A Holiday Brownie Bedtime Story
A "brownie history" story so incredible that it's really kind of hard to believe
Let's see, I've been eating brownies ever since 1984-- that's 26 years, which is a very long time (esp. for you young'ns), and I'm not kidding! My brownie story starts when I was a student in college. The school I was attending decided to try an experiment one year. In 1984 there was this awesome brownie commercial during Super-Bowl XVIII which was super radical and controversial, all because it was made by Ridley Scott ("Alien", "Blade Runner"
) and produced by Chiat/Day ("Think Different" and "Get a Mac"). Now this TV ad was absolute _crazy_ and I mean NUTS! You see, even though it was the very first TV advertisement for brownies, it didn't actually feature any brownies in it at all-- it was just a bunch of drooling bald guys, a sweaty woman runner, and an exploding movie screen!!?? (The critics absolutely loved it, yet it has _never_ been shown again!
go figure!)
Anyhow, the College suddenly decided (probably after the Board ate a brownie or two
) to see if it was better to keep feeding students regular old-fashioned cookies (which really hadn't been around long themselves), or to switch to these new-fangled brownies. They decided to simply let students taste and choose for themselves. So, they installed a (then) state-of-the-art
"Brownie Lab"
in a nice small classroom. If I remember correctly, it had something like 10 or 12 whole new hot fresh brownies, each one sitting proudly on a brand-new desk, with a few nice stiff square napkins stacked very neatly right beside each one. And here's the strangest, most improbable thing of all: for some reason they put a cute little beige mouse on every desktop to "help you eat the brownie". They sat right next to each and every brownie, and would cheerfully help you eat it-- but not one of them would ever eat the brownie themselves!!! They would gently touch the brownies with their tails, helping you along, and that's it! I mean, what on earth were they thinking??? Talk about positively crazy! But my oh my how that room smelled like absolute heaven
Now remember: way back then, brownies didn't have all of the expensive modern ingredients that they have today. So they did taste a little different. They also were harder to eat. It was literally _impossible_ to hold onto a brownie without constantly having to swap one napkin for another while you were eating it. They would crumble to pieces if you weren't using a very specific napkin from amongst those provided. Incredible, but true. What's even stranger though, is that if you ate the brownie and wanted to retain any memory whatsoever of having eaten it at all, then you absolutely had to use your very own (rather expensive) "personal napkin" on a regular basis too. Otherwise, you might suddenly forget the whole experience! Plus, if you didn't use your own napkin at least once before you left the Brownie Lab, you wouldn't remember a single doggone thing. You went home very, very hungry (and in those days it was uphill walking to school both ways, remember)
Now I know that this all sounds positively absurd, but trust me-- nearly every single bit of my story is absolutely true!
Brownies way back then tasted quite similar to those of today, but the flavor wasn't nearly as crisp and clean, the crumbs were larger, and you couldn't eat them nearly as fast. Some ingredients were so scarce that the first brownies were pretty skimpy by modern standards. Plus, all that napkin-swapping made them rather frustrating, and even when you followed all of the rules sometimes the brownies would simply "explode" while you were eating them! Ok, so they wouldn't _really_ explode, but a mysterious symbol (just like one of those old cartoony-shaped "bombs" in the Funny-Papers) would suddenly appear on the crust, and then you'd instantly forget having eaten anything! All very time-consuming and irritating, as you can imagine... You had to ask for a new brownie, start all over again, and sometimes the brownie would even try to "eat" one of your napkins! (you had to pick the napkin out with a paper-clip). VERY weird, strange stuff, but hey-- far better than any of the stale comparable cookies of the day. Cookies soon tried to make themselves look more like brownies, which continues to this very day. Brownies historically have always cost more than cookies, but hey-- you get what you pay for
Heck! I even remember one time when I used a magnet to store my "personal napkin" on the 'fridge
but that's another story!
Oh Boy, those sure were the "good old days", let me tell 'Ya!
