for by and about Gen X. I'm Nicole and this is my BFF, heather Hello, so we're trying something different today. You will anyway, if you're hearing this something really tragic has happened.
Speaker 2We have just not been able to get our shit together for a week.
Speaker 1Yes, so we decided today actually we are recording on Memorial Day. Yes, we did the episode for the week earlier. We took a break and I made us cheeseburgers.
Speaker 2My favorite meal.
Speaker 1Which is why I made them. I also bought her tasty cakes, but anyway, we haven't had those yet. They were supposed to come back here with us. I don't think they made it.
Speaker 2They did not. I didn't know they were supposed to come back here with us. I don't think they made it. They did not. I didn't know they were supposed to come back.
Speaker 1All right, so yeah. So we decided we would, as Heather puts it, get an episode in the can. In the can so that when something horribly tragic does happen to one or both of us, wow, we can still make sure you guys are entertained. Yes, so yeah.
Speaker 2We're going to start we think we're going to start doing this on the holidays that we get together to get a couple of them, so that A, we can maybe even take a break, but then we won't get to see each other. Yeah, I'm also learning how to do Google Meets and record them, which did not go well a little bit ago.
Speaker 1But we have started that process. We have a few guests that are interested in either being on the show or having us come to their shows, so we are really trying to make that work now. We keep saying that, but I think we're actually taking steps forward to make that happen now happen as soon as I figure out how to convert the file. Yeah, then we'll be down yeah, so that's how we spent our break um in between this week's episode and this can episode. Yes, save for survival times.
Speaker 2The end of the world as we know it.
Speaker 1And we're changing up just a tiny bit in the format, in that usually it's every other week One of us has the topic, the other one, but this time Heather came up with the topic idea and we both just kind of thought of memories of both of them. We did a little research, but anyway, we hope it works. We hope you like it and if you're hearing that, no, we'll see you again live next week, hopefully.
Speaker 2Send flowers.
Speaker 1Thoughts and prayers would be appreciated. They're our favorite, yeah.
Speaker 2So let's fuck around and find out about TV commercials from our youth.
Speaker 1Yes, yes, this is fun because it's crazy to me how many jingles from commercials in our childhood still are on a pretty regular basis in the loop playing in my head all the time oh yeah, like all the time when we were doing this.
Speaker 2I was like, oh yeah, I all the time. Oh yeah, Like all the time when we were doing this. I was like, oh yeah, I remember that one.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, I remember that one, oh yeah, yeah, and now we're really going to have them stuck in our head forever.
Speaker 2Oh God yes.
Speaker 1They have been yeah, but everything had like super jingle. I don't feel like it's like that anymore. Either that or well. I mean. Well, I mean, I guess Is there really like a? There's the lemu emu, yeah and liberty bibberty.
Speaker 1Let's just give everybody an ad today. Well, I will say that car insurance commercials probably have the highest rate of jingles, although I guess grocery stores sometimes. But I feel like particularly like walmart commercials will piss me off now because I hate walmart and I'll hear a good song and I look up and it's a fucking walmart commercial and I'm like god damn it I mean it's a super effective strategy because I mean, obviously 50 years later we're remembering these commercials and we can sing every line to them.
Speaker 2Yes, so it's, obviously it's. And there's commercials I know on the radio from my youth that was just played over and over and over. Then I still remember every damn word too. I can't do math, but I remember some jingles.
Speaker 1And I feel like they did a better job of creating those wormholes in your brain than now, because I'll know the song Well. Now we have phones too, so a lot of times on commercial breaks I'm playing on my phone doing something. So I'm not looking at the commercial. So I know the song, I know the words and it's funny. Sometimes I know the whole commercial but I have never seen it, ever. I'll like look up and like oh, who's the characters in this commercial?
Speaker 2Like oh, I don't know, JG Wentworth, mm, hmm, 877 Cashnell, I mean well, buy any carcom. It's also, I feel like because of streaming, we probably don't watch as many commercials. I feel, like because of streaming, we probably don't watch as many commercials, so they probably invest their advertising dollars elsewhere, other ways, yeah. Because I mean, if you get, if you're paying for a premium, you're not getting the commercials.
Speaker 1Yeah, I did notice that a lot of the commercials nowadays are geared towards old people like us. Yeah, well, that's the other issue, unless it's like a new small business trying to get up off the ground now we're the target demographic. We are and I don't like our music and everything. It's weird.
Speaker 2I don't like when you're like watching tv and a depeche mode song comes on and you're like wait a minute, chili peppers.
Speaker 1sometimes it's even songs. I'm like, wow, yeah, I mean they just have the musical version of it, but we know what the words are.
Speaker 2I know what that means. Can't fool me too. Live Crew, that's an inappropriate song For your Chinese buffet, okay.
Speaker 1Speaking of Chinese. That's a good segue.
Ancient Chinese Secret and Problematic Ads
Speaker 2I'm going to start with the one that has always bothered me the most because it has lived rent free in my brain since I was like five.
Speaker 1I was like five.
Speaker 2Well, this is the one we talked about before on one of our episodes. I don't remember. That was like one of us remembered Calgon as one and one of us remembered Calgon as the other.
Speaker 1Well, and the funny thing is it was not the Calgon of the Calgon Take Me Away commercials, it was the Calgon laundry detergent, which I don't know that. We hear a lot about Calgon laundry detergent, I don't know if that's still a thing, but yeah, I remember Calgon for the bathtub, me too.
Speaker 2The exhausted mom Calgon, take me away. Yeah, yeah, I didn't remember this one. Oh really, oh my gosh, you don't remember the ancient Chinese? I mean, I kind of do.
Speaker 1I remember the ancient Chinese. I mean, I kind of do. I remember the words of it, but I don't remember it exactly. This is one of those little catchphrases that sticks in my brain, because at the end the customer says ancient Chinese secret. Huh, and I don't know why that always sits in my head. So anyway, for those of you that don't remember and it is very inappropriate, and I do like to sometimes go through and point out places we've messed- up in history and why it's not okay anymore.
Speaker 1So this is perhaps one of the most memorable ads of any Gen X's childhood, except for Heather's. This short, sweet but unforgettable commercial from Calgon was part humor, part PSA and all cringe. So let's start with the script. That was not very long or complex, but we still remember it. So the scene is a white middle aged woman is picked up, is picking up her laundry at a shop and marvels at the results. She asked the person behind the counter, an asian man um, how do you get the shirt so clean, mr lee? To which he leans in closer to her response ancient chinese secret with a knowing smile, except he said it with a really terribly terrible racist yes, exactly.
Speaker 1Uh. The camera pans to mr lee's wife, who was behind a curtain in another room and who had overheard the whole exchange, breaking the fourth wall. She turns to the camera and spills the beans and says my husband, some hot shot. Here's his ancient Chinese secret, new, improved Calgon. She then holds up a box of Calgon laundry detergent to show the audience. A voiceover comes in and extols the virtues of this wondrous product, explaining how it does what it does, which is get clean clothes cleaner. After the sales pitch, the wife now pulls back the literal curtain, emerging from the back room to shout we need more cow gone. Uh. The woman who had just been about to leave um with her crisp clean shirts, uh. Turns back to mr lee and says ancient chinese secret, huh, uh. To which he sheepishly looks at the customer with a look that says loud and clear I lied and I've been busted, so I did dig a little. Dig a little deeper into this one, because it has been in my brain.
Speaker 1She has been obsessed so very many years and I remember the commercial vividly, and I don't remember a lot of things vividly, um so stereotypes about asian people owning laundry, laundry shops that started a century previously but still continued well into the 70s. The simple but unforgettable hook, ancient Chinese Secret. Who doesn't love a good secret? Nor anyone who lived in a decade when the commercial played on TV on a constant and continual loop all day, every day. Mrs Lee was the star of the show. Clearly it was she who was running the business, as she was in the know about the best way to keep Mr Lee's shirts and other items customers brought in so clean. The overall message that it's always a woman behind the scenes who is doing all the work and that men are generally not able to handle domestic chores was a theme that ran, it says, here throughout the decade and beyond.
