Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Golden Plunger Awards (5 page)

The Philadelphia cheesesteak was invented in 1930 in South Philadelphia, so Cheez Whiz, which didn’t make it to market until 1952, couldn’t have been part of the original recipe. No matter. Many tried and true Philly cheesesteak lovers swear by it now and consider Cheez Whiz to be the authentic cheesesteak cheese.

Make that three authentic cheeses. No matter what you’ve heard, there is real cheese in Cheez Whiz: mozzarella, Swiss, and cheddar. Kraft, the maker of Cheez Whiz, combines those cheeses with water and milk products and adds preservatives, emulsifiers, and other additives to make the Whiz nice and yellow and spreadable at room temperature.

Originally created as a topping for crackers, Cheez Whiz soon found a home in lots of foods: in macaroni and cheese, on hot
dogs and nachos, and in dips and sauces. With this much history, it’s no wonder Cheez Whiz stands out. It started as a by-product of the 1950s’ push to market ease and convenience to housewives across America. Now, though, it’s an American food icon. Spread the word.

Sadly, on June 5, 2007, the inventor of Cheez Whiz passed away. Edwin Traisman lived a long, robust life, though—he was 91. A Chicago native, he earned a degree in chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1936 and worked for Kraft Foods from 1949 to 1957. It was his food science skills that combined all the right things to make Cheez Whiz—a spreadable processed cheese and a counterpart to Kraft’s nonspreadable processed cheese, Velveeta.

Cheez Whiz wasn’t Traisman’s only contribution to America’s popular dining habits. After he left Kraft, Traisman bought into the McDonald’s franchise, eventually owning four stores. His food science expertise came into play when McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc needed a way to keep all the potatoes used for French fries fresh, so he could have a consistent brand at all his stores. Traisman was up to the challenge. He came up with a flash-cooking process: one minute or so at 300°F to get rid of the potatoes’ moisture and then freeze them. The uniform frozen French fry was born.

Kraft first marketed Velveeta in 1927. Its main ingredient is whey, a liquid by-product of cheese making (it’s the liquid left over when milk hardens to cheese). Cheese manufacturers used to just throw it away, but now it’s made into Velveeta, which is officially labeled by the Food and Drug Administration as a “pasteurized processed cheese product.” That means it’s a cheeselike thing that tastes like cheese but is actually made up of less than 50 percent cheese. Kraft says Velveeta gets its unique flavor from the whey left over from making cheddar, colby, and Swiss cheeses. It gets its unique spongy texture from an added stabilizing agent called carrageenin —a derivative of Irish moss.

Richard Pryor

 

REMEMBERED
When asked about their most profound influences, countless comedic greats—from Sam Kinison to Dave Chappelle—have answered without hesitation: Richard Pryor.

“Richard Pryor is to comedy what Gretzky is to hockey, what Ali is to boxing. He is the Beatles of comedy.”

“To fully appreciate the power of Richard Pryor as a stand-up comedian, you had to follow him at the Comedy Store. I did once, and I’m lucky to be alive.”

“Richard Pryor is an alchemist who can turn the darkest pain into the deepest comedy. [He] doesn’t go for the jugular—he goes straight for the aorta.”

 

Pryor introduced a new style of comedy that gave people of all races permission to laugh at themselves and at each other. Though often controversial, vulgar, and brash, his performances empowered other comedians and actors to look inside, to find truth in their art, and to embrace what comes naturally—being honest and being themselves.

Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III was born in Peoria,

Illinois, on December 1, 1940. After his mother deserted him when he was 10, Pryor was raised by his grandmother, Madam Marie Carter, in her brothel. His early childhood was a test of emotional endurance, characterized by sexual assault, poverty, and a desperate determination to rise above it all. Expelled from school at age 14, Pryor earned a living by working various odd jobs before joining the army in 1958. Two years later, he was discharged for assaulting another G.I.

Through it all, Pryor found refuge in the one thing that consistently brought him happiness: performing. Starting with a role in a local production of
Rumpelstiltskin
at age 12, Pryor showcased his comedic gift at every opportunity. But it wasn’t until 1963 that his career as a stand-up comedian really started to take shape.

Initially, he was influenced heavily by Bill Cosby, whose performances revolved around clean, funny, family-oriented stories. Pryor performed his Cosby-esque comedy routine to receptive audiences in New York City and quickly made a name for himself. Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson, and Merv Griffin all invited him to appear on their shows.

