Pancake Madness

1928 Pillsbury Pancake Mix

Besides doing one good turn a day, Ernest McGroucher loves his pancakes.  It's a serious addiction, one that has obviously disrupted his family life.  His wife left him and married the milkman and now poor Ernest has to keep his daughter drugged so she'll keep making pancakes and not run away too.  As with most addictions, Ernest now deals on the side to support it.  Yes, he lures his bachelor friends into the house and slyly offers them pancakes while his Quaalude ridden daughter looks on with vapid eyes and plastic smile.  It's ok, we all know you're crying on the inside because of having to make pancakes all day.  After introducing his friends to the pleasures of Pillsbury Pancakes, they show their gratitude... by buying more pancakes.  It's a vicious cycle, this pancake addiction, one that ensures family life will never be the same again once it invades the home.

I know, the ad artist didn't intend all that, but it's much different looking at this ad through 2011 eyes as opposed to 1928 ones.  I have been sitting on this ad for months now after finding it because it just creeps me out, like the ads I've collected featuring Negroes, it has no place in a modern society.  Is that Ernest's wife or daughter in the background?  She looks like she's 12 so it better be his daughter or old Ernest is going to end up on the sexual predator database.  Just like 2008, 1928 was the last real year of any kind of prosperity before the drop into the Great Depression.  Clothes were still colorful and by God Ernest's outfit is certainly LOUD.  Try wearing something like that today and see how people look at you... actually nevermind, it's put together better than most of the people I see at the Baptist church on Sunday.  This last week I saw a man in a bright yellow suit, I kid you not, he looked like a walking lemoncicle.

Pillsbury of course still makes pancake mix.  I honestly don't know why you should buy it when you can put together pancakes from scratch and it only takes 5 more minutes of your time.  It's also helpful to control the ingredients that go into the recipe so you can use Unbleached/Unbromated Flour (King Arthur All-Purpose).  Next time you go to the store read the ingredients on the box of pancake mix.  How many can you pronounce?  If you can't pronounce it why eat it?  Also do you know the USA and Japan are the only countries in the world that allow Bleached/Bromated Flour?  The rest have banned it because of health concerns.

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