Speaker 2but I'm gonna say like that's just still going on today, don't just what do they call it now? Weaponized incompetence. I can't complain. I don't do our laundry, so I don't have any ancient Chinese secrets.
Speaker 1He does our laundry yeah, it's not like that in this household, but I know it is still a thing. It is still a thing, yeah, so that was that commercial. I feel good getting that off my chest, thank God. Hopefully now I can stop thinking about it all the time.
Speaker 2I don't think we're going to do that deep of a dive on all the rest of them. We're just going to member them.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, and we're not. I just really needed to get that one off my chest.
Speaker 2That's all. It's your podcast, yeah.
Speaker 1I have a couple other ones where I have some little fun facts.
Speaker 2Okay, but I did zero research other but that's because my episode was the one that was earlier.
Speaker 1Yeah, and she does a lot more work on this podcast than I do. Anyway, true story. I can pick up the slack.
Speaker 2Now I have to learn how to convert a Google file.
Speaker 1Good luck, I am.
Speaker 2So the ones I was thinking well, first of all. Well, how about we do this? Because I wanted to, we'll do like the food that comes to life.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2Because that's the ones. Okay, like the Kool-Aid man.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 2I mean bro chill. What is up with that?
Speaker 1I know, and I can't even really I remember being fascinated with this commercial and of course I remember it and I remember him yelling it and I remember kids running and screaming and water and like what, and, but I don't ever remember if I liked it or I was scared like whose fever dream was that? And I grew up drinking kool-aid, so maybe that's why I wasn't really affected by it because I was like dude, we got like 20 envelopes on the regular.
Speaker 2He ain't coming through the wall.
Speaker 1That's just crazy, like I don't know like I never thought when I was drinking my kool-aid kool-aid man was going to come through the wall no, I didn't.
Speaker 2I don't want to say I didn't, maybe I would always hope that the kool-aid man would come busting through.
Speaker 1You did have a lot of hopes and dreams based off of commercials. I really did.
Speaker 2Yeah, I really. So up until the last, like maybe two or three years, I had a serious tv watching problem where it's all I did. Um, I don't know why it stopped, I don't know what happened, but I used to know everything there was to know about every tv show. Ever maybe you'll get back to it maybe I've spent like just hours and hours and hours of my life obsessed with tv. Plus, I have that weird thing where I feel like, um, what's it called like anthropomorphization of things?
Speaker 2um nothing is inanimate in my eyes. That I also call the disinfication of things um so maybe that's why I just wanted my kool-aid. No, you know what it was. I know exactly what it was. I always wanted the pitcher.
Speaker 1Oh, I like that pitcher I have a pitcher that looks kind of like do you like?
Speaker 2I wanted a glass glass yeah, I want a glass, but I've had a glass. I make my son tea in it in the summer. I never had a glass pitcher, it was always just those plastic ones. Yeah, so maybe that's what it is Like. I just really want that pitcher, so maybe you can cure your.
Speaker 1Kool-Aid man obsession by just buying the pitcher.
Speaker 2I don't even know if you can buy the pitcher somewhere. I'm going to write Kool-A a letter. Yeah, I'd be like, hey, where you get that picture. I really like the picture and like the little ice cubes in it were just perfect and he was always red, which red is always my favorite flavor red is my favorite flavor, the fruit punch. And then my second well, actually, I lied, fruit punch is my second favorite black cherry I was gonna say black cherry but you cannot get black cherry anymore and how was it so much better than regular cherry?
Speaker 1I don't know Like it was a huge difference. I know because I don't like cherry. They don't make it anymore.
Speaker 2It's very hard to find those little packets only come with like. They only have like four or five flavors in those packets now.
Speaker 1I don't think I've bought Kool-Aid since my kids were little I I bought Kool-Aid since my kids were little.
Speaker 2I actually have some black cherry in my cabinet right now. My friend's mom used to make us Double Decker's peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and black cherry Kool-Aid.
Speaker 1All right, tell me about these peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and I will tell you why. What is a Double Decker Like? Explain to me this sandwich Bread.
Speaker 2Okay, peanut butter, no Jelly Bread you why? What is a double decker like? Explain to me this sandwich bread. Okay, peanut butter, no jelly bread, but one side, that that middle piece of bread has peanut butter on both sides. You are freaking me the fuck out right now.
Speaker 1And then the top piece had jelly so yesterday we had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. And then my husband was playing madden with my nephew, as he does, and he was telling him that we had just had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And first of all he said did you warm the bread? What right, so we can all agree. That's weird.
Speaker 1Nobody eats grilled peanut butter and jelly no he, he said like lightly toasted, but still no, oh fuck, no, no, it's got to be like white bread, white wonder bread or sunbeam like super soft yeah, well, we had it on the super cheap like wheat bread.
Speaker 2I'm pretty sure it's just white bread I just bought sunbeam and I don't give a shit.
Speaker 1I will pay for the sunbeam um, so anyway, christopher said, my nephew said that he had a piece of bread in the like three pieces of bread, and we're like what is this what your mother taught you? Like what is wrong with you? So, all right, this is like creepy, because this is like the second thing. That's really odd that you and my nephew came and you already have things in common we both work for the post office there's more than that, but a lot of your both of your oddities.
Speaker 1He's a very um, he has gotten better with his eating since he's gotten older a little bit, but he's a chicken nugget grilled cheese yeah, kind of guy. Mozzarella sticks, oh yeah, he does like broccoli, though, which is I like broccoli with salt.
Speaker 2I gotta have a lot of salt on it, yeah no cheese though I don't like broccoli cheese yeah, my latest.
Speaker 1I've been roasting broccoli, so just buy the florets, put some like olive oil I know, so I'm gonna microwave it to to death and then roast it. Now it's gotta be like oh, you like it soft and squishy. Yeah, I like it. Crispy, I like it. I want it microwaved to death.
Speaker 2I want it to die. You want it to be to death. I want it to die. You want it to be cream of broccoli.
Speaker 1I want it to be horribly dead. Yeah, that's crazy, all right Anyway.
Speaker 2So yeah, try it sometime. I don't know, it's fucking amazing. It's like a grown up PB&J. It's like a double cheeseburger of peanut butter and jelly. I don't like double cheeseburgers, why it's too much meat I also, when I get subs, hoagies, whatever you want to call it take half the meat off. I don't know what to say then don't make. I'm telling you though, try sometime, but you got to do it.
Speaker 1The middle piece has to have peanut butter on both sides and I remember like after we were kind of talking, they went back to playing the game and I remember hearing my husband say to him wait, there's peanut butter on both sides. So I know that they talked about that part of it.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh, that's so it's very important to put the peanut butter a, because peanut butter? Because the peanut butter spreads easier than jelly like correct jelly is kind of depends on what jelly you get. Right can be, you know, wonky, um. So the peanut butter spreads better. So when you put the jelly side and then you put the peanut butter on top of it and then you have to put more peanut butter on this piece, it won't slide as much right because it's peanut butter and not jelly, and then you put jelly independently of the top piece yeah.
Speaker 2Yes, it's weird, I still make them to this day. Sorry, I like a double-decker, okay. So yeah, kool-aid man, he's awesome.
