Colman's Instant Beef Gravy

Things are different in Australia—profoundly, mystifyingly, adorably, offputtingly different—so there's no reason this should startle us.


But it does.


Because, to demonstrate the agreeable flavor of their meat-based food moistener, the Colman's Instant Beef Gravy people have introduced us to a beef paste-born bovine reincarnation springing forth from his sacred gravy boat. Look at him, freed from Death's grim shackles, leaping above the table top, destined to splash himself all over your plate! 


Of course, it's only what any right-thinking animal offered a second chance at life would seek out: not escape, but a quick trip back to the conveyor belt of consumption and nothingness.


Thus has suicidefoodism ever represented it. So eager are the animals to die that their most numinous vocation is not to die once, but to return to life to die again. The second death is sweeter, surely, because they rush into it with eyes open. Having already savored their own destruction, they hasten back to their utter negation, the no-time and no-place where they are finally at home.

And so Zombie Gravy the Bull soars. He cavorts and poses. He dances and sings. 


And what a song it is! For reasons we can't begin to explain (no, not even with all our big words and pointy-headed ideas), he croons "I like the way you moo!" He likes the way we moo? (We weren't aware we were mooing.) But you try arguing with a reanimated bull made of gravy.


See the whole thing for yourself. 


(Thanks to Dr. Julian for the referral.)

I Wish I Were an Oscar Mayer Wiener: a digression

For more than 45 years, a suicidefoodist earworm has been wriggling across the airways of the world. It involves stuff made from "food" animals, but the targets of its warped philosophy are... children. Human children. So enshrined in our collective unconscious is this message that it belongs with the Suicide Food Emeriti we honored in May of 2007.

What helps it rise above the dregs of advertising's sump is the flagrant insanity of its premise:

Beyond animals wishing to die so that they may find meaning in being eaten, this is children wishing—and lofting their wishes to a mindless pantheon—to be dead animals so that they may find meaning in being eaten. These kids, they've mastered the subjunctive mood (all that "I wish I were" stuff), but the basics of self-preservation and self-respect elude them.

"Oh, I'd love to be an Oscar Mayer wiener.
That is what I'd truly like to be!
'Cause if I were an Oscar Mayer wiener
Everyone would be in love with me!"

So hungry are they for acknowledgment from a society blind to their existence that they would be transformed into animals, butchered, extruded into mildly seasoned meat products, grilled, and placed on buns. If that's what it takes to receive love at last, they'll do it!

In the classic commercial from 1965, one demented boy refuses to go along with the crowd of would-be martyrs. He has no wish to die, but he is soon bullied back into the fold.

Addendum: We assume you can find examples of this death march on your own. But how about a short video on the making of the jingle?

Frosty Morn Pigs: Update

You remember Frosty Morn, don't you? Besides the oddest sausage-related name imaginable (Frosty? Morn?), they are known for terror-delighting millions throughout the South for decades.

As we said long ago, Frosty Morn made its mark by employing a cunning strategy built on suicidal animals and a relentlessly repeated jingle. So significant was Frosty Morn that a second look is in order.

In the animated advertisement under discussion here, a meat elf instructs a class of pigs on the benefits of Frosty Morn ham. That is, he inspires them to grab their destinies with both hands, to rush headlong into their hickory-smoked future and dive into their sugar-cured doom.

Not, you understand, that they require much coaxing. They're practically prancing in expectant joy! These pigs are the aptest of pupils. They need very little convincing. Hell, they came to school pre-convinced that their lives are already spoken for.

Sing it over and over and over again!
(Meat Elf) Frosty Morn!
Sing it over and you sing it over again!
(Meat Elf) Frosty Morn!

The height of a piggy’s ambition
From the day he is born
Is hope that he’ll be good enough
To be a Frosty Morn!

(Solo pig, spoken) All Frosty Morn meat is government inspected.

