Sunday, April 20, 2008

"I'm so hungry I could eat at Arby's."

While driving home tonight, I strayed from my usual route of Melrose and, instead, decided to drive down Sunset. I passed by what is most likely the only Arby's in the Los Angeles county area and I laughed out loud. This is what I usually do when something in our world reminds me of a funny moment from that alternate reality known as The Simpsons.

My roommate Tony and I don't have cable. We haven't even bothered purchasing rabbit ear antennas. Mostly because we know that, if we had cable or any kind of TV, we probably wouldn't get anything done. Ever. Besides, Tony owns the first nine seasons of The Simpsons and, when we need to blow off some stress and just veg, these TV treasures do the trick.

I recently re-watched the episode Das Bus (a delicious play on the movie title "Das Boot" about a submarine adventure) where the kids from Springfield Elementary are escorted to the Model UN conference by Otto in the notorious Springfield Elementary Bus. As usual, everything goes horribly wrong. An accident occurs involving a grapefruit (what else?) and causes the bus to crash in the ocean. Springfield, in case you didn't know, is conveniently located near an ocean, a gorge, the Murderhorn mountain and the Alkali Salt Flats. I wish I could flim a movie there.

Fortunately, there is also a deserted island in Springfield's ocean. The kids all survive the accident and arrive to the island safely -- a little worse for wear.

After a long day of searching for food and failed attempts at building tree houses ala Swiss Family Robinson (only with more cursing) the kids sit around a late night campfire, bemoaning their less than enviable situation. Sherri or Terri (one is never sure who is who with the devious twins in Bart's class) speaks up and says "I'm so hungry I could eat at Arby's."

All the kids respond in a unanimous chorus of growns and exasperation -- as though eating an Arby's roast beef sandwich is possibly the most extreme example of what one would be driven to consume in the desperate search for sustenance. Eating Arby's would even be worse than eating the poisonous berries that Ralph Wiggum had the misfortune of consuming earlier (which results in one of Ralph's most popular quotes "It tastes like burning.")

But why is this off hand remark funny? What about it, specifically, makes me giggle every time I think of Arby's?

I think one of the most important elements of comedy is that of identification. If we feel personally invested in the joke -- if there is something that we can identify with, it is going to be light years funnier than something that is obscure or unknown. In an increasingly fragmented society, it is often hard to find things that we all share. This is why a lot of comedy these days relates to elements of our popular culture such as train wreck celebrities and politicians.

The thing I think Sherri or Terri articulated here is something we have all experienced at least once in our lives: bad, stomach churning fast food -- Arby's being the target of choice for this particular observation. Identifying with this opinion is essential in this joke. And the writer’s have bet that, given all the crappy fast food in the world, the majority of people have most likely had at least one bad Arby’s experience in their life.

Also, “Arby's” is kind of a funny word if you think about it. It SOUNDS funny. One imagines that, in the writer's room, there was a list of bad fast food restaurants -- some obscure chains only in certain parts of the country and some ubiquitous options such as McDonald's which are present world wide. None of the other names probably sounded as funny. Arby's seems like a good choice when placed next to titles like McDonald's and KFC. It’s obscure, but not too obscure. Most people who've eaten there probably did it on a cross country trip at some point. Something so common as McDonald’s would not have been as successful a target just because so many people eat there consistently.

And it helps that the food at Arby's is, for the most part, terrible. The restaurant chain is one of the few holdouts for “terrible for you” fast food, hopelessly stuck twenty years in the past. Arby’s food appeals mostly to those with a death wish. Arby’s has not attempted an image make over like McDonald’s or KFC (remember when it was called Kentucky Fried Chicken?) I’m guessing that not one healthful food is offered there.

Even if you like Arby’s the joke is still funny. There is a good chance that all of us, at some point, did have a bad fast food experience that resulted in an episode not unlike Ralph's where we're doubled over, cursing the very existence of the offending sustenance.

I can't leave out significance of Sherri (or Terri) uttering these precious words. These ladies are tangential characters in the world of The Simpsons -- usually they are introduced when Bart needs some harassment. And any time a character who is often silent speaks up, there is greater attention paid to what they're saying. The Arby's dig is easily something that Bart could have said, but hearing it come from Sherri (or Terri) makes it more surprising and, as a result, more funny. I might call this the element of surprise.

So next time you feel the desire to eat at Arby’s remember Sherri or Terri’s warning and eat some burning berries instead.

Chow!

9 comments:

Alexandra said...

Great post. Thanks!

Andy said...

This is the stupidest fucking blog I've ever read. How did you find time to write it between Larping and petting your cats.

mumblyjoe said...

I remember when that episode aired. Could have sworn I heard the sound of dozens of Arby's executives slapping their foreheads and groaning. :)

Anonymous said...

On 4/20, I was smoking weed.

Chris said...

Other Arby's jabs on The Simpsons:

"People do crazy things in commercials, like eat at Arby's."

"Throw it over the fence, let Arby's deal with it." (Kirk van Houten referring to a dead possum fished out of his apartment complex's pool)

English Tom's Way said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
English Tom's Way said...

what people fail to realize is that Arby's food is the healthiest fast food you can get... it's all roasted instead of fried... and when you leave there, you're full for HOURS... not something you can say when you eat at McDonald's. I work at Arby's, and we're focused more on decreasing the grease, because we actually understand that grease is not our friends... so let all of you idiots deal with a heart attack while Arby's figures out what to do with the dead possum.

Amanda L said...

LOLOL Sort of childish but me and my little brother refused to eat at Arby's for years because of that episode. The best part was the shocking response from the other characters "aww man she really is hungry"

Delacroix said...

One of my other favorite restaurant digs is when Bart and the Simpsons are anticipating going to Black Angus for dinner, and Marge says something like "Where we're going, you can have the best steak ever," and Bart declares matter of factly, "So we're not going to Black Angus."