Speaker 2I think it's the pitcher Other food that talks this one. I only would let my mom. I was the only one that went to the grocery store with my mom. Nobody else wanted to go because everybody hated it. And I love to go because then mom would let you pick out whatever you wanted. Oh god, your mom got the best snacks, so I got to pick this, what cereal we had, and all that, and probably that was for the best anyway, because I'm so picky. So I always wanted mrs butterworth because I was the only one. Nobody in my family is. I'm an early bird, my dad is, but I'm even earlier than him. Um, so I was the only one up in the morning and she would buy eggos and we would just, you know, make the eggos. So I wanted mrs butterworth because she talked to you but she never did, and it's not very good syrup so well, and she was very sweet in the commercials though she was sweet in the commercial, but I don't think she's as sweet in the bottle.
Speaker 1She was like a little old grandma.
Speaker 2Yeah, she was, and so I wanted Mrs Butterworth to talk to me while I was making it. And she doesn't, I know it's very disappointing.
Speaker 1Do you keep your syrup in the fridge?
Food Mascots Come to Life
Speaker 2No, are you supposed to I?
Speaker 1can never remember which one it's probably like, like real maple syrup, you're probably supposed to, but I don't.
Speaker 2I use the garbage. Yeah, yeah, I use it's just sugar water or whatever?
Speaker 1yes, colored sugar water delicious pretends like it's maple well, I have a food that talks and this is a good place to put this in, so I'm glad that you brought it up, and it's not one that particularly sticks out to me, but I remember freaking me out a little bit. Do you remember the parquet? I was gonna say parquet and it would say butter. Yep, parquet, yes, and the little butter dish was, and it was always somebody in the room alone like and this thing's talking to it like so that's another thing.
Speaker 2Like I feel like maybe I'm the crazy one, because I always thought that, like all these things would talk to you if you were the only person in the room, like Snuffleupagus, okay, so that was yeah.
Speaker 2But, none of them talked to me and I was always in the room. Yeah, do you know why? They changed Snuffleupagus so that everybody could see him in the 80s. Because they were afraid that kids wouldn't talk about sexual abuse, that adults wouldn't believe them, so they made Snuffy come out. I just learned that the other day. That's so sweet, I know. Yeah, so it's not a lot of kids.
Speaker 1That's why.
Speaker 2Anyway parquet.
Speaker 1Butter.
Speaker 2Parquet, butter Parquet.
Speaker 1Yeah, like I said, I don't have a lot to add to that one. I just it's vivid in my head and I remember it being a little creepy.
Speaker 2It was a little creepy. Maybe I just didn't, I don't know. My other one was the gravy train With a little. I want man, we man. Yeah, I wanted that chuck wagon didn't they like? Open the pantry and that came out, and it came busting.
Speaker 1Yeah, the little chuck wagon came running through, yeah and he was like yosemite sound sounding kind of yeah, but it never my mom a she wouldn't buy it because we did.
Speaker 2whatever garbage we fed to the dog, it was not gravy drain or whatever the chuck wagon was belonging to, but that one I remember. I always. I don't know. I think I just really fell for the commercials that made these things come to life. I was just like, yeah, that totally is going to happen.
Speaker 1Well, you have a very good imagination. I have an incredibly insane imagination.
Speaker 2Right that probably is not good.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2It gets away from me.
Speaker 1Well, at least you know it comes to you naturally. It's always been there. Yes, it has Probably from living in a van.
Speaker 2If you'd like to listen to our episode about me living in a van, it was Dragon's Dream. Check it out. I living in a van, if you'd like to listen to our episode about me living in a van was dragon stream. Yeah, check it out, I lived in a van it's probably our best one. Yeah, that's probably why I wanted all these things to come to life, because I had to live in a van by myself.
Speaker 1You just wanted something to be your friends so it's all I ever wanted in life.
Speaker 2it's one fucking friend. M Mrs Butterworth, get off your ass.
Speaker 1Oh man.
Speaker 2Well, most of these are food, I mean.
Speaker 1Are we still doing talking food?
Speaker 2Oh, did we run out of talking food?
Speaker 1I don't know, I didn't see any more for me. My next one is a food though the life cereal Mikey Yep.
Speaker 2Remember that whole thing about Mikey was dead because he he ate pop rocks?
Speaker 1yep, it was an urban legend um coke and pop rocks. I believed it, I did when it happened yeah, I used to be really scared of drinking soda with pop rocks, um, yeah, so he. That was the one where mikey didn't like anything. He was a very picky eater, yeah, and he tasted the life cereal and they were like, hey, mikey and he likes it.
Speaker 2He likes it. I tried because I thought too, maybe I would like it if mikey liked it.
Speaker 1Maybe I would like, I don't yeah, I don't see that being something you like. I love it. It's one of the few cereals I can eat when it gets squishy. Um, although I do try to eat it fast, like when I have cereal, I make sure everything is in place. All I have to do is pick the bowl up and go sit down and eat, because once the milk hits it, do you know they have a special bowl for that.
Speaker 2Now where you put you should serious look into it it's a bowl and it has cereal in it. Either the milk is in the bottom and you push the cereal and you feed the cereal in as you go. I'm gonna look for it for you, okay, but it's a special bowl and it keeps all your cereal crisp like you feed it into the milk. Yeah, because there are some cereals that I eat with milk and some what I eat without milk or milk on the side.
Speaker 1I should say well, there are some. I speed through and then, like Lucky Charms, I eat all the cereal first and I save the marshmallows, and I like doing that because the longer they're in the milk, the softer they get. I like it when they reach the point where you put your mouth and it just like dissolves.
Speaker 2Dissolves.
Speaker 1They're so good. So yeah, it does depend on the cereal, but as um.
Speaker 2so yeah, it does depend on the cereal, but as a general rule, I'm gonna eat my cereal pretty fast because I want to get it done before I like to soak my um captain crunch because otherwise you just shred the shit out of your mouth the only captain crunch I like is peanut butter. Um, I like straight up, captain crunch. Um, I do eat my loops with fruit loops. Milk is always on the side of my fruit loops and I just mostly I eat fruit loops as a snack.
Speaker 1I just like a, like a toddler with cheerios I put them in a little bag and I bring it to work I'm like that with frosted mini wheats and I'll do that with life cereal as well. I'll just put like cereal in a baggie and eat that see, I don't need any help there.
Speaker 2I eat one healthy cereal total and product 19.
Speaker 1I didn't know. They still made.
Speaker 2Yes, I don't know that they make product 19 anymore, but product 19 I eat with my milk on the side also because one side of the product 19 has whatever corn syrupiness is on there and if you put it on your tongue right I don't know, I'm really weird about my food so, and then my dad taught me how to eat rice krispies.
Speaker 1You fill the bowl, put our krispies pour milk over the whole top and then put like seven tablespoons of sugar.
Speaker 2They make frosted rice krispies? They do, but they're very hard to find they are.
Speaker 1They used to be popular, yes, like I think when we were like in our 20s they were big. You can still find them at Food Lion, but it's still different than caking a bunch of granulated sugar, because then the bottom of your bowl is filled with sugar. Right, and I typically don't drink the milk. I do not drink the milk, but I will eat the sugar out of the bottom of Rice Krispies.
Speaker 2When our cat hears me making cereal he is super excited and comes and sits right next to me, just to let me know that he is there to finish the milk, if needed.
Speaker 1He will drink the milk. Yeah, a couple of my cats like that too, including the podcast, our podcast buddy Buddy, who is snoring on the floor right now because he has sinus issues Very loud and we've been in here a long time today. It's a lot, it is.
Speaker 2Frosted Flakes is probably my number one cereal. I love Frosted Flakes Mostly because they're great.
Speaker 1I think my favorite would probably be Golden Grahams. I love Golden Grahams.
Speaker 2I love Golden Grahams, yeah, and they really haven't changed Like a lot of our cereals have changed.
Speaker 1Like Captain Crunch isn't even worth it. No, not Captain Crunch, count Chocula, not even worth buying now. It's just not right.
