Candy squirrel.

Everything that has ever been invented has a story of how it was discovered behind it, and quite often these stories are more fascinating than the items themselves.  Like how Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin by carelessly allowing some of his bacteria cultures to get moldy, or how Alfred Nobel discovered dynamite by blowing himself up, or how the Duchess of Massengill invented douche when she accidentally spilled vinegar on her flower.

The makers of Reese’s peanut butter cups wanted you to think there was a totally awesome story behind its creation, and attempted to do so with this classic ad from the early 1980’s….

Well, that was a train wreck…. both literally and figuratively.  Let’s break it down, shall we?

First, our ears are greeted with some of the best music that strange era between disco and New Wave had to offer.  Then we meet Mr. Studmuffin, doing his best John Travolta imitation strutting down the sidewalk and munching on a gigantic chocolate bar.  You can just hear the expanding seams in those already too-tight jeans pleading for mercy….

Stayin’ Aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!

Cut to a sidewalk around the corner, and we meet the other half of our history-making tandem.  Apparently, everyone in this city is so busy, they have no choice but to eat on the run… but even that doesn’t explain why this chick is lugging around a gigantic tub of peanut butter and chowing it down like it was ice cream!

I hope she isn’t on her way to a Weight Watchers meeting….

This is probably the only instance in recorded history where any person was seen walking around eating straight up peanut butter.  That’s something you probably don’t even do at home when nobody can laugh at you.  She must either be really weird or really pregnant.

Speaking of pregnant, what should happen next, but our Hershey hero ends up bumping into Little Miss Skippy and seems to carelessly stick his chocolate bar right into her thick, gooey tub of peanut butter….

Noooo!!! My virgin peanut butter has been violated by your big, chocolate log!

Now accidental collisions like this are commonplace these days since so many people are brainlessly addicted to their cell phones and paying less than zero percent attention to their surroundings as they’re walking about texting BFF’s.  But thirty years ago, when two people ran into each other on the sidewalk, it could only be because one or both people were uncoordinated or just total dumbasses.  In the case of the chocolate and peanut butter secret rendezvous, both participants more than fit the bill.  In fact, these two are so stupid and absorbed in their Christopher Cross cassettes they’re listening to in their Walkmen, that they can’t even hear each other call them an asshole for ruining their lunch…

When you get caught between the moon and peanut butter….

Ah, but then comes the epiphany as they each grab ahold of a piece of the peanut butter covered chocolate bar.  Mmmmmmm, delicious!!!!  Why don’t you two just go ahead and engage in a big ol’ sloppy French kiss while you’re at it, because you’ve already consumed a good portion of the other’s saliva.  I’d imagine with the way she was chowing down at the beginning of the ad that hers was all over that peanut butter, and which end of the chocolate bar do you think wound up in the girl’s hand?  Yep, the top half that had been in his cavity-filled mouth.  You two just effectively made out with each other, and the only excitement you got out of it was the joy of eating an unrefined Reese’s peanut butter cup.

Just when you think this commercial can’t possibly get any better, enter the friendly grocer!

A Reese’s for a threeway?

This guy seems to sniff out the growing sexual tension between the two bumpees, and just pops up out of nowhere with the creepiest grin on his face and offers them some candy.  I wonder if this guy knows the butcher, Mr. Howell?  Anyway, it seems pretty stupid to be offering these two junk food gluttons a pack of Reese’s since they’re each holding the ingredients to make their own for free.  It also means that Reese’s has already been invented, and apparently nobody ever told these two douchebags about it before.  You’d think they’d just discovered a cure for cancer, yet all they did was make a huge mess and find out they’d been living a sheltered life where peanut butter and chocolate had apparently never appeared in the same food product before.

Mmmm, cupcakes and icing!!! What a concept!

And really, it shouldn’t take two ditzy teenagers with tunnel vision to be the first to put chocolate and peanut butter together.  You’d think that with all of the culinary experts there have ever been over the past century that somebody would have thought to try out that combination already.  Discovering that chocolate and grasshoppers go well together is a creative inspiration.  Most bored kids left alone in the kitchen could slap a chocolate bar in a jar of peanut butter if given enough time.  So even if there is a real story out there about the origin of the Reese’s peanut butter cup, it’s probably boring as hell, and nowhere near as ridiculously entertaining as the saga told above.

Must try to mix earwax and toejam sometime…

While we here at The Nest appreciate the effort on the part of Reese’s to put a funny spin on how their peanut butter cups came to be, we must conclude that upon closer inspection this whole idea is about as nutty as a jar of extra crunchy Jif.  It does, however, rate a “nice try”, and gets a squirrely salute for being so ripe for my brand of overly sarcastic, comedic nitpicking.  Besides, Reese’s, we’ve already revealed to the world how you make your peanut butter cups, and it surprisingly hasn’t hurt your sales one bit….

At least you never made this nasty shit…