Whoohoo! Somebody has made a video adaptation of F. Paul Wilson’s 1978 story, “Lipidleggin’.”
Wilson (a physician when he’s not writing great, freedom-tinged supernatural fiction) wrote it back in the day when the fedgov insisted margarine was just the healthiest thing in the whole, wide world — which somehow makes it even more amusing now.
Thanks to Jim Bovard for finding and sharing the link with me on what appears to be the very first day the video went on YouTube. And thanks to John Marc Green & Company for making it.
Well, that was amusing. And nicely prescient too!
I hadn’t heard of Wilson. But I don’t feel too badly. Was yakking with the landlord a bit ago, and came to discover he hadn’t heard of Arthur C. Clarke!
I love that story, and haven’t thought about it in years! Love the message. Keep it quiet if you have to, but live your life regardless of what anybody thinks.
“back in the day when the fedgov insisted margarine”
Oh, gag me with a stick, that margarine ride was The grossest ride I ever took. I still can’t get that nasty taste/gag-feeling from the stuff out of my mind twenty or so years later.
Saw/read something from a 98 year old woman, she said, “Eat All the butter you want” … as if she got a hard time from all those around her – and her doctor – who All said to avoid it, yet they’re dead now,… and she isn’t, … so, 😛
My appreciation for certain old People just keeps growing and growing.
My respect for certain Other People just keeps sinking and sinking. Smarty-pants no-nothings.
Those folks down in ‘Bama are doing some damn fine work.
I don’t know if it is still the law, but when I was active duty Navy 61-81, the Navy was required BY LAW to only serve butter.
There has never been anything in my house except butter since way back.
When I was newly married in ’65, and put butter on the shopping list that my then wife took to the grocery, she came home with margarine. She quickly learned that butter meant butter.
I was raised on margarine. And Crisco. Crisco! Man, I think I hear my arteries screaming in anguish.
I tried making my favorite cookies with that stuff a few years back and couldn’t believe how tasteless they were. But when I was a kid I thought real butter tasted weird and yuchy. I felt sorry for my friends who had to eat that rather than the “modern, healthful!” substitutes.
The only time I ever saw margarine being used was when my grandmother used it to make cookies way back then. Otherwise I’ve never saw margarine being used in anything again. When I cook, I’ve never even used margarine, always substituted butter. Which tasted better.
On another note, Claire, you may get a chuckle out of this article about how the Postal Service don’t have to obey laws.
http://jalopnik.com/5981059/us-postal-service-drivers-we-dont-have-to-obey-traffic-laws
Favorite part of the article was the naked postal worker. : }
“But when I was a kid I thought real butter tasted weird and yuchy.”
I was also raised on margarine and thought butter tasted awful. In the summer we’d visit the relatives who only used butter and I just couldn’t gag it down.
Many years ago I switched us to real butter and was pleasantly surprised to love it. So, I few years ago I ordered a case of canned Red Feather butter to keep as backup. The can I opened to sample tasted just like that butter from my childhood that I didn’t care for.
Makes me wonder how much butter/milk has been diluted and watered down over the years. Just like all the other things that have no taste like they did in the good old days.
Fun video by the way!
Only time I’ve used margarine was in candy-making. And even then I’ve switched to coconut oil, because soybean oil gives me stomach cramps.
When I was a kid my parents used margarine, but they also had no salt in the house and we ate only whole-wheat bread (the kind with sawdust in it). Every member of my family has health problems. I figure I’ll eat what’s real!
(Re: Jim B’s comment) Never thought I’d be glad to see a red-light camera operator win in court …
That made cry tears of joy. 😉 There were some years in there when I was young that we used margarine, but we always knew it wasn’t butter. I grew up with a major Foodie/libertarian in the house so I was never subjected to the “government knows best” about anything. Margarine was even considered superior to Olive Oil by my Doctor. What a tool he turned out to be.
Thanks so much for featuring our film on your site! And also thanks to everyone for the kind words and support!
Glad to see you here, John! And I hope your film goes viral. I’ve watched it three times now, liking it more with each viewing (and I don’t usually even have the patience for videos that are more than a couple of minutes long).
Please thank the other folks involved in the production, too. Especially Whit — who really looks just like Gurney should!
Off topic: The first shot is fired!
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/778801_599053012188_1943178873_o.jpg
And you knew that first shot would be followed up:
http://www.reddit.com/r/photoshopbattles/comments/17reav/obama_firing_a_shotgun_lets_do_this/
@Claire: My Mom also used margarine and Crisco.
Back in the ’40s and early ’50s you couldn’t get margarine that was already colored yellow like butter. There was actually a law against it. The product came in a plastic pouch that had the margarine in one portion, and liquid coloring in the other portion with a seal between keeping them apart. The margarine was sort of an off white.
So what you had to do was squeeze the bag and break the seal between them, and then knead the margarine and coloring until they mixed.
@Ellendra: When I was a kid we used salt in the house. But as an adult I don’t use salt on anything except hard boiled eggs.
Hanza beat me to the margarine story.
Heck, in Washington State the dairy industry was so powerful that margarine was actually not allowed to sold in the state for a period of time in the early 1900’s. It was called a heath hazard.
Also, have you noticed that medical tests are starting to talk that Crisco ” really is as bad as we thought”
John Marc – thanks for the great film
Nice, thanks for the vid.
Only butter and olive oil were used in our home growing up. After my mother got sick, (mostly from stress) the doc insisted on decaf coffee and margarine for her. She tried, but she couldn’t stick to it.
We’re butter and coconut oil folks around here. No fake fats.
IN these foreign parts, it was until recently illegal for companies to make or sell margarine that was coloured yellow, it would be too confusable with butter. My province suffered with un-dyed white margarine, the nearby neighboring one until ’95 required a lovely peach/pink colour in their “oleomargarine act”.