Speaker 2Oh, you know what else I like? Oh, the Sugar Smacks.
Speaker 1I was never big into sugar. I didn't like those honeycombs. I don't like honeycombs.
Speaker 2But sugar smacks. Oh my God, yeah, and my growing up. We just called them smacks.
Speaker 1So when we go, it's easier that way yeah.
Speaker 2Because my whole family is sweet people Like my dad and I are and cereal and cereal. Like my dad and I are in cereal and cereal. We eat a lot of cereal. We do eat a lot of cereal, um, so it would be like oh, what'd you get? I got smacks and pretty much any cereal I picked, everybody would be happy with. But my dad does eat total, but we have to load it with sugar I love corn pops too. I don't like corn pops. I tried um frosted cheerios. Can't do it I like cheerios.
Speaker 1I really never met a cheerio. I didn't like. I don't need to get into all these flavors like yes, I like original with a lot of sugar on it and I like honey nut and they used to make a peanut butter one. Now it's peanut butter and chocolate ones. They're in the same box, but they used to serve just the peanut butter and they were fucking amazing. Oh my god, one of the best cereals I ever had. But I don't think they make them like that anymore.
Speaker 2Yeah, cereal, nothing good ever lasts what's for dinner possibly I mean most of the time I do, and my husband gets so mad he's like, well, why didn't you? Just because we'll have like a, I made you something, whatever it's in there and then I'll just bring out cereal. He's like well, why are you just having cereal? Because I fucking want cereal, because I'm 50 years old and I can have fucking cereal if I fucking want it.
Speaker 1Yep, but real quick, just because I looked it up After acting. Mikey, whose last name is Gilchrist, in real life went on to receive a degree in communications from Iona College, and his passion for the New York Knicks would soon land him a job in ad sales as director of media sales at Madison Square Garden. Good for him. So that's what Mikey did with his life.
Speaker 2Yeah, he did not drink Coke and pop rocks. He did not Nope and explode.
Speaker 1And then I think I saw somewhere, but I didn't look into it. I think a couple years ago he remade the Life Cereal commercial.
Speaker 2I think it was like for a Super Bowl commercial.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's what I was thinking, something like that, but whatever, that's not that interesting, but I told you anyway. Yep All right.
Speaker 2Most of these are food.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Of course you cannot If you're going to go with jingles.
Iconic Cereal Commercials and Memories
Speaker 1I feel like there's one jingle that we all can do, and that's Oscar Mayer man. I tested myself too. I sang it out loud, and then I looked it up, I just read the words and I was like nailed it.
Speaker 2Yeah, my bologna is the first name. It's O-S-C-A-R.
Speaker 1My bologna is the second name.
Speaker 2It's M-A-Y-E-R.
Speaker 1I love to eat it every day, and if you ask me, that's what I'll say, because Oscar Mayer has a way with B-O-L-O-G-N-A, and that is the only way I can spell bologna, yep. It is how I've spelled it my whole entire life. Not that I have a lot of occasion to.
Speaker 2I don't normally have to make. Bologna is not.
Speaker 1But I did for the script, so you had to sing it. Yeah, Luckily I had that right there ready to go.
Speaker 2I do only buy Oscar Mayer's bologna If I'm going to buy bologna.
Speaker 1Same. Yes, I don't get it very often anymore.
Speaker 2No.
Speaker 1I did used to love like fried bologna sandwiches.
Speaker 2I like a bologna and cheese, but it's got to be like one piece of bologna, one piece of cheese on white bread. Yellow American, no, white American, really.
Speaker 1I mean, typically white American is what I'm going to go for, but I feel like yellow American. It's more bologna-esque. Yeah, maybe they match better.
Speaker 2Agree to disagree.
Speaker 1The color of our American shitty ass cheese. Yeah, that was a fun commercial, though I I got spoiled.
Speaker 2The problem with cheese for me white american and yellow american. I got very much spoiled because we had a restaurant and we had cisco brand cheese and, um, if you've ever eaten in a restaurant and you've had white american, typically it is the cisco brand, which I think is also block and barrel. I have recently found that out cisco cheese it comes in a brick. We call it brick, I don't know. It's a fuck ton of cheese and we would get it and because we would close labor day, weekend or somewhere anyway, we'd go all winter and we didn't have any money. So at the end of the season we would order like a fuck ton of shit from cisco. But our all of our favorite cheese is the cisco cheese and it was very hard to find after we stopped having a restaurant what we were going to do about cheese. But it is block and barrel.
Speaker 1Oh, okay, all right, that's good.
Speaker 2So now I can't get like the Peely. I'm very picky about my cheese. I have to buy, like deli cheese I can't buy.
Speaker 1So, yes, if I get deli cheese, it has to be Land O'Lakes and I want the white American. And that's something I learned from my dad as well, because one of my dad's all-time favorite snacks that I watched him eat my whole life and he ate when I went to Florida in November. So he's still going strong Saltines and Land O'Lakes, white American sliced cheese and he will just sit he's. I'm a very slow eater and a very particular eater as well, like I don't like to share food off my plate because I've got a plan in my head of what order I'm going to eat these bites in, right, and I might be saving something best for last. I might be saving something that's going to go good with another thing on the plate.
Speaker 1Like eating, I like the art of eating right food. But I feel like I got a lot of this from my dad, who is fairly simple in the things that he likes, but he would sit there and he would meticulously take the slice and break it into four pieces and have his four squares and then they each fit perfectly on the saltine and he would take his time eating them. And I also am a very slow eater, like anytime you go out to eat with my dad. You're going to be sitting there two hours after you're done eating Cause he and he does like break it down by the bite, like so yeah, so that's my thing with cheese, but if I'm not going gonna get the deli, if they like don't have the kind I want, I will do the craft.
Speaker 2I won't. My husband buys it all the time and I just I don't disregard it.
Speaker 1I won't eat it straight, no um I'll use it on grilled cheese. Yeah, I'm, I asked to melt it it has to be a milk, it has to be melted and it's not a bad melted product, it's not a bad melted product.
Speaker 2It doesn't melt nicely. Yeah, that's probably because that's what it's designed to do, exactly yes or that one, one um atom away from being plastic.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's definitely.
Speaker 2I do try to avoid processed foods as much as I can, but I do not my only eat processed foods, as a rule anyway um.
Speaker 1Are we done talking about american cheese? I think so okay, I think I've exhausted my american cheese so, um, here's another one that the jingle has always lived with me, or inside of me, is uh, the rice roni the san francisco treat yeah, and it was just the commercial, was just the little trolley going down the hill it rang its little bell, uh-huh, yep yep, um, so this.
Speaker 1So I wanted to find out why that jingle like what does san francisco treat have to do with rice-a-roni? Because I've been to San Francisco and there's not like monuments to rice-a-roni.
Speaker 2Not a rice-a-roni in sight, no.
Speaker 1So it happened to be where the original family-owned pasta company that created rice-a-roni had set up shop. Now, this was a story that is going to piss you off, because it's so simple. And they have become wicked rich from all of this, I have no doubt. And it's just such a basic idea. So the family that created it was the Di Domenico family, and they used to enjoy an old Armenian dish that consisted of rice, vermicelli pasta and chicken broth. The rice and pasta were salted in butter before the liquid was added, giving the dish its distinctive taste. In 1958, vince de Domenico decided to take his recipe and produce it for sale in grocery stores. He placed the rice and pasta in a box just a plain old cardboard box, just like it still comes today Added a dry seasoning mix it was just dried chicken soup broth.
Speaker 1Yep and sold it, and so, because it was made up of half rice and half pasta, it was called Rice Aroni and half pasta it was called rice roni I make my own rice roni I never, ever thought to do that until I read this and I was like, well, goddamn, because we.