Despite his success, Pryor found his family-style comedy to be predictable, repetitive, and unauthentic. He reached his breaking point in the middle of a sold-out performance at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas, when he walked off the stage, feeling restricted by the conventional atmosphere of the upscale Las Vegas hotels of the time. From then on, he became the Richard Pryor the world knows now: a bold, risk-taking performer who would forge new paths for all comedians who followed.

Pryor moved to Berkeley, California, in 1969 to regroup. During the next few years, the company he kept—people like African American writer Ishmael Reed and the cofounder of the Black Panthers, Huey P. Newton—and the counterculture he observed helped him to grow both as a person and a comic.

Pryor no longer just delivered jokes. Instead, he acted out life as he saw it, bringing real and often taboo topics to the public for
the first time: race, sex, drugs, poverty, discrimination, and violence. Mixed-race audiences howled as he paced the stage spewing profanities while slipping in and out of his many personas, including crowd favorite Mudbone, the drunken philosopher. Pryor talked about the ugliness inside people and brought it out for examination; then he’d defuse the animosity and ill will with laughter. His humor was color-blind, and through exaggerated characters and animated, often sexually explicit monologues, Pryor softened the edges of hard truths so that no topic was off limits, not even his private life.

Pryor wasn’t afraid to spotlight his personal demons, of which he had many. From cocaine addiction, tax evasion, and repeated domestic violence charges to serious health issues, his willingness to make himself the object of laughs made it possible for people whose lives bore no resemblance to his to relate to him. After he shot his car full of holes, he joked about how bad drugs were if they could make you do that. After he set himself on fire while freebasing cocaine, he joked about what he had learned: “When you run down the street on fire, people will move out of your way.”

His raw, raunchy style of stand-up was clearly not for everyone, but it left many wanting more. His three offensive words (beginning with “M,” “N,” and “P”) included a racial slur and two profanities. Pryor had to be himself and that meant using the honest, foul language of his life to make his experiences universal and funny.

Later, he explained in his autobiography how he’d renounced the use of the “N” word after visiting Africa and noting the people’s self-respect. But he also joked, “I went through all the phone books in Africa, and I didn’t find one goddamned Pryor.”

Starting in the late 1960s, audiences began getting more Pryor, and in more places. He landed roles in more than 30 films during his career. Among them was his role as Gus Gorman in 1983’s
Superman III
, for which he earned rave reviews and a hefty fee of $4 million—$1 million more than Christopher Reeve, Superman himself. In 1974, when the western spoof
Blazing Saddles
was
released to critical acclaim, movie audiences experienced a new side of Pryor: screenwriter.

Pryor’s television career was equally robust. He proved himself to be extremely versatile, able to capture the hearts of a wide spectrum of audiences, even children, as a host, an actor, and a comedian. Few will forget his 1975
Saturday Night Live
appearance, where he and Chevy Chase left audiences’ mouths agape as they exchanged racial slurs in a skit called “Racist Word Association.” And as a writer for hits like
Sanford and Son
,
The Flip Wilson Show
, and two Lily Tomlin specials, Pryor earned recognition and continued to gain respect.

Throughout his career, and even posthumously, Pryor has been honored repeatedly for his accomplishments: comedian, actor, director, screenwriter, author, host, animal-rights activist, husband, and father. He earned two platinum albums, five gold albums, five Grammys (for his recorded performances), an Emmy, a Writer’s Guild Award, and the first annual Mark Twain Humor Prize, to name a few. For his devotion to animal rights, particularly the protection of baby elephants from circus life, he was honored by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Pryor turned every obstacle into a springboard. Through severe drug addiction, a suicide attempt (the freebasing incident, according to his interview with Barbara Walters), seven marriages to five different women, six children, repeated run-ins with the law, and living with multiple sclerosis for nearly 20 years, he still managed to become one of the most beloved characters in show business. His contributions to the art of comedy continue to be celebrated long after his death at age 65 on December 5, 2005.

“I went to Zimbabwe. I know how white people feel in America now: relaxed. Cause when I heard the police car, I knew they weren’t coming after me!”

Rudest Hand Gestures

People have many ways to show their displeasure with someone else: a withering look, a frown, a choice word or two. Then there are the hand gestures. Nothing is worse in terms of rudeness than an in-your-face flick of the hand that says what the lips haven’t. Here are our least favorite hand gestures.

There was a time, not too long ago, when the “F” word was one of the rudest things one could ever utter in the English language. Very few words topped it for effect and impact. Nowadays it’s commonplace (though not quite to the point where we can print it here). The correlating hand gesture has similarly become increasingly used in public. That doesn’t stop it from being rude, though. For a long time, people have been rightly offended by it, and that’s not going to change anytime soon.

Who was first offended by it, though, is up for debate: