News that Method Man has just released a new song centered around Sour Patch Kids candy made us remember other ignominious celebrity candy endorsements. First, Method Man's "World Gone Sour (The Lost Kids)":

And now, painful memories.

Image source: YouTube.com

Steve Coogan never shuts his eyes in ecstasy while chowing down in The Trip, and that's just one of the reasons to take in this brilliant film made from editing together the 2010 BBC series of the same name. The Trip follows Coogan and comic partner Rob Brydon on a tour of upscale restaurants in the north of England. While eating some of the best-looking food committed to celluloid in recent years, Coogan and Brydon constantly deflate it (and each other) as they do in this clip where they compare a fizzy locavore manioc leaf, ginger beer, and whiskey cocktail to mucus:

Don't get me wrong: I love all the food-swoon movies like Eat Drink Man Woman and Big Night. Who doesn't gasp orgasmically when they cut into that timpani, glistening with meat and egg and olives? But it's also fun watching a couple of guys taking the piss out of the oh-so-serious food world. And it's all the funnier when you know that Coogan and Brydon's snot-cocktail is served as part of the tasting menu at Michelin-starred L'Enclume, which asks for and gets 65 to 80 pounds ($105 to $129) a person for one of its strenuously locavore tasting menus. Juxtaposing images of L'Enclume's chef, Simon Rogan, arranging ingredients on a plate with tweezers with Coogan and Brydon gargling hits my food funny bone just right.

The Paris Review summed it up nicely: "Part of the joke of the film is that neither man knows very much nor particularly cares about food or wine, as evidenced at the first stop, The Inn at Whitewell, where Coogan, struggling to describe his tomato soup, says, 'Well ... it tastes of tomatoes.' Later, at Holbeck Ghyll in Windmere, Brydon approves a Premiere Cru—'premiere: first, the best'—before getting stuck on what cru means."

And then there are the Michael Caine impressions:

This reminded us of all the other "fake real" food ads we've seen. Let's take a look, shall we?

If you leave bits of skin on fries, they become natural and wholesome! Plus sea salt means healthy, right?

Ah, the bucolic crop fields where Tostitos is buying ... basil? For corn chips?

If it has "market" in the title, no one will notice that the sandwich has 2,270 milligrams of sodium.

Papa John's has always been synonymous with ingredient-driven cuisine.

How about just using whole grains in the first place?

It's whole fruit, other than, you know, all the fiber and stuff, but who cares! I kinda feel bad for HFCS Kid, who looks a little like a beige Slimer from Ghostbusters.

Chemists at the same university also do some crazy stuff to a creme egg, including trying to "release the goo" by heating the egg in potassium chlorate. The fellow at 1:40 could really have a second career as a TV "crazy scientist."

[Via eltron]

Except, hang on, everybody's texting. It can't possibly be as vintage as it looks.

Anyhow, wheatgrass—gets 'em every time.

[via Deets After Dark]

Why oh why do food companies want to make us sick to our stomachs?

1. Carl's Jr: If the hideous sounds of smacking, slurping, and munching don't get you, the face-covered-in-what-looks-like-puke most definitely will.

2. Olive Garden: Would you like glop with a side of extra-greasy glop? How about glop rolled in a starch bomb, then served with a side of glop covered with viscous white glop sauce? We all know Olive Garden's food tastes like the gastronomic equivalent of a Yanni song. Must we see it poured out in big gelatinous messes? Bonus points: This commercial features Modern Family's Sarah Hyland giggling over her revolting manicotti dish.

3. Pizza Pops: For years this Canadian brand ran commercials featuring teenagers smacking the filled turnovers to squirt each other in the face with molten marinara goo. Somehow they found a way to make a commercial that's even less appealing. Do you know what that "brain" looks like? Intestines. Do you know what's not that great to think about while you're eating? Yeah.

4. Hidden Valley Ranch: Does that kid on the Ferris wheel have a bowl of ranch dressing he's eating from? Ugh. Look at the way they pour on that dressing at the end. Nothing I love more than salad absolutely drowned in several cups of high-fructose corn syrup, cultured buttermilk solids, and various stabilizing gums!

5. IHOP: Mom, can we please go out for a pale, flabby pancake covered with canned pie filling and Cool Whip?

6. McDonald's McRib: The sauce, cascading down the cured, preshaped meat mixture. Oh man.

7. KFC Famous Bowls: Pretty sure I scraped something that looked like this out from under my car seat once when I left a ham and cheese sandwich under there accidentally.

8. Burger King's Stuffed Steakhouse Burger: What is it about brown-with-chunks that so effectively puts you off your feed? Oh wait. Right.

The "best" nod goes to Snickers for its "Logging" spot. It relies on a classic and respected Super Bowl Ad trick: bringing in celebrities you've almost forgotten but still recognize, to shock you awake and entertain you. The concept is simple and indisputable: People get cranky when they get hungry. Snickers fill you up. Then you are no longer cranky. To demonstrate the concept, go to an action-filled, relatable work environment (in this case a logging camp) and bring in cranky celebrities to represent the overly hungry loggers (in this case, a kvetching Richard Lewis and a classically unpleasant Roseanne Barr).

Also good: Doritos' "House Sitting" ad. A man is tasked with housesitting for a few days. All he has to do is feed the fish and water the plant. He forgets both tasks, both the fish and the plant die, and both are somehow brought back to life via the magic of sprinkled Doritos. Grandpa's ashes also get the Doritos treatment. Weird, memorable, fun. Maybe not going to sell the product (did you want to bring your relatives back to some cursed zombie life?), but it's an entertaining and well-done concept.

The worst, by far, is Pepsi MAX's "First Date." It's a first date. Via internal monologues, we learn that the woman, like all stereotyped American women, is obsessing over how much money the guy makes, and if he's "the one." The man just wants to have sex with her. Then Pepsi MAX appears on the table, and all the guy can think about is drinking the Pepsi MAX.

Problems:
1. This whole "men = animals, women = gold diggers" concept is old as dirt, and therefore not funny by itself anymore.
2. Since it's not funny, we have to ask: Does this make for sympathetic characters we can identify with and care about? No. Not at all.
3. Is there any man in the world who, when actively considering boning a beautiful woman, would shift his attentions to a soft drink? No. Funnier would have been this: "I wonder if she'll sleep with me, I wonder if she'll sleep with me—ooh, Pepsi MAX, that stuff's great—I wonder if she'll sleep with me, I wonder if she'll sleep with me." At least vaguely plausible.

So, in 30 seconds, we've racked up clichéd, sexist, implausible, and unfunny. Congratulations, Pepsi MAX, that's truly the worst food and beverage ad of Super Bowl 45.

Also bad: Bud Light's "Dog Sitter." A dude is tasked with dog-sitting in a mansion. All the dogs are hyperintelligent, and the fridge is full of Bud Light. What could possibly happen next?! That's right: house party, with dog waiters and bartenders. A thrilling leap of imagination. Also, terrible beer can't sell itself on flavor, so it goes with computer-assisted dog waiters.

Via copyranter, a prime source of ads that mess with your sense of normalcy

You gonna deglaze that? Randy finds there's a lot of hot pan-roasted action on the Food Network Hotline. Profanity is bleeped but it's probably still NSFW.

Cartman does a pretty good Gordon Ramsay. You're taking the piss, yeah? You can't cook!

Randy takes over the school cafeteria. And sings!