Speaker 1My husband loves the chicken rice roni and I gotta say it's probably my favorite. I do like the broccoli and cheese one too, but anyway, um, I feel like the last couple times I've bought it, it just has tasted let me tell you what I do with the rice, my own rice, roni.
Speaker 2First of all, I use the assini di pepe. Um, that I usually use for my wedding soup. Love it. I haven't made it in a while. Um, and then, because there's tiny little fucking meatballs are a pain in the ass. Yeah, I make my rice, I put it all in one pot. It's an all-in-one-pot situation. I just put it in there, with chicken broth and I don't use chicken broth, I use a little bit of water and I always use bouillon.
Speaker 1Do you brown the rice first? Nope, do you cook?
Speaker 2the pasta first. Nope, I throw it all in one pot, cover it, dust a little bit with water and then throw my chicken base, because that's what I'm used to using. It's just chicken base for everything, very, very, very strong chicken base. And then you know what I do I throw my chicken in there, and sometimes I throw broccoli in there it depends on how I'm feeling fancy, I don't know and then hold on, wait for it. Ranch seasoning get out, I won't get out. It's fucking delicious. And then cheddar cheese. Yep, yep. There you go, your own race.
Speaker 1I'm definitely going to try a variation of that of some sort that that sounds amazing, okay, so yeah, it was a very boring story, but that's where cooking with heather and nicole yeah, this a lot, a lot of food stuff coming up here. All right, which one are we going to talk about next?
Speaker 2Well, while we're on the songs, I mean, how many songs has McDonald's had?
Speaker 1And what's the one we all?
Speaker 2Two Big Patty Special Sauce Lettuce.
Speaker 1Cheese Pickles on.
Speaker 2Sesame Seed Bun, there was another. There's also one with Filet-O-Fish french fries. Oh shoot, what was that one Big Mac Filet-O-Fish quarter pounder french fries, icy coke, thick shakes, sundaes and apple pies. Yeah, that one.
Speaker 1I was like hold up that one's in there. Somewhere the little man in my head was running around checking files like where is it?
Speaker 2mcdonald's, I'm loving it. No, big mac, no, they just have so many. I mean, I, nobody, nobody, nobody makes an iconic jingle more than mcdonald's just nobody the hands down, they probably have the top 10 yeah they just I could walk in.
Speaker 1I've never worked at a mcdonald's. I could walk in there and make a big mac to all beef patty special sauce, lettuce cheese, a pickle sesame seed bun. Yeah, and big mac is my favorite sandwich, from mcdonald's as well. So it's thousand island and it's only one piece of cheese and it does have the third piece of bread it does, unlike the double cheeseburger right, and that's why the big mac's okay with me, because the burgers are separated it's not a big glop of meat right you know, my husband the other day was like you know, you always get a double cheeseburger.
Speaker 2Why don't you get the quarter pounder? And I was like, because the quarter pounder has a nasty fucking onions on it, whereas the double cheeseburger has the tiny, tiny little onions, but the quarter pounder has the no, unacceptable.
Speaker 1Yeah, he was like why not? Yeah?
Speaker 2he was like why don't you just ask for the onions from the double?
Speaker 1I was like because it's just fucking easier to order the goddamn double cheeseburger because I don't want to be that person that goes to mcdonald's and asks you to make it special I'm there for a reason to get in and out. I don't want to be making, it's just I have not done that since kaylin was a kid, because she would only eat her cheeseburger with ketchup and pickles, and you know how stubborn she is I do so. I fed, I had to ask for it because she was not going to eat it. Nope Brat.
Speaker 2She is. Then of course you have all the other. Like the juicy fruit, the gums went through like a serious they did and I think mostly everybody knows this now. But the Doublemint twins their sister is Katie Segal yes, Also, if you watch the Pee Wee thing, I did not know that he knew Katie. They were very close. I did not know that. And Elvira, that makes sense. They all worked in the Groundlings together.
Speaker 1That's probably where the inspiration for Miss Yvonne came from. Miss Yvonne was one of them that worked in the Groundlings together. That's probably where the inspiration for Missy Vaughn came from.
Speaker 2Missy Vaughn was one of them. That was in the Groundlings, phil Hartman.
Speaker 1Oh, who's the actor he's in like Quentin Tarantino movies Lawrence Fishburne, yeah, cowboy Curtis. Yeah, which is hilarious because he's such a badass now.
Speaker 2Yes, they go into it. On the documentary about how he came in. Oh, but because the rest of them were all from the groundlings, he wasn't. I can't wait, it's good.
Speaker 1Anyway.
Speaker 2Yeah, the juicy, so juicy fruit. The taste, the juicy, so juicy fruit. The taste, the taste, the taste is going to move, wasn't that juicy fruit? And the big red freshness lasts right through it. Your fresh breath goes on and on while you chew it.
Speaker 1Big red was my favorite. What I used to like to do is I'd take a stick of big red and a stick of juicy fruit and roll them up into like a little pumpkin roll kind of thing.
Speaker 2And then chew them together.
Speaker 1Ew, yummy my mom chewed juicy fruit.
Speaker 2I liked Big Red.
Speaker 1I'm never a big double mint fan.
Speaker 2I like the spearmint.
Speaker 1I like the spearmint fresh enough. If I was going to get spearmint gum, it was going to be fresh enough.
Speaker 2It's probably third on my list, because I will always go for Big Red first.
Speaker 1Yes, Seems like you got the most flavor out of Big Red. It did last longer.
Speaker 2Unlike, I don't know, none of them do. They're all terrible. Yeah, they're probably better now. I don't know. I haven't had gum in a while. I haven't either. I should get some. How about Folgers? The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup?
Speaker 1Yeah, and somebody, somebody other, somebody other, some other coffee Maxwell House is. Maxwell House is good to the last drop.
Speaker 2Good to the last drop, maxwell.
Speaker 1House? Yeah, and it was always. They always dropped her on the holidays. And it was like the kid coming home from college.
Speaker 2I thought that was Folgers. The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup and everybody in the house wakes up and then you come down and Susie's there. Oh my God, yeah, from college.
Speaker 1She snuck in. Thank God they set the coffee pot for the night before.
Speaker 2I know. Thank god they set the coffee pot for the night before, I know, and they didn't have a weapon. Take her ass out, susie. Don't be sneaking in people's houses sounds like a tragedy. Wait now it really does the best part of waking up is murdering tech. Nine in your cup Breaking and entering Coke.
Speaker 1Coke had so many, I put in information here on one of them. Just a jingle, just because I've always liked it. I'd like to teach the world to sing.
Speaker 2In perfect harmony.
Fast Food Jingles and Marketing
Speaker 1Perfect harmony, I'd like to teach the world a Coke, coke and keep it company. That's the song I sing. All right, so, um, that was uh. Bill backer was one of the co-writers of that jingle and he said it wasn't a message from coca-cola that you should buy the world a coke. It was that each of us individually should like to do just that if we could. It was the real thing and it was a metaphor for peace. I mean bullshit.
Speaker 2It was to make money, but it's a nice thought it's the same shit they got going on now that I will fucking fall for every god damn time they do it with these names on the fucking coke. Oh, yours doesn't have it. The one I have currently doesn't have the names on it, but I will.
Speaker 2How'd I do that? I don't know how you did it, but they have the names out every fucking summer, and every summer I will turn them all around and look for somebody I know, and then I'll buy one. If I see your name, I'll buy you one.
Speaker 1I feel like they're obscure names. They are now. I don't know a lot of them. I only like it when I buy the 12-pack of cans and they all say homie.
Speaker 2Homie that makes me happy Goat.
Speaker 1Yeah, bruh yeah.
