A Can for May If I May

Friday is the 43rd birthday of Spaghetti-O's, and no doubt the original can is somewhere singing a toothless version of the advertising jingle that somehow is even more annoying than the food itself. That song was created by Jimmie Rodgers of "Honeycomb" fame--it seems he can only sing about food or perhaps I should say "food." It's also crucial to note that this Jimmie Rodgers is to Jimmie "Father of Country Music" Rodgers, as Spaghetti-O's is to real pasta. Indeed, in the early 70s that was a frequent analogy on the SAT. Less often asked is the question why did a company named Franco-American make pasta, but in Santa Barbara there was for a long time a store called Bonjour Bagels, so what do I know--I wanted to open the Shalom Crossanterie across the street. Of course Franco-American sold out to Campbell's after a string of failures trying to replicate their greatest success. Indeed, few remember Foie Gras-O's ("the neat new goose liver you can eat with a spoon!"), Sushi-O's ("now with that fresh fish taste!"), Donut-O's ("the folks working on the wheel are still in the shop!"), and the barely remembered Edsel-O's ("it s a car in a can!").