In the early months of Jon Stewart’s tenure on The Daily Show in 1999, the show was trying to shake off its parodying of Dateline NBC. While hip in the mid 90s when the show started with Craig Kilborn as host, was beginning to wane in the late 90s.
One of the final hanger-oners of these Dateline parodies was the “Tales of Survival” field piece, which parodied death-defying stories of survival. Instead of someone being trapped in a crushed car sucking on buttons for sustenance, you had a lady whose cat was stuck in a tree for a week. Or a lady who found herself drenched in Col. Johnson’s Thermo-Nuclear barbecue sauce.
The clips on comedy central’s website are a nightmare to watch. They’re so herky-jerky. I have the episode from a VHS to DVD copy, but it didn’t rip in time for me to publish this. If I can get the episode to Vimeo, I’ll let you know in this spot right here. So, uh, keep your eyes open for it.
It’s up! This episode has a lot to unwrap, Dave Chappelle interview, Y2K hub bug, Lewis Black yellin’, and something I want to write about in the future.
For this segment, Daily Show assigned their most stoic of correspondents: Vance DeGeneres. ‘Dude never cracked a smile on Daily Show for years, and he was dramatic as hell. He was perfect for the assignment.
“Joan was about to experience the Colonel’s wrath. This was the very kitchen it happened in.”
[eats a grape]
“Joan, take us back to that day. We’re you planning on making a delicious barbeque?”
“It was breakfast time! And it was leaking, it had barbeque sauce seeping out of the top and down the sides. So I thought I would put it down the disposal so it wouldn’t smell.”
“So you picked up the bottle, shook it up—”
“No! I just picked it up, and held it over the sink and released the cap.”
(dramatic music)
“You didn’t shake it?”
“No.”
“No shaking involved? You just twisted the cap just a little bit?”
“I released the cap, just barely….”
“Just a bit…”
“…and that’s all it needed”
After just a half-turn of the cap, the Northbrook homemaker found herself covered in the gooey, dark red condiment that had spewed forth like a spring-loaded snake from a phony can of nuts.
It also splattered her kitchen walls and ceiling, and even burned holes in the leaves of an African violet plant 8 feet from ground zero.
The sauce burned her plants, you guys. Her plants. It was potent enough to burn holes in a plant. It also irritated her kids’ hands as they tried to clean up the mess.
She wasn’t alone! A similar situation happened about an hour away when Kathy Jaffer came home to something that smelled like “a really bad restaurant”. Her bottle of Col. Johnson’s Thermo-Nuclear barbecue sauce had exploded too.
Col. Johnson’s Thermo-Nuclear barbecue sauce comes from Chesapeake, Virginia and was bought by the two ladies (who didn’t know each other) at a Ribfest in Illinois. The sauce won first prize for best ribs. 1
I could not find an article on why the bottles popped their tops. Looks like Col. Johnson’s is still in Chesapeake.
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1. Chase, John, “Sauce Lives Up To Explosive Reputation,” Chicago Tribune, July 22, 1999. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1999-07-22/news/9907220380_1_barbecue-sauce-bottle-ground-zero
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