Speaker 2No, I will go through them all if I see your name on there. Oh, I actually I meant to take a picture of it and I totally forgot it might still be in my refrigerator right now. I found one that said lydia. Oh, I specifically bought that one because it said lydia, I fall for it. I'm hey coke, I will fall for it every time. I will do it every time keep them coming I won't.
Speaker 1But yeah, also coke. When did the polar bears start?
Speaker 2geez, that was probably like the late 80s, maybe 90s those have always been.
Speaker 1They're cute.
Speaker 2Yeah, they're always good I prefer coke over pepsi. My dad and mom drink pepsi, so I definitely prefer coke I know diet pepsi is too sweet or something, I don't know. It's awful, it just doesn't taste right.
Speaker 1No, definitely coke I like cherry coke zero I like just coke zero.
Speaker 2That's awesome it is.
Speaker 1I don't know what the difference is between that and diet coke and regular coke, but one has aspartame, one hasenda, one has straight sugar. So they're just all bad for us.
Speaker 2Okay, actually, I think regular Coke is the best for you.
Speaker 1Yeah, it is. I just prefer the taste of Diet.
Speaker 2Coke, Me too no.
Speaker 1And Diet. Dr Pepper I like better than regular Dr Pepper, but Sprite I'll drink. There is no such thing as a good diet. Lemon, lime soda.
Speaker 2No. Oh, they're all Dr Pepper tastes just like Dr Pepper.
Speaker 1It does, and now they have a Dr Pepper zero.
Speaker 2Did not know that, yep. Yep, yep, yep oh man, and you know what else tastes the same yeah, diet, root beer is very tasty yeah, oh, I got one more um slogan. Okay, I think there's just one more. Oh, you know what else I remember about the coke when new coke came and they yeah, max headroom. Yeah, new coke was terrible, it was terrible what the hell?
Speaker 1and then was it clear pepsi, clear pepsi. That was weird, oh my god that was weird.
Speaker 2It was hard like I couldn't do it because it's not supposed to look like that. I get it.
Speaker 1It's actually probably better for you to be clear, pepsi because then they don't probably nasty ass food coloring in it, but it's too weird I wonder if that would count when, like a doctor, says you can only have clear liquids, could you have had clear Pepsi? Yes, because it's clear. Really the food coloring.
Speaker 2Is what the problem?
Speaker 1is oh yeah, I always thought it was the caffeine.
Speaker 2No, it's the red in the food coloring.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, that is one thing that I will agree with. What our government's doing right now, it's getting rid of those food colorings that are illegal and everywhere else in the whole entire world except for here. I like food coloring. I know that you do I like my, but sometimes we americans aren't smart enough to well, I'm trying to die, so yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1No, I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about other people. I'm trying to eliminate myself. Oh, one I did want to talk about that I always loved was Duncan the Duncan Donut. Time to Make. The Donuts Time to Make the Donuts Yep. Yep by Fred the Baker. That commercial started in 81, 1981, and it ran for 15 years.
Speaker 2Wow, yeah, I bet he was tired. Yeah, did they retire him? I hope.
Speaker 1I meant to dive a little deeper into Fred Baker and it just didn't happen. You didn't have time to make those donuts, I did not, so if you want to know what happened, audience, you have to Google it. That's the beauty of this, like when we just leave out facts, if people really are like, well, what the fuck, you can just Google it. You can just Google it. Look it up yourself.
Speaker 2Do you know what else? Now that I see I also have one? Do you remember this was probably more 90s, because I don't think this was an 80s thing, but pizza rolls, pizza in the morning, pizza in the evening, pizza at supper time. When pizza's on a bagel, you can eat pizza anytime.
Speaker 1When pizza's on a bagel, you can eat pizza anytime. I love me a bagel bite.
Speaker 2I will still eat bagel bites. Fucking love them. They gotta be microwaved, though.
Speaker 1I don't like them, crispy yeah, that makes sense they gotta be chewy there was something else, there was another one, so I am stuck on band-aid brand cause band-aid's stuck on uh, that's one that's always stuck in my head. There's one you brought up earlier. I can't, it's not on my list. It was something you had done. Mentos the fresh maker. No, it is a good one too, though, toys toys are us oh yeah, how do we forget?
Speaker 2I don't know I'm a toys r us kid. They got the best for so much less. You really flip your lid from bikes to trains to video games.
Speaker 1It's the biggest toy store there is gee whiz. I don't want to grow up because, baby, if I did, I couldn't be a toys r us kid.
Speaker 2True story, though, because we grew up and toys r us is gone, so yeah we did grow up and we cannot be Toys R Us kids.
Speaker 1So that was a self-fulfilling prophecy. We didn't have. We either didn't have a Toys R Us around us, which I don't think we did, or my mom lied about it, but I know.
Speaker 2You had one in Dover, there was one in Dover.
Speaker 1When we were kids.
Speaker 2Yeah, there was definitely one.
Speaker 1There was one in Salisbury, there was one in Salisbury there was one in Dover, because I remember going to one in Jersey with Jersey relatives and I ended up of all the toys in a big toy store and, like my first time going, I buy an umbrella, but it was a Jeffrey umbrella, like it had Jeffrey's rubber head on the top of it and it was like a clear plastic one with like giraffe-type looking stuff around. It was a really fly umbrella. I think it was raining that day too, so I figured fuck it.
Speaker 2I can use it so yeah. That was my first Toys R Us purchase. It was independent, it wasn't at the mall or anything. It was over on the other side of Salisbury so I know you had to have one in Dover, had to.
Speaker 1Probably sounds about right. I'm trying to think though.
Speaker 2I don't know if you're from here and you know where the Toys R Us is well then Dover let us know. Yeah, um, I don't know. Do you this one? Was I miss cleo? You remember miss cleo calling me now?
Speaker 1oh, my gosh.
Speaker 2I'm pretty sure there's a documentary about her there is, and she got into a lot of trouble.
Speaker 1She did yeah but I mean seriously, if you were dumb enough to fall for that shit, then I don't know who's really the bad person here, I know. If you could call.
Speaker 2You want to call and spend money on it Because she has no Jamaican accent at all. No, no, nope, nope, miss Cleo call me now and that is.
Speaker 1That doesn't hold up. That's very insulting, very extreme, yeah. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, what's the difference between her and these other people who fill up a whole room full and and guess, oh, you're dead relative standing over your shoulder?
Speaker 2no different. They're all the same right, so why'd she get in trouble? They all are the same.
Speaker 1They all feed off of your grief yeah, yep, yep uh, of course mentos the fresh maker, yeah there was still another one you mentioned earlier Tootsie Rolls.
Speaker 2The Tootsie Rolls, that wasn't it, but we did talk about that how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?
Speaker 1three, one, two three crunch yep, it's three. Yeah, that one, though, like I love Tootsie Pops, I still do this day. I love Tootsie Pops and I never wanted to bite it. After the third lick, I want to enjoy this. I've always been a hard candy fan. I like hard candy, some hard candy you know what?
Speaker 2I have actually recently remembered that I liked butterscotch. Yeah, like your grandma always had them in her pocket. I'm hard-kidding, you know what? I have actually recently remembered that I liked Butterscotch yeah, like your grandma always had them in her pocket. And now is it maybe because we're older? Now we're like you know what? It would be really awesome, right now Butterscotch Like did you just get? Did you grow into butterscotch, or have you just always? Or is it the nostalgia of it?
Speaker 1I don't know. I think I really genuinely like it. I know like a year ago a person in my office she's a little bit old fashioned and she had like a jar of hard candies on her desk and it was butterscotch.
Speaker 2I was like, hmm, and I had it. I was like, goddamn, that's good, I love me some butterscotch. There's an elderly lady on my route that leaves me um snacks all the time and she leaves me butterscotch yes, that's so precious. She left me a banana the other day she thought you looked a little sickly.