For meat that’s wonderfully different
They tenderize these hams.
They sugar cure and hick’ry smoke
That’s Frosty Morn—yes, ma’am!

(Meat Elf) So everybody join in!

Annnd…

Sing it over and over and over again!
(Meat Elf) Frosty Morn!
Sing it over and you sing it over again!
(All) Frosty Morn!

It's almost charming how blatant they are. The repetition is no hidden technique. It's front and center! Sing it over and over and over again! Repeat it until you're ready to believe anything. A destructive absurdity will do as well as a consoling truth. A proposition's value depends not one scrap on its intellectual rigor, its logical consistency, its congruity with the facts. Instead, it depends on its ubiquity. And, of course, on the degree to which it leads animals to seek their own deaths.


(Thanks to Dr. Tom for the referral.)

Franks & Toppings

Salmon: We're on, guys! We're on!

Cow: Hello!

Chicken: Welcome! We're the Franks & Toppings Boys, and we're happy you could come!

Salmon: And we're happy to bring you the Franks & Toppings message! Isn't that right, Chicken?

Chicken: You know it, Salmon! Franks & Toppings provides such a wonderful service to the folks in southeast Texas. It's a privilege to die, knowing we're so delicious—

Cow: Privilege to what?

Chicken: —and organic!

Cow: It's a privilege to what?

Salmon: You're stepping on his line again.

Cow: I know, I know, but did he say it's a privilege to die?!

Salmon: It is a privilege to die! That's why I hired someone to help me into this tux.

Chicken: Look, can I keep going?

Salmon: Keep going.

Cow: What's happening?

Chicken: That's right, Cow. We are lucky to die for such fine fare!

Cow: I didn't say that!

Chicken: Frankfurters, burgers, grilled salmon sandwiches, and more!

Cow: I never said that!

Salmon: And because it's organic, you can feel good about eating us.

Cow: You're sick.

Chicken: Good question, Cow. Yes, the talented cooks at Franks & Toppings will make your flesh even tastier with a wholesome selection of fresh toppings!

Cow: (sobbing)

Salmon: Get hold of yourself! Say the thing about grass-fed beef.

Cow: About…?

Salmon: Grass-fed beef! Like the picture!

Cow: Where the hell did you get that? I didn't pose for that! What the hell's going on?

Chicken: Ha ha! Good one, Cow. They should listen to our jingle!

Salmon: That'll get your toe tapping!

Cow: (teeth chatter)

Chicken: And your mouth watering!

Cow: Oh god oh god oh god.

Piggin'-n-Grinnin' Bar'b'que

It's a concept you don't want to wrap your head around, we know. A lesson you don't care to learn. Succumbing not merely to their victimization, but to their continual victimization-in-increments, the pigs are thoroughly invested in this process. "Good pigs like us," they croon, "you don't eat all at once!"

(Awful as this is, we're wondering why we haven't seen it before.)

So they stand up there strumming and plucking—and rushing back to tend the fires beneath their severed limbs—to sing the praises of their dismembered and barbecued body parts. Never let it be said that the suicidefoodists are without their fine qualities: they have iron stomachs.

Drink in the horror. (A great advertising slogan for this place!) The two pigs are whittled away main course by main course until all that's left of them is an idea. And that lonely idea reverberates around the restaurant like a ghost, summoning up honorable appetites from the ashes.

(Thanks to Dr. Ray for the referral and the photo.)






Addendum: It hardly seems possible, but this is our fourth example of pig amputees.

Sesame Street's "I Am Chicken!"

It is one of our "favorite" themes, the way the Movement seeks to influence the minds of children. Today's example is the I Am Chicken musical number, from the maybe-not-so-innocuous-after-all Sesame Street.

I am chicken, hear me squawk
Hear me crow and hear me bawk!
Watch me rule my roost and strut around my coop!

People say I’ve got great legs
And they’re nuts about my eggs
And when they’re sick they gobble down my soup!

