Jon Stewart and his Outrageous Humor About Arby’s

Arby’s is the last place to eat in Sacramento

Arby’s is a place my Hungarian grandmother loved. She also liked to take us kids out to eat at Howard Johnson’s, my first introduction that I can recall to horrid chain restaurant food, because she considered it a fine dining destination. But Arby’s was arguably her favorite. Fast, cheap, fattening and affordable. You will notice I didn’t use any words to describe the food. Not like Jon Stewart does on the Daily Show.

We watched his second to last show last night because we TIVO and I can’t stay up that late, so don’t tell me what happened in the last show because I won’t see it until tonight. Jon really went on a long rip over Arby’s, all of it enormously amusing and most of it fairly accurate. He said things like, Arby’s, isn’t there any place else we can eat? And Arby’s, come for the tweets, run from the meats.

At the end of the show, Arby’s thanked Jon Stewart for being a friend. At first blush it made you wonder if it was all a prank or a product placement. You know what a product placement is, right? This where the corporation pays a movie company or a TV show to use a product in its show, which sends a subliminal message to the viewer that it’s endorsed and the viewer should buy it.

Say, for example, you’ve got creepy Charlie Sheen sitting down to breakfast at the table with a bowl of cereal. If the box on the table was Froot Loops, a Kellogg’s product — with like zero nutritional value but a really cute tropical Toucan Sam as its mascot to attract kids because sugar alone isn’t enough — then Kellogg’s would pay the producers for the privilege of marketing Froot Loops.

However, it doesn’t appear to be product placement or a prank. I suspect that Jon Stewart simply does not like Arby’s, and if he’s to pick on some fast-food chain, Arby’s is as good as any. Although, I once developed a weakness for those potato cakes. And it might astonish you to know that when I first moved to California in 1976, I actually thumbed through the Yellow Pages to find the nearest Taco Bell in Newport Beach. The closest Taco Bell was in Huntingon Beach.

I guess I’ve come a long way. So has Jon Stewart with the Daily Show. It’s sad to see him leave. But if you’ve got to go, a good time to do it is when you’re on top. Unless, of course, the guy under you isn’t finished. That would be bad manners. Yes, Jon Stewart has proven once again that you can tell people the truth, and they just don’t hear it. Arby’s sales have gone up almost 10% in same-store sales for the first quarter.

If all of this has made you hungry for Arby’s, I hear there is an Arby’s store in Natomas.