Speaker 1You know what she did one time just, oh, she's the best.
Speaker 2So my route is near a redner's and um, she lives right next to the redner's. So I was in another part of her complex delivering to another one and I was getting stuff out of the back and here she comes rolling up and she is literally 90 years old, like she just had her 90th birthday. Um, she rolls up in the middle of the street, gets out of her car in the middle of the intersection in the street she shuffles over to the back of her car, opens the back of her in her trunk, pulled out it was a, it was a banana and she had bought tasty cakes Open the box of tasty to shuffle over and bring me the banana and the blocked up traffic. She's so precious, I love her so much. She's the best I do. She's always precious, I love her so much.
Speaker 1She's the best I do.
Speaker 2She always leaves me a little note and some kind of snack for every holiday, like the banana was for Memorial Day and then for every holiday. There's like little snacks in there.
Speaker 1I love her. I see here a couple other Grey Poupon. Excuse me, sir, pardon me. Sir, do you couple other gray poupon?
Speaker 2excuse me, sir, pardon me sir, do you have any gray I? I use gray poupon for one thing and one thing only double takes. Yes, I knew you were gonna say that don't tell my mom, I told you okay, I won't.
Speaker 1I remember tasting it when those commercials came out and I was like this shit is nasty, because I was still a kid right.
Speaker 2So the whole point of that commercial is totally true. Like you do have to be older and like sophisticated yes, it's a more elevated. It's not just your average.
Speaker 1Throw it on a hot dog mustard exactly, it's fancy mustard right, but now we got crafters and stuff that there's like billions artisanal, artisanal mustard yes I am a big mustard. I am not. I love it.
Speaker 2I like it mixed in with things, but I don't like it on its own. I did though I did put mustard on my burger today. I know just a little bit just a little smack girl.
Speaker 1I even made sure to get the Heinz ketchup out for you.
Speaker 2I know I had that too. I only eat Heinz ketchup. I get complaining when I have to have it, and she came here once and I didn't have it. It was awful Generic.
Speaker 1It was generic, because I don't really taste the difference in ketchup.
Speaker 2Huge difference. I will never buy anything except Heinz ketchup ever again. Just in case you're here, because I don't go through it fast enough to to need it. To need, oh, I do. Yeah, man, my husband gets so bent out of shape about it because we have just giant things of ketchup and the. When we first started living together I bought like the BJ's, like the two giant, like 76 gallon drums of ketchup and he was like why do we have?
Speaker 2and I was like you'll see, and then and then we got through one and he was like, oh my god, did you eat all that ketchup? And I was like, yep, sure did I put ketchup on everything.
Speaker 1Ketchup in the fridge or no? Yes, okay, although it usually doesn't last long enough in my house to really matter but I mean, I do know that ketchup will go bad from working in restaurants and they get left on the table and if it's a hot restaurant it will explode that bottle and it will explode on you yes, yeah so, but I didn't know if just general probably don't need to temperature, but I do.
Speaker 1I like it cold it's one of those ones I feel like, just because I've seen it turn I've smelled it when it turns, so I'm like no yeah I keep all of them in there, I think.
Speaker 2I think I even keep the mustard in there I keep most things in the fridge.
Speaker 1I keep butter out on the counter, just some, yes, in case I need it for toast or something.
Speaker 2Yes, because I can't stand hard butter.
Speaker 1No, no you can't put it on your toast you gotta let it melt, then it takes forever right, yeah, you gotta toast the toast, put the butter on it, put it back in the toaster I use country crock for my toast.
Speaker 2I don't even use straight butter I get in trouble. We have to have two separate, different containers because he likes butter and I don't, and I am set in my ways.
Speaker 1I can't believe you missed.
Speaker 2Wendy's. Where's the beef? Yep, I don't like Wendy's.
Speaker 1I know you don't like Wendy's, but they have square burgers. I know you like the old lady. Where's the beef?
Speaker 2Square burgers on a round roll is just wrong. Sorry, sorry, wendy.
Speaker 1They're really not very good, but they do have a very good spicy chicken sandwich. Yes, I know.
Speaker 2I've heard. We have to go. When we go to McDonald's, he has to go to Wendy's because he likes whatever. They're frosty, now they're making some fancy frosties with like. That's where.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's not what you do.
Speaker 2Just stop, just stop with that Right, you're fucking fast food Right, move on.
Speaker 1And you're right down the road from the Dairy Queen, where I can go and get that.
Speaker 2I'm not going there for this. Just do what you do. Yeah, stop trying to be fucking fancy.
Speaker 1I know.
Speaker 2McDonald's Stop it. Mcdonald's needs to get their shit together. I think they got rid of all them coffee bars too. I don't think they do that shit anymore. First of all, I saw a meme the other day. It's totally true. What happened to McDonald's? It aged with us Like when we were kids.
Speaker 1It was like this, really nice happy place and now they all look like sad. Yep, they're awful, they are. They're awful and they take forever. Oh, my god, this whole go park. While I make your food, like what the fuck? Why aren't there 20 cheeseburgers on the ready? I?
Speaker 2came here because I didn't want to be waited on yeah, I want to get. I don't need it fresh no I did not come here for fresh food. No, no, no, no, no, I want it. I want it to be the days where it was in the little slidey things. Yeah, and it would just in the styrofoam.
Speaker 1I mean, nothing makes me more angry than when I get a McDonald's cheeseburger and the cheese doesn't melt.
Speaker 2I don't know Like what are you talking about? You know, what my favorite thing in the whole wide world used to be is when you would slide into McDonald's at 1028. And you would look at the slidey thing and there would be like two sandwiches left and you'd be like these bitches in front of me better not be getting my Egg McMuffin. Because it's perfect.
Speaker 2And they would not make you another one If it was 1030,. You're not getting, unless it's in the slidey thing. You're not fucking getting it. Fuck you. Fuck your mom, yep, fuck your whole family.
Speaker 2You should have got here five minutes ago, exactly, and yet when you have a restaurant and you have a cutoff time of two o'clock for your breakfast and people come in and want to argue every time, I would say go to McDonald's at 10, 29 and 59 seconds and see if you can get. Yep, the person in front of you in the drive-thru can get breakfast, and then that thing hits and no yeah, you are fucked, but you have to have it that way.
Speaker 1Yeah, you can't have people in their hemming and hawing like, well, you know, you gotta boom boom because you don't shut down for that changeover no, but I like the slidey things.
Speaker 2I think we should bring back, yeah, the slidey, it was just think we should bring back the slidey things.
Speaker 1It was just ready, Like you put in your order. They turned around, grabbed the bag, pulled down all the shit you just ordered, stuck it in the bag Now it takes six forevers.
Speaker 2I'm here for fast food, yeah.
Speaker 1And you don't know if you've been forgotten.
Speaker 2I know.
Speaker 1And you don't want to be that guy that goes in and is like hello.
Speaker 2But you also don't want to be that guy that goes in and is like hello. But you also don't want to sit there and they've thrown your food in the trash and they forgot about you.
Speaker 1It's too much. It's too much it is. It's become very stressful to get fast food oh my god.
Speaker 2And door dashing at mcdonald's is the worst. That's what my husband says terrible they you are the last thing on the planet.
Modern Fast Food Frustrations
Speaker 1You will sit there forever. Although, growing up in restaurants as we did, I can't say I would be any better. Here's my thing about. I would fucking hate that I know.
Speaker 2I understand as a restaurant person restaurateur. I get it, it makes total sense. You have to evolve person restaurateur. I get it, it makes total sense. It's probably one of the better things that has happened to restaurants, especially small businesses like that. It is probably one of the better things. However, you, if you're going to participate in it, cannot and I would have not, except in the off season asked my servers or my bartender to deal with it. You have to have a specific person. Excellent point For that, because A they're not getting tipped and I am, I don't care.