Yes! I am proud of the way I peck and scratch
I am plucked, I am loud
Just don’t count me ‘til I hatch!

I’m nutritious, I am pure.
I’m delicious, I’m cocksure
I am tender, I’m exceptional
I am chicken!

I am chicken, I’m not scared
‘Cause I’m always well prepared
And I feed all kinds of people every day!

I can cackle with the best
And I’ll tackle any test
Knowing even when I’m down I’m still Grade A!

No! I’m no dumb cluck
And I won’t throw in the towel.
I’m no turkey, I’m no duck,
I’m the fairest of the fowl!

I am tasteful to the end
I’m your finest feathered friend
I am plucky, I’m unflappable
I am chicken!

What, we must ask, bellowing at the very heavens, is the point of this? We suppose it could be nothing more sinister than satisfying children's well-known love of Helen Reddy song parodies, but we are skeptical.

The lyrics, while sporadically cute and clever, appear explicitly designed to emphasize the lowly status of chickens. Yes, chickens are proud and unflappable, but their primary purpose—a purpose celebrated by the chickens themselves—is to be turned into meat, to "feed all kinds of people every day."

So Sesame Street, the main thoroughfare of a city dedicated to strengthening children's notions of acceptance, equality, and goodness, has undertaken to indoctrinate children in the disposability of chickens and, by extension, all "food" animals.

It is pure, distilled suicidefoodism: the animals sing (literally!) about their place in the web of life, praising their permanent and inalienable standing as objects, adored for the versatility of their exploitation. Their legs, their eggs, their soup-ready flesh! Everything about them—especially everything that issues from their bodies—is praise-worthy.

That sound you hear is the budding empathy of the program's young viewers as it shrivels and implodes with a tiny pop.

Hershey's Instant: a dairy digression

Lunacy from decades past.

In this commercial, preserved for all time by a world in love with its trash, cows break their figurative chains and flee their confinement. What would cause such normally docile creatures to behave so, so… rambunctiously? Only the least reasonable thing ever, that's all!

They're not escaping—they're on strike!

Their principal grievance? Children have refused to drink the milk intended for the cows' vanished babies!

Experience the stirring (and insane) spectacle yourself:

The cows are up in arms!
They've left their fields and barns!
They're marching from the farms because...
Kids don't drink enough milk!

Hershey's Instant®
makes milk taste like a Hershey® bar.

The kids are happy,
They're drinking their milk—
The cows are going back home!

As soon as the cows see that the children are back on board, they happily return to their desperate lives of servitude.

No free spirits, these cows. For them, it's all toeing the line, doing what you're told, and Taking it from The Man! Well, you know. It's was the 60s.

(Thanks to Dr. Mrs. Suicidefood for the referral.)

Moy Park Chicken

For the last time, people.

Chickens like dying.

Yes, chickens like dying. All chickens like dying.

Newly hatched chickens. Child chickens. Tween chickens. Adolescent chickens. Young adult chickens. College graduate chickens. Chickens with respectable careers. Senior citizen chickens.

All chickens. The entire panorama of chicken life, chickens representing every stage of chicken development. They all want to die. For you. For your neighbor. For whoever.

Okay, let's be honest. They don't care who's going to eat them. They'd probably be fine with getting run over by garbage trucks and left to rot in the sun.

Dying reaffirms their faith in an unjust universe, which, being living things, chickens are heavily invested in. No, no, it doesn't make sense. Of course it doesn't make sense.

But understanding this basic—and thoroughly unintelligible—point is key to grasping the idea of Moy P, a blinged-out, Irish faux-gangsta chicken who raps about wishing to die.

(Thanks to Dr. Stephanie for the referral.)






Addendum: Here's an old Moy Park chicken ad, from his innocent banjo-picking days. Less "street," sure, but every bit as insane.

Addicted to Rub

The year was 1986. Robert Palmer's Riptide LP spawned a #1 hit titled Addicted to Love. The video for the song featured the singer, cool in a dress shirt and tie, backed by a "band" of leggy, lipsticked Stepford Wives.

