The real Frito Bandito

It's probably not PC to revere supposedly stereotypical characters, but, well, the hell with that. I do and I will, depending on the character.

Fifty some years ago Fritos corn chips had an advertising campaign based around the Frito Bandito. It was an obviously Mexican character. Yet that is not what brings the subject to my mind this morning. What did that was the memory of one of my uncles convincing me that he was the model for the Frito Bandito.

He didn't fit the stereotype. But his argument was that, as a youth during school lunches, he ate so many Fritos that everyone began calling him the Frito Bandito. From there, someone in the chip business caught on and developed the cartoon version. Sure, I was a kid, and in typical uncle joke fashion he convinced me of the tale. He was very emphatic and certain about it indeed.

So my uncle was the model, sort of, for the Frito Bandito. If that offends you, deal with it, because it was, is, and always will be simply a harmless tale, one I will always remember fondly.

F Troop better than Game of Thones

The grim reality of the 2010s versus the goofball racism of the 1960s. I wonder which is worse?

I'm watching the old TV show F Troop this morning and imagining how terribly offensive it must be considered today in some quarters. With its jokes based, in this case, on Red Indians and Japanese culture I'm surprised it's on free TV let alone cable. From Karate with Love is this particular episode, if you care to look it up. F Troop has also parodied Germans, French Canadians, Mexicans, Russians and, shockingly, the US Army. Horrors.

Now let's compare this to the currently popular Game of Thrones, a gore fest in the name of realism, where also an actress has publicly complained that the amount of male nudity must equal the amount of female nudity. There is a double standard here which much be addressed, we are told. And we are not expected to be upset or concerned with such flippant attitudes about propriety anyway.

I don't know about you, but I think screwball comedy mocking almost everybody and anybody without regard to feelings superior to presumed high art made for prurient interests. Give me honest lampooning over gritty reality any day. Quite frankly, it's more honest with itself.