Recently, Taco Bell announced the return of Mexican Pizza to their menu. It can’t happen soon enough for me. I love ‘em. But then I have the taste buds of a 12 year-old boy, and I bet he’d like to get ‘em back. Badda-bing.
All kidding aside, what the sit-com “Full House” is to comedy, Taco Bell is to Mexican food. I still love the Mexican Pizzas, though. “Full House”, not so much. I guess you heard. Bob Saget died a few weeks ago. The dopey, pasty dad on that show.
The truth is, in real life Bob Saget was a dark motherfucker, and funnier than you’d ever think from watching him there with John Stamos. Funnier maybe because of his dopey “Full House” character.
Guy says to the Waiter, what’s this fly doing in my soup. Looks like the backstroke, Waiter says. It’s a terrible joke, but it works. It does what a joke, good or bad, should do. Sets you up, then knocks you back.
Go on YouTube. Watch 10 minutes of Bob Saget in any episode of “Full House” you find. Then watch a clip where he tells “The Aristocrats” joke. Holy %$#@. Man, was he dark. But funny. Who woulda thought. Not me; I had certain expectations. Gone now, of course, and good riddance.
Expectations. A good joke sets ‘em up and knocks ‘em back. When fast-food chains do it, not so good. Not funny. I expected Mexican Pizza would always be there. Then one day, poof, it was gone. Part of a heart-healthy trend. KFC, meanwhile, will sell me used chicken fat and a plastic syringe to mainline it with. What’s up with them? Have you seen the KFC Bowl? Gravy and cheese and leftover chicken—fried chicken—and whatever else didn’t fall on the floor.
KFC is the Donald Trump of the take-out world. When everyone else in the fast-food industry is trying to Rachel-Ray-up all their food, KFC doubles down. Literally. They literally have a sandwich called the Double Down. It’s bacon and cheese and a sauce we’ll call “tangy” and leave it at that, lodged between two big honkin’ fried chicken filets posing like police decoys as bread.
Maybe that’s what KFC calls a joke. You expect a joke to be funny. Not food. I come from a family of foodies, believe it or don’t. I can make vichyssoise. Supreme an orange. And still if you gave me an authentic Mexican pizza, with a thick red sauce and rich fragrant cheeses and perfectly spiced, I’d probably tell you to take it back, and bring me the watered-down Taco bell version I wanted. If that’s what I expect, nothing else will suffice.
‘Course, a lot of what we get these days is a watered-down version. Some of those early SNL sketches, you couldn’t do now. Remember “The Rape Clinic” sketch? Starts out as a straight, PSA-kind of thing. You think it’s for women, for victims of rape. Rape Clinic Director Garrett Morris comes on: after a man commits a rape, he’s often very upset…
Badda-bing.
I’ve been raped. I’m a rape survivor. And that joke cracks me up. It’s dark as hell. But it cracks me up. I’ll tell you why.
It has good joke structure, for one. It sets you up, then knocks you back. Tasteless? Maybe. So’s Mexican pizza, which I also like.
The other reason is, if I can’t laugh at “The Rape Clinic” sketch, the son-of-a-bitch who raped me wins. As long as I laugh, I win. The bastard who raped me doesn’t. Which is something, I bet, he didn’t expect.
Bob Saget died, of unknown causes as of this writing, on January 9, 2022. No one expected that either. The comedy world was shocked. As a kid, in Los Angeles, when other boys were at the beach or out with a girl, Bob Saget was in a nursing home, at Larry Fine’s bedside, listening to stories of Fine’s golden days.
If for no other reason, I like him for that. Larry was always my favorite Stooge. I don’t know why; there really is no accounting for taste.
The truth is, I’m glad he wasn’t what I expected. I’m glad Bob Saget was a dark motherfucker.
I’m glad I can laugh at “The Rape Clinic” sketch.
And I’ll be glad when Mexican Pizza returns to the Taco Bell menu. I know. It’s the “Full House” of south-of-the-border fare. Don’t care. I love ‘em. And Bob Saget, too. I didn’t before. I was so busy, judging a book by its cover. All that said, you still couldn’t pay me to sit through that show.
Unless, badda-bing, they brought Saget back.