Pizza Flavored, My Eye

Hey food companies and snack conglomerates: PLEASE STOP MAKING PIZZA FLAVORED THINGS. It never works. Ever. The promise of eating something flavored like pizza will never capture the total flavor and texture of eating a slice, no matter how many chemicals you spray on whatever.

At the very most, what you created approximates pizza in some way, with hints of cheese flavor and pepperoni flavor and burnt dough flavor, but ultimately, it's a bad semblance of the real thing.

So instead of piping hot pizza, you have room temperature bagel with bagel texture that doesn't taste like a bagel but instead tastes kind of like pizza. Yuck.

Look at this shit. Lay's promises the chips you eat here will taste like a gooey deep dish Chicago style pizza. Now I'm not the biggest fan of deep dish, but looking at that great photo, I'd rather eat that than some average chips sprayed with essence of marinara sauce. Hell, even dipping Lay's chips INTO heated marinara sauce won't be as good as pizza.

So, stop. You're never going to pull it off. Ever. Stop trying to make it. No one asked you to do it. No one wants something like pizza when THEY CAN HAVE PIZZA. Okay? Stop. Stop it. Stop. Please. Please stop.

A Few Burning Questions About the Local Pizzeria's Box Graphics

1) Where is everybody?

2) Is this in Italy?

3) Did they evacuate everyone in the town because of radiation or a gas leak?

4) Was that nice couple's dinner interrupted during the evacuation?

5) Why is their table in the middle of the street? Is it because the sidewalk was littered with potted plants?

6) How was the couple supposed to eat that pizza without a pizza cutter or napkins?

7) Is that a midget chef bringing even more pizza to the table?

8) Why is he not dead from radiation/inhaling gas?

9) Did the radiation/gas leak turn all the plants red?

10) Why is the chef's pizza cut into pieces but not the one on the table?

11) Is this a nightmare I'm in? It is, isn't it?

An Imagined Conversation

"Seth."

"Hey, Rachel."

"Do you mind if I ask you something?"

"Sure, what?"

"Do I look like a fucking retard?"

"That's not cool. My cousin happens to be mentally cha..."

"DO I LOOK LIKE A FUCKING RETARD?!"

"Uh, no, Rachel. No you don't."

"Then why the fuck would you try to pull one over on me on the Dominos Chicken Wings packaging?"

"Excuse me?"

"Look, I hired you as a freelance illustrator out of the goodness of my heart, Seth. Your portfolio was decent, you didn't cost much, and I happened to be in a good mood that day. Today, I am NOT in a good fucking mood."

"What seems to be the problem?"

"Look for yourself, asshole."

(Seth examines the Dominos Chicken Wings packaging)

"You don't see anything wrong, Seth?"

"Uh, no. I don't..."

"LOOK, Seth. The Mediterranean Veggie is switched with the Chicken Habanero! They're both mislabeled!"

"Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh,' asshole. You fucked up. This has already gone to press, and now I look like a fucking incompetent asshole because you screwed up the Chicken Habanero with the Mediterranean Veggie. Now when people order the Mediterranean Veggie after seeing the illustration on the side of this Chicken Wings box, they'll expect what in actuality is the Chicken Habanero sandwich."

"The proofreader missed something, too, by the way. 'Cheese Steak' is one word."

"MARGARET!!!!"

Smecial Dreams Entry

From John Reid:

And three from Andrew Gall:

There's lots of Megan this time around.

Okay, What's More Disgusting...

My keyboard at work...


Or the keyboard at my local Papa John's?


Your vote counts!

An Open Letter To Pizza Burger

Hi Pizza Burger,

What's up. Not much here. Guess I haven't eaten you in a while. I guess I took me some time to really think about our relationship, and it's probably time we had a talk.

No, don't worry. I'm not mad at anything you did. To be honest, when I saw you being eaten by that guy at the diner on Union Street, I really didn't mind.

You see, I think we're done. And although many breakups begin with "it's not you, it's me," it really feels like it's you this time.


I was certainly attracted to the whole idea of you when we first met back in high school. What? A BURGER with PIZZA FLAVOR? Hells, yes! But either blame it on my ignorance on how burgers work or on my callow optimism, but I was really into you. The snack bar at the bowling alley. The Montreal Café in North Carolina. Even the airport TGI Friday's. All were tawdry attempts at deliciousness, only to be met with a stomach ache and gassy cramps.


But in my desire to somehow make it work, I kept on ordering you whenever I saw you on a menu. I was convinced that there had to be more to you than just some melted mozzarella and tomato sauce slapped on a burger. So I kept on letting you disappoint me and abuse my intestines like that.


But now that I'm older, I've seen you for what you are. A sham. You're nothing more than a poor burger trying to mask its inadequacies by tarting yourself up like a pizza. But you're not a delicious slice of pizza, you never were. So take off all that mozzarella and tomato paste. Seriously, you're embarrassing yourself.

Call me when you're ready to grow up,

EADJ

An Open Letter To Papa John of Papa John's Pizza

Dear "Papa" John Schnatter of Papa John's Pizza,

Dude. You are too fucking YOUNG. When I first heard of you in Atlanta, I was picturing your classic jolly, fat Italian man with a chef's hat playfully worn askew, possibly sporting a black mustache and winking at the camera. A stereotype, to be sure, reinforced by years of Yellow Pages ads and takeout menu clip art. And once I actually sampled my first delicious slice of Papa John's hand-tossed BBQ Chicken and Bacon pizza, that image morphed into a chubby cheeked older man– possibly balding– but still with a jaunty kerchief and a fat belly under his apron. And you were either tossing some pizza dough in the air or doing that Italian thing with your fingers that either indicates "okay" or "delicioso!" Yeah, that was a good image.

So imagine my dismay and disappointment when I finally see a photo of you in a menu. You look like you're only twenty, son! You have a lustrous full head of hair, and worse than that, you're not even fat. I might as well have seen a photo of a skinny albino Bangladeshi girl in a pizza apron, or a robot praying mantis with pepperoni dreadlocks. Or Blanka from Street Fighter.

I will admit, "Papa," it is very impressive that you've created a multi-million dollar empire of more than 3,000 franchisees worldwide at such a tender age. It's a credit to your ingenuity that you've accomplished so much while still looking like the kid who passes out at a party and gets the word "SMEGMA" drawn on his forehead. So, kudos to that.

But don't you see your youth and fitness work against the image of delicious pizza? Don't you realize you don't even look like you could make a ketchup sandwich? All those pizza chef stereotypes exist for a reason, "Papa." People who look like you usually can't cook for shit.


Yeah, I know that in a few decades, your metabolism will catch up with you, and you'll start graying and getting a paunch. And the image will finally match the product. Maybe until then you could grow some black sideburns, start playing the accordion and hire a monkey in a fez? Please?

Age already, Skeeter.

Sincerely,
EADJ