Flash forward to the present. It's like we're watching the video remade with an all-bovine cast.

Robert Bullmer croons as his accompanyists pretend to play instruments fashioned from the apparatus of their eventual cooking.

Enough with the scene-setting. Let's get to the guts of the matter: The whole pun rests on the substitution of love (as a euphemism for sex) with rub (as a symbol for barbecue and, therefore, animal destruction). When seen in that light, as intended, the image becomes merely the latest in a worryingly long line of sex-obsessed barbecue logos that represent an unwholesome flirtation with veiled violence.

Uncaged—Yes on Proposition 2

Before we get down to business, we must mention two things:

1) California residents, please do vote Yes on Proposition 2, the farm animal welfare bill on the November 2008 ballot.

2) While you're at it, consider voting Yes on the Little Old Lady Protection Act. LOLPA would outlaw pushing little old ladies down the stairs before mugging them. Although LOLPA has garnered much support, some detractors see in it an unnecessary restriction on personal liberty. Rest assured, LOLPA does not prohibit mugging of the elderly and would not prevent you from continuing to assault and rob anyone.

Which brings us to Uncaged. This animated Yes-on-2 production stars a pig singing a Proposition 2–related version of Stevie Wonder's classic Superstitious.




The cause is worthy. The message is repulsive and winds up recapitulating major themes of the suicidefoodist movement. The animals do not object to being raised for food, to being transformed even before their birth into a commodity. No, that is a foundational component of being an animal, and they are foursquare in favor of that. They take issue only with the specifics of their subjugation.







One might have supposed that people devoted to the welfare (if not the freedom) of animals would have preferred a less ugly approach. Was it necessary to show rows of pigs cheering as our singer/pig Sty-vie Wonder requests pleasanter confinement? Or ranks of thumbs-upping chickens pleased to be referred to as "food"? Or a veal calf (one of the "calves you will be eatin'") relieved only to stop "livin' in [its] poo"?







Back to the (imaginary) Little Old Ladies Protection Act. Just as Prop 2 calls for what should be uncontroversially humane treatment of livestock, LOLPA calls for people not to push little old ladies down flights of stairs. Who but the psychopathological could oppose such a measure?

Say that pro-LOLPA advocacy groups produced a snappy animated number. In it, darling little old cartoon ladies asked simply, "Before you mug us, please don't shove us down the stairs." Would that give you pause?

"When you mug us, you don't need to hug us! Just don't! Push! Us! Down! The! Staaairs!" Would you wonder, "Why is grandma okay with the idea of getting mugged in the first place? Couldn't they find another way of presenting their case?"

So it is with Uncaged. Surely there is a way to express support for the measure without showing animals explicitly endorsing its of-course-animals-are-still-going-to-be-killed-and-eaten presupposition.

(Thanks to Dr. Gennifer for the referral.)






Addendum: If you live in California, please do vote Yes on Prop 2. Thank you.

Springer Mountain Farms Jingle Contest

Banjo Chicken provides the perfect opportunity to examine the so-called Happy Meat movement. This school of thought is suicidefoodism's more scholarly sister.

"All vegetable diet!" boasts their website. "Antibiotic FREE! Free farmed! Environmentally focused!"

See? This is a paradise for chickens! Much better than the bare-bones, three-hots-and-a-cot conditions most poultry prison inmates endure.

Why, things are so good at Springer Mountain that Banjo here wants to sing about it! He wants to encourage others to sing about it. He wants a catchy jingle to come out of all this, so that a steady stream of customers will insure that plenty of chickens get to enjoy Springer Mountain's hospitality and responsible stewardship of our Earth and all her corn-pecking children!

Which is all just another way of saying that this makes no sense whatsoever.

(Did we mention that the winning jingle will earn its composer a year's "supply" of Springer Mountain chicken meat?)