Yankee Doodle
Yankee Doodle came to town
A-riding on a pony,
Stuck a feather in his cap
(Photo: John Manning by Bruce of L.A., 1957. Manning was proud of his Native American ancestry, but he apparently didn't mind being photographed with some hokey props)
And called it macaroni.
(This was an actual Kraft ad. The ad was pulled after a backlash from older customers, who evidently had no sense of humor.)
6 comments:
I don't get the Kraft ad.
It's a meme. Send nudes. There's even a variant imploring Kim Jong Un to send nukes.
Manning actually insisted on the props.
But the talk of feathers reminded me of two plains Indian warrior societies. Warriors who were required to stay on the battlefield.
But there is one more thing to know about these societies, and that is the requirement on the penis. We did not know circumcision, and very few (as in less than 1%) Indian men even today are, so the natural state of the foreskin was important. And so they danced nude, or at least sans breechclout as the weather cooled, and were happy to remove the breechclout, but never the belt, to prove their membership.
One society demanded the foreskin cover the glans even when erect. Men of this society bound their foreskins and affixed a feather to the penis. They also painted a bull rampant on their breast.
The other society was for men whose glans was always exposed, even when flaccid. They wore a feather in their hair, the tip painted red, and painted their noses red.
Neither society was allowed to retreat. In fact, the men with long foreskins tied their penis to a pole, using a fairly long twine; only his comrades could release him. (Which, yes, means touching it.) And those with bare heads? Tied to a sash they wore, which could not be removed.
The societies were seen as brothers, rivals but also owing certain ritual obligations. Of course, it is a war society, and the societies showed up among multiple tribes, some of whom were enemies.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't get it. I still don't understand why it says "the ad was pulled after a backlash . . ." Was there something under the pixilated portion of the photo that looked like something offensive?
Unfortunately, after a joke is explained, it's usually not funny, but here goes: the ad is a parody of the "send nudes" meme, with "noods" (noodles) being a pun for "nudes", and the noodles are pixellated as a parody of a pixellated picture of a nude.
All right, it's not hilarious, but it's mildly humorous. Why the backlash? Presumably some people thought that the reference to nudes was in poor taste.
Sounds like a story Morey Amsterdam would tell on "The Dick Van Dyke Show." ;-)
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