Speaker 2I am a firm believer that your servers and bartenders should get tipped the day of and they should walk out of there with cash.
Speaker 1It's the whole fucking point and they actually work for tips. Not every single person who can stick a jar on their counter.
Speaker 2Tipped employees minimum wage is two dollars and 22 cents and it has been forever. Um now, mind you, in the slow part, if their tips plus their 223 does not equal minimum wage, you do have to boost them. But whoever does that?
Speaker 1and they hate that, yeah and wait staff don't even pay attention, they're just like fuck it, I don't even care. No, so when you're working at duncan and you're making 18 an hour, I'm not going to tip you. And it's not because I don't appreciate your service. You're getting paid 18 an hour to do that. That's your job. Yeah, like I, I I do get frustrated because I did live on tips for so long and I fucking hustled to make tips.
Speaker 1Yeah, and now just everybody thinks they should get them yeah, and even on the little ipad things they swing it around. No, I just bought a five dollar coffee. What do you want for me?
Speaker 2yes, a quarter like what do you want, leave me alone. That's. That's why, if I was doing door dash, I would have, I would hire a specific person that got paid your minimum wage or whatever. Yeah, to do only get that shit together or offer that to your servers.
Speaker 1You know, come in for 20 bucks an hour, you know, and fill it in because it and it affects the cooks too, because now you have all this extra food that's on top of capacity in the restaurant.
Speaker 2You can shut it down, though I tried to get surf bagel yesterday and it was shut down.
Speaker 1Okay, I have seen them shut down before and I wasn't sure why. Yeah, you can shut it off.
Speaker 2I'm surprised any ever.
Speaker 1Stay on, then. Chefs must not have access to that.
Speaker 2When I worked at a place, that had it shut it down a lot, oops first of all, I would, if you goes are bad enough yeah those are a nightmare.
Speaker 1I can't even fucking fathom having to navigate.
Speaker 2If you have, ever worked in a restaurant, then ever, even for like 15 minutes, and but if you are one of us that have worked in a restaurant, you're, you lived, ate, breathe more than half your life the noise that the printer makes in the kitchen will haunt you until the day you die, and sometimes I still wake up in the middle of the night like hearing it. And so, when you know, when you know there's a certain X amount of people out in your dining room, but yet your computer is still rolling out shit.
Speaker 1Imagine. You know when that rush comes in, you know when your hostess has sat too many people all at once and fucked everything up. That was why my mom was good. Yes, and you know when you've got a handle on that. You know when you're like all right, we've made it through, we still have this to go, but we're gonna be okay. And then, without even having more tables open up, yeah you got 10 orders, come in.
Speaker 2Can you imagine I, I can, I. My mom was brutal as a hostess. She wasn't to you because you were the bartender, but we had this one waitress who hands down, absolutely, no doubt, in my mind, the best waitress I have ever met. In my entire life I've met a lot of servers. She was fucking amazing. I will give her all. I used to tell her all the time we sat 124 people in our restaurant in bethany and she could take that entire dining room herself. Yep, my mom was. She became our head waitress for a little while and my mom would just seat her and seat her and seat her and she would come to my mom and when she got weeded you could tell she was weeded. She would come to my mom. She'd be like patty, I don't know if I could do it. My mom would turn around.
Speaker 1She's like, yeah, you can I could, you can do it and she'd be like I.
Speaker 2She would come in the kitchen. She'd be like your mom is my mom, did not fuck around and that is like a true, very true, like um um.
Speaker 1Description of being a waitress, though, is like you can't do. It's like giving birth like you can't do it, like I just can't do this anymore. Yeah, but you have to yeah, like yeah, there's no other choice. There are people waiting to eat and it's all on you it's a terrible, it is a job I could never do. It that's why I was always in the kitchen. I could never be a cook.
Speaker 2It's so hot back there oh my god, it's so hot, but you don't have to.
Speaker 1You only have to deal with dumb waitresses and I was gonna say I was best friends with a cook so I knew how to treat cooks.
Speaker 2So I was not that kind of waitress.
Speaker 1but I saw a lot of them come flying back there with their trashy mouths where's my food? Blah, blah, blah. I would just kind of stand back in the corner and just kind of look, and they'd look out at me and be like what do you need? Well, blah, blah, blah, okay.
Speaker 2Gotta know how to cook. If cooks have an ego, you gotta learn how to stroke it.
Speaker 1If you really want to get along with your cooks, bring them a fresh soda a couple times during their shift. That's all they need. That's really all it takes. All they really is Just make them. You'll learn what they all like. Put it up in the window. They will snatch it up, drink it, put it down and get back to work and you probably won't get thanked. But just do it, and then when you do need to ask where your food is, it's not quite as painful.
Speaker 2No, okay, commercials. Yes, not kitchen work.
Speaker 1I think that was all of them.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, I think we did oh one, oh, we did forget to okay the clapper that one is just so silly.
Speaker 1I know it's so like clap on clap off, clap on, clap off the clapper, and it was, you know, people getting into bed yeah, they were so happy, I wanted one they didn't have to turn their lamp off I wanted one.
Speaker 2I never got one, but yeah, I did.
Speaker 1I wanted my family to at least have one, like I wanted one in the house everybody should have one. Nobody ever had one, the closest I ever got were the lamps, where if you touched it, it would come on and it had three different brightnesses, and then you would always skip one and you'd be like god damn it.
Speaker 2Yes you're a little aggressive with the touching um nair.
Speaker 1I forgot about nair, oh girls wear short, short nair for short shorts if you dare wear short shorts, nair, for short shorts, that stuff stank and it burned holy shit and it was. There's no way that shit was good for you oh fuck, no, oh my god, it was literally like smearing acid all over your legs.
Speaker 2It was pretty much. It didn't just take the hair off, it probably took like the first four layers of your skin off with it.
Speaker 1Which was helpful because it would keep your legs smoother.
Speaker 2A lot longer yeah, because it killed the root and everything your body had to figure out how to grow hair again in those spots.
Speaker 1It did smell awful.
Speaker 2I had also the micromachines guy that used to do the fast talk. His name was josh machete jr, by the way, and he was again his book of world records for the fastest talking. Oh really. And then one more that we, I think all, can relate to at this point is the life alert. I've fallen and I can't get up, because there have been times where I've been laying on the floor and thought I really don't know if I can get up and if I had the little thing I could alert them.
Episode Wrap-up
Speaker 1Yeah, I think about it because I have a basement in my house and it has very steep steps and I've never been a good steep step person, not that I've ever fallen, it's just my anxiety really. But I've never been a good steep step person, not that I've ever fallen, it's just my anxiety really. But if I'm home alone, unless I really need to go down there for something, I won't go down there when I'm alone, because I was like I'm going to fall and I'm going to snap my neck, I'm going to lay at the bottom of the steps and I'm going to be totally aware of everything going on.
Speaker 1I won't be able to move.
Speaker 2My cats will come start eating me. Yes, they will, and there won't be anybody to save me. Nope, so yeah, total life alert. Big fan, big fan of the life alert.
Speaker 1Oh boy, all right, this got long for being a cash, oh I thought it would end up being short and we just be like oh well, it's just a villain.
Speaker 2I did too, but we're at an hour and 12 minutes.
Speaker 1Go us.
Speaker 2Yay, so we're going to wrap it up. Thank you for listening. You can like share rate, review us. You can find us where you listen to podcasts. You can follow us on all the socials. At LikeWhateverPod, you can send us an email telling us what is your favorite commercial or why do you need the life alert at LikeWh. Whatever pod at gmailcom. Or don't like whatever whatever.
